We happen upon a man who appears to have all the trimmings of a country superstar. There are guitars and amps and pedals scattered across a rug in what could possibly be a lamplit garage or basement. The pre-show sprawl also includes the motionless body of our main man: Tyler Wainwright Jr. himself in a snazzy suit. He crustily wakes up, dons his hat and performs for us a personal mythology worthy of the Grand Ole Opry.

Writer/performer Chris Bullough is clearly a very skilled musician. He dips into many songwriting flavours: country sounds of old, tunes with grit, even dipping into contemporary rock textures and a lonesome folk ballad. You’ll get moments on the electric guitar and some on the acoustic – all mixed, layered and distorted live by Bullough. And boy, can that man wail!

He spins some obvious yarns and hilarious tall tales, but it’s not always easy to discern what is fact and what is fiction as everything unfolds. We bounce around his memories and brace for some truly strange left-hand turns. Though the imagery is dense at times, we still manage to understand the core of what Tyler is going through. Bullough is an artist who can handle dense classical text and poetic verbiage, and every beat of this performance feels deliberate, palpable and immediate.

I admittedly wasn’t completely satisfied in the final moments of the piece when the tone made a significant shift away the magical bubble we had sat in for the better part of the hour, but that didn’t detract from my overall enjoyment. I am normally allergic to country music, but Bullough’s songs were dramatically driven, varied and listenable. I hope he translates this to an audioplay or concept album, because this soundtrack and quality writing have some serious replay value.