Tired, but still jazzed enough to report on the Princeton show. Be warned, those who will be attending any shows during this tour, the complete set-list appears at the end of this message.
I gave myself 2 hours to make the 55 mile trip from my house to the front door of the McCarter, and because of the nasty weather and traffic, I arrived just 5 minutes before the concert was to begin. So I missed the list meet and the chance to chat with other friends I expected to meet at the concert. A fair number of other people seemed to be running late, so the show did not start right on time.
We started with "Sights And The Sounds Of London Town," ended (2nd encore) with a totally atmospheric "Ghosts In The Wind," and in between was one of the most amazing Richard and Danny performances I've ever witnessed. My God, Danny Thompson is *back* and better then ever! And what a suit he was wearing!!! Danny "GQ" Thompson.
Thommo was so at ease and loose, and FUNNY! You could just look at him, then look at Danny, and realize how much fun they were having together. And the Princeton audience was loving every minute of it. Man, do I ever like this venue.
Some amazing stuff happened at the McCarter Theatre tonight, such as the debut of another new, and quite chilling song. And RT and DT performing
"Taking My Business Elsewhere" again. And both of them playing off each other during "Hamlet." And RT's solo version of "Genesis Hall" while Danny was taking a break. All brilliant!
Y'all will no doubt be reading more about this show shortly. Suffice it to say, the guy who reminded RT that today was John Lennon's birthday will go down in live Thommo history as somebody who surely said the right thing at the right time. Kudos to you, pal!
Without a doubt, one of the best RT concerts I've ever attended, or heard via magnetic memories, for that matter.
You Tarrytown ticket holders are in for a real treat! A staff member picked up the set-list and took it off stage after the show, (I was hoping to get my hands on it, but not tonight) so the next show might have as inspired a set of songs as we had in Princeton.
Great show tonight. Many thanks Richard, Danny, and Simon. And thanks to Princeton University for consistantly bringing the Thommo Tour back to such a nice place.
Reporting from a wet field,
-Charlie A. Jamison "The suit's up-staging me!"
Royersford, PA USA
October 9, 1998
caj@access.digex.net
Set-list. McCarter Theatre, Princeton, New Jersey, October 9, 1998:
Sights And Sounds Of London RT/DT
I Misunderstood RT/DT
I Feel So Good RT/DT
Taking My Business Elsewhere RT/DT
Hamlet RT/DT
Ghost Of You Walks RT/DT
Genesis Hall RT
Hope You Like The New Me (?) RT
Bathsheba Smiles RT
John Lennon's Birthday RT/DT
It Won't Be Long RT/DT
Twist And Shout RT/DT
Don't Sit On My Jimmy Shands RT/DT
Put It There Pal RT/DT
Wall Of Death RT/DT
Al Bowlly's In Heaven RT/DT
Razor Dance RT/DT
e1 Beeswing RT
Two Left Feet RT/DT
e2 Volare (sp) RT/DT
Ghosts In The Wind RT/DT
Just goes to show you our guy is always full of suprises! Predictable concert ?? NO WAY!!!! And I was sitting front row center (heh, heh) wearing ma D-SHIRT.
It started out with Sights and Sounds of London Town - one of the new songs and we got another new song How Do You Like the New Me. (By the way, you guitar-hero mavens of our man will knocked out at the cool string bending guitar style used for this song -- unusual and amazingly cool!) Sucked the sound out of the audience temporarily when it ended before the applause arupted. If you think Put It There Pal was wicked, wait until you hear this. Hopefully this is a little goodie from the album.
WE DID SING ALONG WITH BEATLE A BEATLE SONG!! We all sang YA to It Won't Be Long. Follwed of course, by the ever popular Jimmy Sands -- a double sing along night. The guitar work on two left feat was breatthtaking. Before singing Ghosts in the Wind for the encore, RT gave the name in Italian, was interrupted by a heckler and then started singing Volare for a few minutes with Danny joining in. It was hilarious. He sang Genesis Hall on this side of the pond!!! He introduced it as a song Sandy Denny used to sing (humble boy, our man).
He was busting on Danny for wearing the suit and made some remark about maybe having to wear one tomorrow night. Well, I guess we'll just have to see (I'm going to Tarrytown too). Robyn and I hung around hoping for autographs, but unless you made a big donation to the local PBS station, you didn't get in. We watched from the outside, sigh.
I hope RT puts Princeton permanently on his calendar (I think the show was a sell out too). After the show, tons of people were buying CD's out front (2LW, etc).
Well, I'm starting to babble. I haven't consumed enough morning coffee yet.
Joyce Scribner
the Princeton gig was great! Had dinner beforehand with George F. and his daugter, met up with Bob F. and Charlie J. Had my Dee-shirt on in the 8th row center. Missed seeing the Deeshirter 8 rows in front of me.
RT was looser than he's been in a long time. Still a lot of the usual suspects in the set list, but I knew it was gonna be a good show when they opened up with an unreleased song, "The Sights and Sounds of London Town." (Anyone catch that one line about when you fly under you follow man's radar, all the charisma in the world won't do you any good? A self-reference, perhaps?) And the Beatles numbers were a great treat. RT announced that they were going to play a polka, and someone in the audience yelled out, "It's John Lennon's Birthday." After improvising a bluesy number about John (he was great but he's dead), RT started to play "It Won't Be Long." The audience messed up the backing "Yeahs" so he stopped, berated the audience, and started again, with DT dropping out on the bridge. Then they broke into "Twist and Shout." I was ecstatic! Once again, the audience joined in on backing vocals. After that, he sang a few bits of other Beatles songs, including "In My Life," which I would have LOVED to have heard RT do in full. (Ever notice how most of RT's covers tend to be more uptempo tunes? Substitute, You Really Got Me, that Plastic Bertrand song, She Will Call You Up Tonight, etc.) Fianally, they got back to the polka, which of course was "Jimmy Shands."
A few corrections/clarifications to Charlie's setlist:
* "John Lennon's Birthday" was an improv, with lyrics to match.
* "Volare" was just a minute or two long.
* Somewhere in the set RT & DT played "Turning of the Tide" (Charlie, can you place the tune in the setlist?)
* In the solo set, RT played "1952 VBL." I think it was just before "Hope You Like the New Me." (I remember thinking it was smart of RT to put two new songs after "1952 VBL," letting the afterglow of "VBL" pull the audience through the unfamiliar numbers.)
"Genesis Hall" was played very slowly, to great effect. "Hamlet" still manages to get the audience to laugh.
The show was reportedly sold out, but the seats on either side of me were both empty. Nice to be able to stretch out at a show!
Am I the only one tired of hearing "Ghosts in the Wind"? Danny does some neat bowed bass stuff, but he's done it every time I've seen RT & DT, and the song seems like it's more atmosphere than actual song. A minor quibble in an otherwise amazing show.
I've seen RT at the McCarter Theatre four times now, each time in a different configuration (solo, band, RT&TT, RT&DT). Seeing as how I now live 15 minutes from the theatre, I hope RT never stops coming back.
Peace,
- FiL
giantmaza@usa.net
who posted reviews, etc., from the NY shows. I'm envious. --Gary >>
And what about the NJ and VT shows???
I thought the reporting for this RT/DT set of concerts was great. Every show was reported on, I believe, and some *so* soon after the event. What are you guys doing out there, taking laptops to RT's gigs now. :-) I can just hear OH some day, "HEY YOU IN THE INTERNET SHIRT, WITH THE LAPTOP, TURN THAT THING OFF! Remember that day in Bridgeton a few years ago when he spotted FiL writing down song titles for the set-list report?
I did not get to file my report on the NJ gig until like 3:00 a.m. The reporting time on the NY show was nothing short of phenomenal!
Do you think RT is reading the reports while on tour? I heard a Bare Naked Ladies radio interview the other day, and one member of the band stated that they make a point to read the reports of their concerts as soon after the concert as possible, and, they then fine tune their set-lists based on the feedback they receive from members of their discussion list. Interesting, that, when the artist(s) so closely collaborate with their fans on the selection of songs to be performed.
Souther Culture On The Skids goes so far as to solicit suggestions from their fans, and they then add songs and modify their set-lists based on this feedback that gets to them via their official webpage.
Shifting gears, I still can't get over how powerful this new song, "Hope You Like The New Me" is. There is a line in the song, "I took your wife, hope you don't mind" that had some of the Princeton audience nervously laughing, while other people in the audience seemed shocked and were not laughing at all. Much like the audience reactions to "Cold Kisses." Do you want to laugh, or cringe???
At the end of the song, after the last note of RT's guitar decayed to nothingness, but before the audience started clapping, there was a brief moment of silence that was like a collective hair raising on the back of the neck experience. RT had stepped back from the mic, was sort of out of the spotlight...it was quite an amazing and moving moment.
-Charlie A. Jamison
Royersford, PA USA
caj@access.digex.net
but first I have to comment on the weather. We've now seen R.T. seven times since first seeing him in June, 1995 and it has rained five out of those seven times. I read an interview once, I think one of those ones where he interviews himself, and he referred to himself as the "drizzle king", I think I'm beginning to believe it.
The show, ahhhhhh, the show. Too, too, good!!!!!! Mr. Thompson was in rare form, cracked us right up more than several times...and then of course there was the music...yummmmmm....Our seats were so awesome, second row left. He and Danny seemed very happy and pleased to be playing together again and the crowd seemed very happy to see Danny.
As usual, after the show my husband and I played our game of remembering all the songs played, in no order whats-so-ever here is the (hopefully, complete) setlist (sorry to those who find set lists boring!):
Beeswing
Feel So Good
I Misunderstood
Hamlet
Jimmy Shands
1952 VBL
Ghosts in the Wind
Genesis Hall
Two Left Feet
Taking My Business Elsewhere
Ghost of you Walks
Wall of Death
Al Bowley
Turning of the Tide
Bathsheba Smiles
Put it there Pal
Razor Dance
new - "Sights & Sounds of London"
new - "How Do You Like the New Me"
two Beatles songs....ya had to be there :') - Twist and Shout and It Won't Be Long (or what ever it's called) and he started singing a third but said he didn't know the words.....it was pretty.If I missed any songs would someone please be nice enough to let me know as (for some unknown reason) I keep set lists from all the shows.
Thanks!!
It was nice to see fellow list members Joyce Scribner and Duane Hughes again, but we didn't notice anyone else with tees or who we recognized from Dee's page. Of course, because we didn't bring our dog in her R.T. garb, no one recognized us.
Well, boy oh boy, did I ever regret not pledging that $150.00 to WXPN...seeing all those people lined up with their albums and c.d.s. Catching a glimpse of Richard in his baseball cap, signing autographs, arms around people, having pictures taken....why did I have to be so sensible....hell, what's another $150.00 on the old credit card anyway? Next time I'm going to have to just throw all caution to the wind...hell yes, it would have been worth the $!!
I think I covered just about everything. I'm sure someone who is more eloquent, and not jazzed from one too many cups of coffee and a longggggg, drizzly ride through the Jersey Pines, will give a more elaborate report.
Actually, I have no idea how I will ever fall asleep now..... So folks.....enjoy the shows you all may be lucky enough to be going to!
Best Wishes,
Robyn
Rigel7@prodigy.net