Sturgill Simpson plays a surprise Nashville club gig as Johnny Blue Skies

Sturgill Simpson played an unannounced show in a small Nashville room on Wednesday night, his first live appearance in a while and a warm-up for the arena run that starts next month. He performed under the Johnny Blue Skies name he has been recording with, backed by the band billed as Johnny Blue Skies and The Dark Clouds.

The gig doubled as a marker for Mutiny After Midnight, which Stereogum described as a country-rock-disco-funk party record. It had been available only as a physical release for a stretch; it has now gone up on streaming services with a bonus Eddie Murphy cover attached. The Nashville set also took in a Talking Heads cover.

Playing Nashville at all carries a subtext for Simpson, whose relationship with the city's country music industry has been openly contentious for most of his career. The choice of a small room rather than a theatre reads as the point: a working rehearsal in front of whoever heard in time, not an event.

The arena tour is the reason the warm-up exists. A band that has been off the road needs the songs back in its hands before it walks into rooms that size, and a surprise club date is the cheapest way to find out what still works. Simpson has used the alias to put distance between the records he makes now and the ones that made his name, and the live billing keeps that separation intact.

The show is filed under country and rock, and the dates that follow it sit on the tour guide. Simpson had confirmed the Johnny Blue Skies tour earlier in the week, and the surprise gig is the first time the material has been tested live since that announcement. The small rooms he used for it are the ones under the most pressure in the city, as John Rich has argued while warning that rising property taxes threaten Nashville's live music venues.