Date: September 16th 2025

Lucero tours for 20th anniversary of Nobody’s Darlings
The Memphis band performed the 2005 album front to back in Pennsylvania this week

When it comes to celebrating anniversaries, musicians are fortunate in that they will continue to discover reasons year after year to come back on stage. Lucero, the “swamp country” or “alt country” band from Memphis, celebrated the 20th anniversary of their first show in 2018. In an email, frontman and songwriter Ben Nichols said that the revelry should continue with each turn of the calendar. Accordingly, each year of one of their record’s 20th anniversaries, Lucero would rerelease the album on vinyl and play the record front to back live.

“2025 marks the 20th anniversary [of] our album “Nobody’s Darlings.” This record came out when we were basically touring non-stop,” Nichols said in his statement. “We had just done a big tour with Against Me! and we’d also filmed a documentary that year called Dreaming in America. [‘Nobody’s Darlings’] captured the essence of those very busy and kind of crazy times for the band.”

Recorded at the late Jim Dickinson’s Mississippi barn, “Nobody’s Darlings” came out in 2005 as Lucero’s small-but-mighty audience was gradually spreading from one coast to the other. Dickinson, who had earlier produced the Replacements’ “Pleased to Meet Me!”, was a dream get for Nichols and the band, who sought to move their sound into a more rock-oriented arena.

“It captured the feel of the live shows we were playing at the time, and a lot of the songs became crowd favorites, including ‘The Bikeriders’ and ‘The War,’” Nichols said.

Indeed “The Bikeriders” was featured in a film last year by the same name—not coincidentally directed by Nichols’s brother, Jeff Nichols. And “The War” tells a truncated tale of Nichols’s grandfather’s experience in the Second World War.

“We’ve written a lot more albums with a lot more songs…so over the years some of the material on ‘Nobody’s Darlings’ was rarely played live,” he said. “It’ll be super fun to go back and perform the whole thing from front to back every night on this upcoming tour.”

I was able to catch Lucero’s stop at the Ardmore Music Hall near Philadelphia on Tuesday evening. Following a spirited opening by Jessica Lea Mayfield, the five-piece band came to the stage accompanied by rowdy cheers and applause typical among their dedicated fanbase. Nichols thanked the Ardmore crowd for coming out on a Tuesday evening before kicking off with “Watch It Burn,” the first track off of “Darlings” and proceeding through the album’s other 11 songs.

One of the greatest aspects of seeing an album played front-to-back is the joy of hearing familiar songs—even in a known order—performed in an entirely new way. (If you want to hear the tunes beat for beat and note for note, stay home with the record.) Lead guitarist Brian Venable took many turns shredding solos when Nichols wasn’t singing that are not to be heard on the record. And, because live performance is often full of surprises, Nichols even laughed at himself when he played an additional chord following the last notes of “Sixteen” from the rest of the band.

Bassist John C. Stubblefield, clad in sunglasses, held his own at the back corner of the stage, steadily keeping time next to drummer Roy Berry. Rick Steff was adept as ever on the keys throughout the proceedings. However, it was Nichols, who has always been the literal and figurative voice of the band, consistently front and center at the microphone, sharing tales of the genesis of each “Darlings” song in turn.

Lucero was certainly known for partying and drinking in their early days, thus it was little surprise to see one excited patron sending up not less than three trays of whiskey shots to the stage. Nichols grinned with each round, saying that not only do only three of the five members of the group drink these days, none of them imbibe as they once did. “Here comes trouble,” he said at the first round of shots. Near the end of the show, after the third rounds, Nichols cheerily said that the whiskey “is finally kicking in.”

Now 50, Nichols’s temperance is to be admired. With age the party can—and does—continue, even with fewer trips back to the proverbial wellspring.

For “The War,” performed by only Nichols on solo guitar as the final cut of “Nobody’s Darlings,” the frontman said that had Steff joined the band earlier than 2006, he would have contributed to the song. Not to worry, Nichols said, as Steff provided a gentle counterpoint on keys to Nichols’s narration while the rest of the band took a break in the wings.

With the entirety of “Nobody’s Darling” then in the rearview, the quintet fired up the energy for some tried and true fan favorites, including “I’ll Just Fall” and “Texas & Tennessee.” Nichols thanked the crowd and, in a refreshing change from established stage protocol, said that rather than Lucero walking off stage only to return for an encore, why don’t they just play two more songs and call it a night. The crowd cheered, with “Tears Don’t Matter Much” included in the not-encore (or “not-core”?). Nichols promised the Ardmore crowd new music would be forthcoming from the band very soon, while he also made sure to tout his most recent solo record, “In the Heart of the Mountain.”

My friend Chris remarked throughout the show that as much as we might be fans, there are always people who love a band more. Several near us knew every lyric and weren’t shy about screaming them aloud—quite often while swaying drunkenly.

Nichols was outside the Ardmore after the show, grease pencil in hand ready for signing. I’d met him several times before and have interviewed both him and Stubblefield in the past, and we posed for a photo to go along with my first photo with the band, taken backstage in Los Angeles in 2007.

“‘And We Fell’ and ‘Sixteen’ are old songs that I’m really proud of but they haven’t been played much until recently,” Nichols said in the earlier provided statement. “It’s great for them to be played again on stage. Great Rock & Roll memories.”

For more tour dates, visit https://luceromusic.com/.