Revenge!

With his goofy sense of humor and a lifelong love for traditional C&W, Robbie Fulks has recorded some excellent studio albums — 2001’s Couples in Trouble is a great place to start. But Fulks is best appreciated live, and this 23-track live collection captures him in his natural habitat. The band is looser, Fulks is quicker and the tunes take on an energy that can’t be replicated in the quiet, professional setting of a recording studio. Feeding off the audience’s energy, Fulks delivers his lines with extra panache. Cher’s “Believe” is given a larynx-stretching read, while Fulks faves such as “Mad at A Girl,” “The Buck Starts Here” and “Busy Not Crying” (where on the fade you hear him declare they’re going to run through it again) are shoo-ins as future Nashville standards, if C&W still means then what it once did in the honky-tonk ‘50s and early ‘60s. Fulks can turn on the jokes (“We’re on the Road”) and he should consider keeping in more of his between song banter, but he is best when at his most sincere. The soundcheck version of “You Don’t Mean It” and the highway-ready “Let’s Kill Saturday Night“ show Fulks to be among the best in the traditional country game.