There’s an art to making up for lost time. At least there is when it comes to The Dirty Three. The trio of Warren Ellis (violin), Mick Turner (guitar), and Jim White (drums) last toured the US back in 2012. Since that time, they released their ninth full-length album and their first in over a decade. The record, Love Changes Everything (released on Drag City in 2024), is a breath of fresh air in a landscape of dominated by TikTok. Ellis even proudly proclaimed the band as being, well, un-TikTok-able.

Hitting the stage to the “Lido Shuffle,” the trio took the stage and ask White and Turner hammered away creating a wall of sound as Ellis flashed the bird and shed his sequined jacket in true rock-n-roll style before picking up his violin.

I hadn’t witnessed The Dirty Three perform before but I’d seen each member perform in other bands before, so there was a bit of a personal mystery in what I was about to experience. And that’s exactly the word for it – the following two and a half hours were an experience.

Starting things off with the band’s material on the new record, the instrumental works “Love Changes Everything I, II, and III” melded together as Ellis exchanged his violin for keyboard/piano, puncturing the lines of melody with impassioned howls – the beauty of the composition balancing on the edge of a ravine.

It became apparently very quickly that this was a participatory event as Ellis’ howls begged a response and this crowd at The Recher joined in without a moment’s hesitation. Like a man driven by some unseen force, Warren Ellis at one point was banging his boots on the keyboard and the next up, arms extended and calling out to the audience.

“I didn’t know that one of my only heroes in the world, Divine, is buried here. I’d like to dedicate this show to Divine,” Warren Ellis told the crowd. “I saw him on a fucking rock program. The same one I saw AC/DC on… What a fucking legend.” Stage banter can be a mixed bag, but when Ellis began talking to the crowd it felt like he was just chatting you up at a bar, which, realistically, is what he did – telling stories, giving a little bit of himself to the crowd.

Check out the official video of “Love Changes Everything I” by The Dirty Three:

One of the first songs The Dirty Three wrote, according to Ellis, “Indian Love Song,” became a sprawling meditation as during the performance Ellis called to the crowd to “wake up some dead people” as the audience sang/chanted along with Ellis as Turner and White continued playing.

In that spirit of honoring those who have passed, Warren Ellis asked the crowd to show photos of their beloved pets. What followed was an incredibly moving communal moment, and that was only about the halfway point of the evening.

The Dirty Three included a couple of other earlier pieces such as “Sea Above, Sky Below” and “Authentic Celestial Music” from Ocean Songs as Ellis regaled the crowd with stories of making the record with the great Steve Albini.

The band book-ended the evening with “Love Changes Everything IV -VI,” capping the night amidst a beautiful cacophony of sound – each member leaving the stage until just Jim White’s drums remained.

It’s hard in some respects to provide a sense of what a performance can create to a concert goer in writing, and this is certainly the case here. A Dirty Three show is part concert, part performance art, part conversation and totally rock-n-roll.

The Dirty Three continue their tour of North America, and it’s an experience to not pass up.

The setlist included:

Love Changes Everything I
Love Changes Everything II
Love Changes Everything III
Indian Love Song
Sea Above, Sky Below
Authentic Celestial Music
Some Summers They Drop Like Flys
Love Changes Everything IV
Love Changes Everything V
Love Changes Everything VI

Check out more photos of The Dirty Three performing at The Recher on Tuesday, March 31, 2026. All photos copyright David LaMason: