Recent gigs

[RobertD]

Fairport in Gloucester Cathedral last night:

Pretty much all seats taken for this performance, which was opened by a clergywoman who welcomed the audience and after a short prayer, introduced the organiser from the Malaika foundation.  He in turn introduced the Malaika choir, which is comprised of members from 2 local choirs and led & conducted by Vicky Field, of whom more later.

After a couple of songs, the choir was joined by Ric and Gerry to add instrumental flourishes to a few songs (Hallelujah, How Can I Keep From Singing), then Simon, Chris & Peggy slipped on for Ralph's Streets Of London. The choir then departed, and it was pretty much the usual FC acoustic set for the rest of the first half.  The acoustics of a mediaeval cathedral not being designed for amplified music meant that Peggy's bass was rather "boomy" and indistinct at first, but the sound man got to grips with it and - particularly after the break - the balance was much better. The sound man was also a Simon - I didn't catch his other name at the end when SN gave him much acclaim for his work.

I was particularly impressed with last night's renditions of John Condon (Simon looking very moved while singing it) at the end of the first half, and just a little earlier Now Be Thankful was just perfect IMO, especially in the context of the cathedral.

After the intermission, the founder & CEO of Malaika gave a short, emotional speech, then it was back to Fairport who performed immaculately - not quite as ebullient as on a "normal secular" gig, but Ric did slip in a joke about Trump. I'd noted there was no banjo in evidence near Chris's chair, and hoped for a return to "mando Matty", but the set finished with John Gaudie.  

Rather than the usual walk off & return for MOTL, Simon introduced Vicky Field to sing WKWTTG - which she did, absolutely beautifully, drawing huge applause from both audience and band - Simon appeared quite emotional, but all five had huge smiles.  Finally, the choir returned to lead the choruses of MOTL, backed - literally, as they stood in front of them - by Fairport. A moving experience, with the majority of the audience honouring this cathedral's tradition of fine singing by joining in with gusto.

Very much a one-off, I'm so glad I didn't miss it.

Great report Paul. It does indeed sound like a great and unusual show. As to John Condon, I can see it being an emotional song to sing, and am not surprised that the singer would still 'feel' it even after singing it many times. I know some where surprised by its appearance on 50:50@50 being in the repertoire only from Myths & Heroes, but I got it.

[steve-n]

Fairport in Gloucester Cathedral last night:

The sound man was also a Simon - I didn't catch his other name at the end when SN gave him much acclaim for his work.

Simon Yorath was in charge of sound at Gloucester. Had a chat with him after the Stow on the Wold gig....think he found Gloucester Cathedral a challenge to say the least!

[PaulT]

Thanks Steve - Simon N namechecked Simon Y but I didn't catch his surname amid the applause.

[Shane (Skirky)]

Thompy in Norwich. Two hours of absolutely top-notch singing, playing, quips and bantz. All the hits, rarities and more. Supported by the astonishingly good (and razor sharp) Josienne Clarke and Ben Walker. Far too little game time for them, given their talent.

setlist here, for those who like to compare and contrast that sort of thing; https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/richard-thompson/2017/theatre-royal-norwich-england-be379c2.html

[blagden]

Thompy? Surely Thommo?

[jude]

Thompy? Surely Thommo?

I always called him Thompy in those olden days.. He may have progressed to Thommo later  

[PeterJ]

Steve Harley at Nells in Fulham. To say he was well-received would be putting it mildly. And I met Vince Power, and we're on the guest list for FC tonight! Rock and Roll!

[Shane (Skirky)]

The Waterboys at The London Palladium. Magnificent. Any doubts I had about the new material (which must have comprised about three quarters of the set) or the new line up were conclusively and absolutely blown out of the water on every count. It just goes to show how wrong you can be in trying to second-guess a genius.

https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/the-waterboys/2017/london-palladium-london-england-6be32a12.html

The down side of seeing such an amazing live show is that now, more than ever, I can't bring myself to listen to the studio versions of the new material.

[davidmjs]

The Waterboys at The London Palladium. Magnificent. Any doubts I had about the new material (which must have comprised about three quarters of the set) or the new line up were conclusively and absolutely blown out of the water on every count. It just goes to show how wrong you can be in trying to second-guess a genius.

https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/the-waterboys/2017/london-palladium-london-england-6be32a12.html

The down side of seeing such an amazing live show is that now, more than ever, I can't bring myself to listen to the studio versions of the new material.

And, on the flip side, I better listen to a live show, then...

[GubGub (Al)]

The Doobie Brothers and the Steely Dan Organisation (as Donald Fagen and his band are now badging themselves since the passing of Walter Becker) at the O2 last night.

The day did not start well when the two prolapsed discs in my neck flared up overnight on Saturday and I was in agony all day Sunday with a blistering headache to boot. Consequently I was not really in the mood to go to London but it was somebody's birthday present and I did not want to let them down, the day including a four hour "rock tour" in the afternoon. I felt truly dreadful when I got to London and did not know how I would survive the day but a liberal supply of industrial strength pain killers and four hours on the tour bus got me through and I felt a bit better by the evening.

The gig was a demonstration of two very different approaches to performance. In a 75 minute set, the Doobies gave a crowd pleasing account of themselves, playing pretty much everything you would find on Best of the Doobies Vol 1, whilst still managing enough deep cuts to keep the die hards happy. In Fagen's 95 minute show on the other hand, you would be hard pressed to have found more than 3 tunes that would have made it on to any Best of Steely Dan compilation. The show began with Bodhitsatva and ended with Reelin in the Years but after about half an hour it became clear that apart from late appearances of Kid Charlemaigne & My Old School and a version of Dirty Work sung by the backing singers, Donald was content to loiter around the Aja & Gaucho albums for the whole show. So, no Do It Again. No Rikki Don't Lose That Number. No FM. No Haitian Divorce. One song apiece from Can't Buy A Thrill and The Royal Scam. Nothing at all from Pretzel Logic or Katy Lied. It has to be said that the music was played expertly, including a breathtaking Aja and the crowd seemed to lap it up but it seemed a perverse choice from an infrequent visitor to these shores in a shortened set.

I enjoyed it because I love all aspects of Steely Dan but I did feel that it was a wilfully odd performance and somewhat resented the taking of 10 minutes to introduce the band when there was so little time to play with. The Doobies though were terrific.

Then on the way home, at 1am, I found tht the A24 was shut because a lorry had overturned and had to take an enormous detour to get around it.

[Andy]

Notwithstanding your comments, I'd love to have seen Mr Fagen live once again.

Alas, my wallet was too thin.

[bassline (Mike)]

I've just got back from the smoke after also attending the Doobies/Dan concert.

I was very happy with the setlist - judging by the tour shirt, which is basically the Aja sleeve - this was meant to be an Aja centric show, with most of the album being played (not Deacon Blue though, just a little boo for that), and Donald did point out that they were restricted to 90 minutes, so presumably a couple of hits has to be sliced out, but the songs they did play are usually on best ofs and greatest hits. I was, however, surprised but pleased to see the inclusion of New Frontiers from Donald's solo album. Slick but not soulless - Loved it.  

Tomorrow will be the seventh anniversary of my first Doobies gig, so I didn't get quite the excitement from them as I did last time. I missed the beginning because it took forever to get in, but I saw it from Eyes Of Silver onwards. Great live band - with the addition of Bill Payne, this time, who did a short keyboard with additional drums solo, which boogied along very nicely..  

[GubGub (Al)]

Tomorrow will be the seventh anniversary of my first Doobies gig, so I didn't get quite the excitement from them as I did last time. I missed the beginning because it took forever to get in, but I saw it from Eyes Of Silver onwards. Great live band - with the addition of Bill Payne, this time, who did a short keyboard with additional drums solo, which boogied along very nicely..  

He seems to be a long time cohort of the band as I noticed today that he played keyboards on Tom Johnston's first solo album as far back as 1979.

[bassline (Mike)]

Yeah...there's a lot of that going on between the Doobies, Little Feat and The Dan.
Pat Simmons and Michael McDonald sang back up vocals for Little Feat in 77 for example.

I've done a little set list research, and it turns out the o2 show was not that different to Walter's last performance:
01 Bodhisattva
02 Black Friday
03 Hey Nineteen
04 Aja
05 Show Biz Kids
06 Black Cow
07 Daddy Don't Live in That New York City No More
08 Time Out of Mind
09 Dirty Work
10 I Want To (Do Everything for You) - with band intros
11 Josie
12 Peg
13 My Old School
14 Reelin' in the Years
15 Kid Charlemagne

Encore:
16 Pretzel Logic - dedicated to Gregg Allman
17 The Untouchables

They did a series of shows featuring whole albums a few years back, this was the Aja night :
01 Cubano Chant/
**********************
02 Black Cow
03 Aja
04 Deacon Blues
05 Peg
06 Home at Last
07 I Got the News
08 Josie
**********************
09 talking
10 Bodhisattva
11 Hey Nineteen
12 Black Friday
13 Time Out of Mind
14 Show Biz Kids
15 talking
16 Dirty work
17 Babylon Sisters
18 Daddy Don't Live in That New York City No More
19 I Want To (Do Everything for You) with Band Introductions
20 My Old School
21 Reelin' in the Years
(encore - Kid Charlemagne)

It seems Rikki and Do It Again are rarely performed these days  

[GubGub (Al)]

It seems Rikki and Do It Again are rarely performed these days  

It appears to be bigger than that. It looks like a reluctance to play much of anything pre 1977 beyond three or four specific songs per show. Pity.

[bassline (Mike)]

You may be right. It seems that the 'album' shows they did, featured whatever album it was, plus a selection from the same pot of hits.

Interesting that 74 was when they quit playing live until they split and then got back together in 93, but they have played The Royal Scam in it's entirety, and played more 72-76 stuff on the 2011 tour, including quite a chunk of Countdown...

[John From Austin]

Tomorrow will be the seventh anniversary of my first Doobies gig, so I didn't get quite the excitement from them as I did last time. I missed the beginning because it took forever to get in, but I saw it from Eyes Of Silver onwards. Great live band - with the addition of Bill Payne, this time, who did a short keyboard with additional drums solo, which boogied along very nicely..  

He seems to be a long time cohort of the band as I noticed today that he played keyboards on Tom Johnston's first solo album as far back as 1979.

As the resident Doobie expert, I can add that Bill Payne contributed keyboards and piano to virtually every Doobie Brothers album since Toulouse Street in 1972 (that's him tinkling the ivories on "Rockin' Down the Highway" and "China Grove" among many others). I am informed he even joined the touring band briefly circa 1975, during Tom Johnston's first absence, but stepped away quickly and was himself replaced by Michael McDonald.  There's lots of crossover between the Doobies, Steely Dan and Little Feat throughout the 1970s...  I'll save the rest of it for my book.  

[David V B]

Lovely night at the Unicorn in Abingdon with Edwina Hayes on super form. A delightful set mixing her own songs with some great covers, particularly Feels Like Home and Down Where the Drunkards Roll. About time they had her back at Cropredy

[mickf]

Lovely night at the Unicorn in Abingdon with Edwina Hayes on super form. A delightful set mixing her own songs with some great covers, particularly Feels Like Home and Down Where the Drunkards Roll. About time they had her back at Cropredy

I love Edwina's music - yes, a Cropredy return would be nice

[davidmjs]

Went to a house concert in Chester by Granny's Attic who were Young Folk Award nominees a couple of years ago.  They were bloody marvelous.  Lovely lads, great voices, great playing, fab material (a brilliant Highwayman included).  Nothing whatsoever not to like.  Brilliant.