Orville Peck: The Stampede Tour
Tulsa Theater
Oct. 11, 2024
What do you call a gay cowboy? Until recently, your uncle might have said “a jolly rancher,” but the collective pop culture mind now turns immediately to THE gay cowboy: Orville Peck.
The near-sold-out crowd for Peck’s October 11 show was a lively mix of classically gay boys and men, queer folks in general (many dressed in western gear) and a smattering of good ol’ boys I hoped were dragged along unsuspectingly by their enthusiastic girlfriends. Falling into the “general queer not in western wear” demographic, I took my seat between two strangers, soon to be friends.
The stage backdrop matched the Okie sunset outside the venue and dropped to a dark blue in its first color change of the night as the house lights dimmed and the man himself appeared. Festooned in trademark mask and a rhinestone cowboy fit, the satin-voiced belter launched into “Big Sky” to open the show.
In a possible answer to my prayers, a baseball-capped and tribal-tatted man in front of me held his female date’s hand and slightly craned his neck as Peck crooned “he gets me hiiiiiiigh.”
It only took a few songs for Peck to get to my personal favorite, “The Hurtin’ Kind,” and for my instincts to take over and get me singing along. A few songs later, Peck laid his ground rules for the show, which included that everyone “must sing along.”
I turned to the man on my right and apologized if I’d sung too loud. “You have a beautiful voice and need to sing more,” he said. On to the next rule, per our master of ceremonies: “If at any point during the show you feel like crying … you have to cryyy.”
Peck’s music is Country and Western, with an emphasis on the latter. A sort of David Lynchian phantasmagoria of John Wayne portraits by way of velvet Elvises, where love lies bleeding, the sun is perpetually setting, and cowboys are often secretly fond of each other.
We’re in a far different climate for queer folks than we were when Peck first poked his masked head into the zeitgeist in 2019. Since then, the MAGA hivemind has targeted transgender people, drag queens and good ol’ fashioned gays (among others) as “the enemy from within.” (Case in point: our State Superintendent of Education, Ryan Walters, singling out an Oklahoma elementary school principal who performed drag in his free time and calling for him to be fired.)
But country culture is shifting, too. “Cowboys Are Frequently, Secretly Fond of Each Other” is a song on Peck’s recent album, Stampede—one that Willie Nelson (a famously liberal man who’s historically found his way into the hearts of right-leaning Americans, notably the fictional Hank Hill) reached out to Peck about covering together. (The original was recorded in 1981.) “Not only did he want to do a song with me,” Peck said, “he wanted to do a song about gay cowboys!”
Peck performed during the first Tulsa Pride to take place in October, instead of June. His show also happened to be on National Coming Out Day, a fact certainly not lost on many in attendance. As he walked onstage to “Take Me Back to Tulsa,” it seemed it wasn’t lost on him either.
