New Gig Thread

[Otis Westinghouse]

Also, lots and lots of live JN clips from various gigs on YouTube, the comments on which all involve men seeming surprised at their blubbing at her concerts and their being hopelessly in love with her. It's not hard to see why, she's totally unique.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcRnmurY ... ed&search=

This is a good one. The sublime Sawdust and Diamonds (one of 5 standout tracks from Ys!) from Glasgow recently. Good clear sound on her harp. My favourite song is still the Ys opener Emily, but it's all good, as her previous LP songs like Sadie.

This is a 5-min docu excerpt, and is the one referred to in the Observer review above where she talks on stage about cutting her thumb and using superglue to enable her to play, and then demonstrates the superior tone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFBWP1UEq_A

I'm really wishing I'd seen her on the tour.

[johnfoyle]

Sorry I haven't had time to write about the Joanna's show ; the Observer piece says it all , really.

[verbal gymnastics]

I've just booked for me and 13 of my mates to see The Jamm on Friday 2nd March. It should be a nice quiet night out!

[Otis Westinghouse]

Sorry I haven't had time to write about the Joanna's show ; the Observer piece says it all , really.

Don't worry. here's an interview from over two years ago with her, raving Nabokov fanatic. Came with a download of a London ICA gig from around then:

Betty Clarke
The Guardian
Saturday November 6, 2004

The harp has never been the most rock'n'roll of instruments. Save for a notable appearance on the Beatles' She's Leaving Home, it was only Brian Wilson who saw the possibilities. Until now. Step forward Joanna Newsom, classical harpist and burgeoning queen of alt-folk.

Despite having grown up in Nevada City and now firmly ensconced in the San Francisco scene that has spawned the similarly nostalgic and odd-sounding Devendra Barnhardt, 22-year-old Newsom has a twang that's straight from the Appalachian mountains.

Influenced by bluegrass and blues, her debut album, The Milk-Eyed Mender, sounds like a lost soul wandering around Narnia. Her songs are dark nursery rhymes, but her childlike take on the world is no act. "My dad's here," she says. "He's come a far far away from the horrible horrible things going on in the United States," she continues, as if about to read an especially grim fairy tale.

Newsom is a magnetic, mischievous presence. Her fingers deftly run up and down her towering celtic harp, adding drama to the dizzy sweetness of Cassiopeia. Eyes skyward, as if taking instruction from some divine source of inspiration, she rests her head close to her harp, as though nestling into a lover.

Then there's that voice. A combination of Cat Power, Björk and a pre-pubescent Bonnie Langford, she caresses and squashes words with abandon. Newsom rolls her tongue around her eccentric poetry and knowing prose with all the relish of a child licking an ice-cream. Often she shrieks like an attention-seeking toddler, before turning passionately maternal for the antiwar lullaby What We Have Known.

Her vocals take some getting used to; you need to retune your ear to make out her meaning. But it's worth it. From the exotic En Gallop to the dreamy escapism of Sadie, classical rhythms rise and fall around Newsom's fractured voice, turning heartache into fantasy.


Interview with Joanna Newsom
Of Narwhales, Zeugmas, and Will Oldham
(September 2004)

by davidbohm and rynptts

For anyone who's been paying at least a flicker of attention, 2004 has very much so been the year of indie-folk's resurgence. Artists like Devendra Banhart, Sufjan Stevens, Iron And Wine, and Six Organs Of Admittance have released seminal works that hearken back to an age of greater innocence and whimsy, where in a cul-de-sac devoid of the tremulous offerings of politics and economy, a return to the barest beauty of sparse musical form is budding brightly with the means of self-sustenance. San Francisco singer/harpist Joanna Newsom has found herself at the forefront of this revival and word as to her unique brilliance has spread like wildfire. Her songs are stories that evoke fairy-tale melancholy and become the warmest part of your being upon first listen; they are a woven tapestry of child-like candor and sagely wisdom. Using the harp strings to seemingly endless depth and fullness, her voice coos and croons with an unabashed child-like timber as endearing as the first butterfly of the spring. Her music is that which makes us call forth a part of ourselves, that we have long neglected, and for this it sounds familiar as a sister's gentle sigh, but it is also a vehicle to render us breathless at the beauty inherent in musical honesty. We had a chance to speak with Joanna a few days before embarking on a short European stint in support of her sublime debut LP, The Milk-Eyed Mender.

TMT: You had recorded and released two EPs on your own (2002's Walnut Whales and 2003's Yarn And Glue) before being signed to Drag City, how did you come to the label's attention?
JN: Will Oldham contacted me after hearing those earlier EPs (I'm not sure how he got those, because it was back before I'd ever played any shows or sold any CDs). He told me he liked the music, and he asked me on tour; and I imagine it was him who passed my music along to the Drag City folks. After I finished touring with Will, I contacted DC and they said they'd like to put out my record.

TMT: A number of songs on The Milk-Eyed Mender appeared on those first two records, is there any reason you chose certain songs in particular to rerecord for your first label release?
JN: Yes; those were the ones that still felt honest. The ones I didn't re-record (with one or two exceptions) were songs that I can't perform anymore without feeling a little disingenuous, because the circumstances surrounding the songs have changed so dramatically. All my songs tend to be autobiographical, to a sometimes-awkward degree...

TMT: How does the songwriting process work with you? Your rhymes and stories seem to flow very seamlessly with an extensive vocabulary that is too often lacking in music as of late. Do you do a lot of editing, or does the writing come out of you as flowing as it seems to the listener?
JN: I think it's some of both. The actual content of the songs (their themes, their subjects, their fixations) is very intuitive and kind of stream-of-consciousness. I don't feel that I have much of a choice regarding what a particular song is going to be "about." But I also feel that every idea can be expressed a multitude of ways, which is where my obsessiveness over syntax comes in. So yes, I do tend to edit quite a bit—like stringing words together so their syllabic emphases intersect or syncopate with the harp's downbeat in interesting ways; or playing with assonance, alliteration, interior rhymes, chiasmi, zeugmas, double meanings, etc.

TMT: You manage to get a wide range in tone and a great fullness to your sound with just the harp, it seems uniquely conducive to your solo performances and your record contains sparse, if any accompaniment, is there a reason you chose to keep the songs relatively pared down?
JN: Yeah. This album was my love-song to the harp, among other things. I was so happy with the way that Noah Georgeson, the producer, was able to capture the prismatic, lush, spectral sonic presence of the instrument. I wanted the instrumentation to be all about verisimilitude, truth, the breath and blood of the harp. When I play, you know, it's pressed to my chest and I can feel the vibrations all through my ribcage and collarbones; I wanted that sense of closeness and life to reverberate through the recording, too. The harp is so unique in its timbre...when you pluck a single note, for example, it sets off a chain reaction so that every single string vibrates at once, with varying intensities and volumes and for varying durations of time. When I play harp, I tend to play sort of rapid, busy figures, which means there's a constant, percussively articulated, variegated field of notes rising into prominence and receding into the background, each of them setting-off their own second and third and fourth harmonics, too—everything thrumming and shaking and shimmering and modulating constantly. I thought extra instruments would detract from my primary goal in committing these songs to tape, which was to capture them framed in their true harmonic space, encircled by endless concentric bands of shifting sound...

If you listen close to the "silence" at the end of The Book of Right-On—I mean, really turn up the volume for a few moments after the last note has been played—you can hear a bit of that sea of sounds, decaying bit by bit into the ether. It's quite lovely, I think.

"I've always been sort of obsessed by the alchemy of closeness, of cramming things together, compacting myth denser and denser."

TMT: The artwork for The Milk-Eyed Mender has such a personal, human touch to it. What was the concept behind the cover art?
JN: My friend Emily Prince designed and embroidered it for me. I wanted an album cover that depicted real, touchable, substantial materials & handiwork (partly because of the album title, with its references to mending, and its excerption from the album's central song—"Sadie"—which is full of sewing-related lyrics). It was actually a sort of distressing thing, initially, because I wanted to include everything significant and beautiful to me, and I didn't know how that could be done. Emily and I started by itemizing some objects which have accrued symbolic, nostalgic strength for us over the years (like narwhales, owls, hot air balloons, skeletons). We decided that she'd embroider these, and have them inhabit little fields of calico and burlap, the edges of which could touch and intersect, to give a sense of dense, almost airless amalgamation...because I think those symbols are at their most powerful when they brush up against each other. I've always been sort of obsessed by the alchemy of closeness, of cramming things together, compacting myth denser and denser.

Then we started collecting real objects... teeth, feathers, buttons, bones, acorns, a dead butterfly, leaves, coins, that sort of thing. And Emily attached them all to her tapestry. The photo went right in the center, with a macaroni frame, so it looked sort of like something a third-grader would make as a Mother's Day gift, and sort of like a shrine for a dead person.

TMT: You come from a family of musicians, were you steeped in music at a young age? What are your earliest musical memories?
JN: Yeah, music was always a part of my life from an early age. My earliest musical memories are of my mom practicing piano, and my little sister and me dancing around her for hours, making up little pantomimes to Chopin and Satie.

TMT: Was the harp something that you always had a desire to learn?
JN: Yes, ever since I was about three.

TMT: The first time I heard your voice, it struck me as somewhat akin to Bjork and Edith Piaf in certain intonations but certainly uniquely your own, do you think hearing certain singers has perhaps influenced the way you use your voice, or does it all just flow naturally out of you that way?
JN: My voice it basically out of my control, in the sense that I've been unable to groom or refine it much beyond its own naked and untrained color. Also, when I'm singing, there's not much room in my mind for technicalities—the voice does sort of just come straight from my gut, my muscles, blood and bones.

At the same time, there are some singers to whom I've listened obsessively enough that some of their stylistic choices may have seeped into my own singing style...folks like Texas Gladden or Karen Dalton spring immediately to mind. One major way that they might have influenced me is that, when I first heard their recordings, I felt an affinity with their ragged, strange, unconventional timbre...and my intense reaction to those recordings sort of validated my desire to sing alongside my own harp songs. It served as a sort of proof that such unusual, exuberant, voices as theirs—neither of which really conform to the traditional idea of "beauty"—could be immensely moving, and have great musical worth. My own voice is different from those women's (as theirs are different from each other), but there are commonalities, and I felt heartened by them—encouraged to consider my own strange, unruly voice to be an instrument at my disposal.

TMT: During the time you recorded your first solo records, you played keyboards for the San Francisco band, The Pleased, was this your first experience playing live for others? Also, how did you become involved with the band and do you plan to do any work with them in the future?
JN: This was one of my earliest experiences playing music in front of a "rock" audience, although I've played in plenty of classical contexts (i.e. orchestral work) for years. My involvement with the band sprung from my involvement with the singer, Noah, who has been my boyfriend for four years. We met when we were both studying composition at Mills College. He also produced my record. But the band was never really a central musical project for me, or something that I felt very creatively involved in; I didn't write any of the songs, for example, and played pretty minimal parts. It was more about getting to travel around with my boyfriends and contribute to his project, as he later contributed (to a much greater extent) to my recording process. I don't have plans to work with the band in the future, although I suppose anything is possible—we're still all friends, and I think they're amazing people and musicians.

TMT: To me, your songs seem like a beautiful, hidden little secret. Were you hesitant about first performing your very personal songs in front of other people?
JN: No. I felt mainly gratitude, and wonder, at the idea that I was detailing these ideas and memories and dreams in front of a room full of people, and they were listening. It's insane, beautiful; a precious thing to me...

TMT: You've toured with the likes of Cat Power, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, and more recently Devendra Banhart and Sufjan Stevens, what have those experiences been like? And have you noticed more people in the audience being familiar with your work?
JN: Yeah, it has been strange to feel that barely-imperceptible momentum of an audience's increasing awareness of my existence. Especially on this last US tour with Devendra and Vetiver, it really felt like a little wave of notice and press and buzz was moving through the country just ahead of us; each show seemed progressively better-attended, charged with a gradually intensifying silence...it was bizarre. We poured out from our vans, all dirty and tired and silly, into these halls full of mysterious people who were coming in droves (what seemed to me to be droves, since I'm pretty small-time) to hear our songs. It wasn't such a shock with Devendra, because his music has been popular for a while, but I was shocked to hear people singing along with me and yelling out requests!

TMT: Speaking of Devendra Banhart, you both have very unique voices and your lyrical styles both are similar in their whimsical imagery. I think that a collaboration between you two would be incredibly interesting to hear, have you two ever spoken about working together on something in the future?
JN: Yes, we have. There's at least one duet on the horizon. Maybe more. He is a dear friend and an incredible musician and a source of great magic and beauty in the universe, and I would love to always tour with him, play with him, and collaborate with him, until the cows came home. So nobody should fret about that.

TMT: Is there anyone in particular who you would like to collaborate with if given the opportunity?
JN: Well, I have a dream of getting to work in some capacity with Will Oldham someday, because to me he is magic, through and through; true kindness and authenticity, and musicality, and joy and dirt. I would also love to play with Kevin Barker; he's an insanely good finger-picking guitarist and banjoist (from Currituck Co.), and a beautiful singer & person. Paz Lechantin is a badass fiddler and a miraculous human and I'm itching to play alongside her, too. And it would be lovely to play with the kids in White Magic, or Espers... both of those bands are steeped in the Spirit, as well as being technically amazing. And of course, Devendra. Actually, there are so many musicians whom I admire, or love, or am inspired by, or all of those things—it's overwhelming to think about the possibilities. Lordy.

"I wanted the instrumentation to be all about verisimilitude, truth, the breath and blood of the harp."

TMT: The song, "Inflammatory Writ," to me recalls, in song and lyric, the days of the political anthems by such people as Woody Guthrie. Do you consider yourself politically active at all, especially with our current climate in this country? and what is your opinion of musicians who have recently begun to bring more political banter to their audience?
JN: I think it would be unconscionable to conceal my political leanings right now, because I think the world is in a state where such preferences transcend "politics," and begin to more closely resemble the true determinants of life and death, decisions upon which the psychic and emotional health of our country and world are hinged. This vote we're preparing for will either bring us leadership that will cast a dark shadow over all of our hearts and the future of the world, or leadership that could move us in a direction of reparation, connectedness, accountability, humanitarianism.... Not to romanticize the ever-increasingly-moderate democratic party, but the alternative is so ugly, so poisonous, so corrupt, fueled by a hatred and greed and heartlessness and fear that seep outward into every American's experience of life, attempting to justify the damage our administration is doing to the rest of the world—and concealing the reality of how deeply hated we are. This is the stuff of insomnia, hysteria, for me. Of course, bringing politics up at most of my shows can be sort of preaching to the choir; they're not really hotbeds of conservatism. But we have talks sometimes, the audience and me.

TMT: One of my favorite and one of the most heart rending songs on your new record is "Sadie," is there a story behind it?
JN: There are actually three stories; as with almost all of my songs, there's this recurring triumvirate structure that imposes itself without my even realizing it at first. The three subjects are always connected, but often in merely intuitive or symbolic ways. In this particular song, the most straightforward subject is my then-dog, Sadie, who passed on recently. She was a lovely white Labrador who liked nothing more in the whole world than to play fetch. And I've always been impatient about that; I'd look at the soggy pinecone dropped at my feet while I was trying to get into my car, and I'd say, "I'll play with you later."

The second subject of the song is a friend, my age, who was diagnosed with cancer. I remember marveling at the reaction of people around me, the way they sprung to action, finally articulated to her their love and appreciation, finally made those lunch dates they'd always talked about...and I sheepishly include myself in this phenomenon. It wasn't disingenuous; it was just that our collective illusion, that we have forever to let someone know how loved she is, had been shattered.

The third subject is one of my most beloved friends, whom I've grown apart from. We had this sort of running argument, or a running series of disagreements founded on the same fundamental points of divergence, and if we had been close at that point, talking every day or whatnot, then those disagreements would have seemed like nothing. But because our correspondence had fallen behind, and we'd developed insecurities and bitterness, these disagreements became all-consuming; we fixated on them, let resentments build around them, let a silence build between us. And I remember just having my breath taken from me in one sickening moment when I paused one day to imagine what I'd do if this friend fell ill with cancer, like my other friend. I knew that I would fly to be with her, stay by her side forever if I had to, and revel in her extraordinary rarity, intelligence, kindness, forget all the shitty stupid petty small points of contention between us, because they were so insignificant in light of our own inevitable mortality.

So. Those are the basic subjects of the song. It's about all sorts of things, but I guess the main story is about death, love, putting things off...

TMT: What influences you both musically and otherwise?
JN: West African harp (kora) figures; the composer Ruth Crawford Seeger; Bulgarian Polyphony; Venezuelan harp; Shakespearean and Petrarchan sonnets; Vladimir Nabokov; Ogden Nash; my parents; my brother (an amazing drummer); a good beat for dancing; the mountains outside my window in Nevada City; longing for things; the seaside; dirt; bones clinking together; sleeping all the time; the harp and its endless feast of potential noises and moods; geez, everything good and bad. How do you figure out what influences you? I like a lot of things.

TMT: On "This Side of the Blue" you sing the line, "See him fashion a cap from a page of Camus." What are some of your favorite writers and books?
JN: My favorite author of all time is Nabokov. I'm really obsessed with him, actually... all my Nabokov novels are, like, ravaged by notes crammed into the margins of every page, from readings and re-readings. I especially like the annotated Lolita, edited by Alfred Appel Jr., because I can just luxuriate in his neurotic, exquisite feast of footnotes and endnotes... like a book within a book... amazing.

My other favorite book is The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle. Incredible. One of the greatest literary meditations on beauty, sickness, mortality, loneliness, perfection, defection, bravery/heroism, regret, pity, purity, magic, and power, of all time. So there. The movie is my favorite, too, though for slightly different reasons. I actually just discovered that Mr. Beagle lives in Oakland, which is right near me, so I'm sort of hoping that somehow, someday, I might get to meet him...that would be so amazing....

TMT: What music have you been listening to and enjoying as of late?
JN: Well, I honestly don't listen to a great deal of music. I love a great [deal] of music, both by folks working nowadays and those from a ways back.... but I find myself tending toward silence most of the time, especially if I'm trying to write my own music. I feel too permeable otherwise, too afraid of being influenced, or of diluting my ideas, or of forgetting them.

But, when I do listen, I love plenty new folks (Devendra; my amazing friend Kevin Barker—a.k.a. Currituck County—Will Oldham; Smog; this INCREDIBLE girl from my hometown named Marie Sabanya; a beautiful band called Vetiver; Little Wings; White Magic; and the aforementioned Noah Georgeson's solo stuff...tons of other stuff, too), and old ones (Fleetwood Mac, Karen Dalton, Neil Young—who I get to play with next week!—Donovan, Fred Neil, Love, Texas Gladden, Vashti Bunyan, Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, Billie Holliday, C.O.B., the Incredible String Band, Willie Nelson, Linda Perhacs, and any recorded performances of pieces by the Early American composer, Ruth Crawford Seeger).

TMT: This upcoming tour will be your first over in Europe?
JN: My second. The first was a very short tour in August.

TMT: Any hassles getting the harp over there safely?
JN: I actually can't afford to fly my own harp over there, so I rent one in the UK.

TMT: Aside from the upcoming tours, what are your plans, musical or otherwise for the remainder of the year?
JN: I have one amazing, gargantuan, paradigm-shifting plan involving a lot of my friends and a lot of music (and hopefully a lot of grant money!), taking place over about three months next summer...but I can't say much about it yet. Stay tuned. Other than that, hopefully I'll just spend a lot of time writing music. And I get to go to Costa Rice in December with my family; I'm really excited about that.

[verbal gymnastics]

James at Brixton Academy on Friday 27th April.

They're a band I never used to really like until Mrs VG persuaded me to see them. I saw them 6 times from 1998. We went to their farewell tour 6 years ago and Mrs VG was incredibly excited to see they've reformed. So there I was at 9am this morning on t'internet to book tickets for us.

[Otis Westinghouse]

I love their Village Fire 12" (their first release, I think), with Hymn From a Village and others, Johnny Yen and one or two others from Stutter, How Was It For You?, Come Home and one or two others from Gold Mother, and the immortal say Something. And Sit Down's OK. I saw them in May '83 supporting New Order when they were unknown. Not bad at all. Always liked them.

[Mike Boom]

Off to see Lindsay Buckingham at the wonderful Bass Hall in Fort Worth in a few hours, hooray!

[johnfoyle]

James at Brixton Academy on Friday 27th April.

I saw them supporting The Smiths back in '84. More recently they did a pretty epic show at The Olympia, Dublin, Tim Booth climbing up on the balconys via the stacked speakers etc..........and the're back there on April 17 '07

http://www.ticketmaster.ie/event/18003E ... norcatid=1

[Boy With A Problem]

The Fall at Hammersmith Palais on April 1st - no joke, it sounds like they're going to tear the place down later on that month.

[Otis Westinghouse]

Heard the new LP? Mojo 5 star review. More of the same or something different? With The Fall it's usually both.

[stormwarning]

I saw Paul Weller at the Virgin store in Times Square today. He only did 30 minutes but was in fine voice. Now I'm looking forward to seeing him tomorrow night, the "Jam" night.

[stormwarning]

Has there been a Weller/TSC/Jam top ten yet?

[Otis Westinghouse]

No, but you can start one! (Well you can start 3, but only one will be of interest to me!)

So the three-nighter is now! For some reason I thought it had happened, but then thought how come it ain't on Dime yet. I'm sure it will be within hours of the gig. Are you only going to that one? A setlist would be a treat. Question is will he play Jam songs unplayed since the Jam? How about Wasteland, for example?

[verbal gymnastics]

The setlist from Paul Weller's website as posted by booradley:

Shopping
Riverbank
Carnation
English Rose
That's Entertainment
Man in the Corner Shop
Thick as Thieves
In the Crowd
From the Floor Boards Up
Paper Smile
All the Pictures on the Wall
Above the Clouds
Running on the Spot
Porcelain Gods
I Walk on Gilded Splinters
Wildwood
Savages
Fly Little Bird
Pebble and the Boy
Broken Stones
You do Something to me
Come on lets go
Changing Man
Foot of the Mountain

I wanna make it Alright
Sunflower
Town Called Malice

I don't think he ever played Shopping live or English Rose when he was with The Jam (although he played the latter after The Jam split).

[Otis Westinghouse]

Setlist from where? Not The Jam NY gig that Storm was at, surely? That will have been 100% Jam, I trust. I looked on Dime, no sign yet, surely it's coming soon.

[stormwarning]

That's the one I went to.

Nobody expected a full Jam night but I think a few had high hopes of hearing Tube Station. It was a great show and nobody was disappointed. Weller has such a passion for his new songs that it would have been a crime to miss them. Clearly that passion wouldn't be there for a full Jam night.

Every song was a highlight. Carnation sounded so much better with his 2007 voice than it did in '82, and Running On The Spot was a great singalong, but the highlights for me were the sseamless Porcelain/Splinters and Fly Little Bird. In the Crowd was trimmed to a 5 minute version, just long enough, and Broken Stones was again magnificent.

Best show of the year for me, but I'm a bigger fan now of his solo work than I was of The Jam in 1980.

[pophead2k]

Off to see Lindsay Buckingham at the wonderful Bass Hall in Fort Worth in a few hours, hooray!

Anxious to hear how this show was Mike. I've got the new CD and after a few listens am really enjoying it....

[Otis Westinghouse]

But what became of this one night each of the three phases of his career? If I'd gone expecting 'Jam night', I'd have been hurling abuse at the fucker! So it was three nights of pretty much the usual setlist? I'd like to see him live now to see if it gets as exciting as people say. On record pretty well all of his new stuff sends me to sleep apart from the odd song, and none I've heard recently, and live too on telly. 'From The Floorboards Up' on Later - yaaawn. What a shame he couldn't do what New Order have done (once only, I believe) and just only play stuff from the past. Thick As Thieves would be great, but where was Tube Station? Interesting that you're a much bigger fan of his solo work than Jam, Storm. I thought we came from at least semi-similar musical planets! Weren't you a Jamhead back in the day? For me the holy trio of All Mod Cons-Setting Sons-Sound Affects was the only band thing from that era that came anywhere near Joy Division for musical excitement, with the possible inclusion of The Clash in their better moments, and everything since has been a pale shadow.

[Otis Westinghouse]

No, it's not on Dime, but this is. It's hard to imagine anyone anywhere putting together a more impressive setlist from their back catalogue. This is Chicago 1980. If only he'd come on stage and just play this now. Every song is an absolute classic. No Wasteland, though, sadly (hardly surprising if they never played it live!):

Saturdays Kids
Burning Sky
Thick as thieves
Its too bad
Going underground
Mr Clean
Butterfly Collector
Private Hell
Little Boy Soldiers
Smithers-Jones
Dreams of Children
To be someone
Eton Rifles
Strange town
When youre young
Down in the tubestation at midnight
Girl on the phone
All mod cons
David Watts
A-bomb in Wardour Street

[verbal gymnastics]

Again, thanks to booradley, is the setlist for the second night:

Its a very Deep Sea
Headstart For Happiness
Speak Like A Child
Down In The Seine
Man Of Great Promise
My Ever Changing Moods
Long Hot Summer
Shout To The Top
Peacock Suit
Out Of The Sinking
From The Floorboards Up
Into Tommorow
Above The Clouds
Amongst Butterflies
Porcelain God
Walk on Gilded Splinters
Butterfly Collector
Thinking of You (With Paolo Nuttini)
That's Entertainment (with a false start!)
Hears the Good News
Broken Stones
Changing Man
Foot of the Mountain

Come On Let's Go
I Wanna Make It Allright
Town Called Malice

You have to realise Otis that it was originally ambiguously stated that each night would be a Jam night or Style Council night. Paul Weller said it was going to be 10-15 songs of each era which is what he's done. It'll be interesting to see what he does tonight.

I would like to have seen Thinking of You which was my favourite song on Studio 150.

[Boy With A Problem]

Heard the new LP? Mojo 5 star review. More of the same or something different? With The Fall it's usually both.

I have not - I think the official release is right about now. The folks on the Fall site mostly like it. It sounds like more of the same - certainly similar to the last two, but with mostly new band members (different members is different or more of the same?)

[Otis Westinghouse]

You have to realise Otis that it was originally ambiguously stated that each night would be a Jam night or Style Council night. Paul Weller said it was going to be 10-15 songs of each era which is what he's done. It'll be interesting to see what he does tonight.

Too bad. I was hoping it would be similar to Costello at the Lincoln Centre July 2004 - three very different nights. Is Butterfly Collector unusual/a first on nothing new? Great song. 'And I don't care about morals/Cos the world's insane and we're all to blame anyway'.

[Mike Boom]

Anxious to hear how this show was Mike. I've got the new CD and after a few listens am really enjoying it....

It was an awesome show Pop. They were filming it for a DVD so the extra lighting and all the cameras were a bit distracting but it was a phenomenal show. Great band and the sound was fantastic, it always is in the Bass Hall, lots more Fleetwood Mac songs than I was expecting. Red Rover , a favourite from Say You Will was a real standout. A great one two of acoustic tracks from Rumours - Second Hand News and Never Going Back Again, a guitar freakout extroadinaire on Im So Afraid, and also World Turning from the Mac white album and best of all from my point of view I Know Im Not Wrong , a absolutely spine tingling Save Me A Place and the titular Tusk- complete with samples and sound affects. Go Your Own Way was in there somewhere too and a great Holiday Road. Slow Down, Shut Us Down, Not Too Late, Cast Away Dreams, It Was You from the new record. Trouble was another hightlight - I missed my fave from the new record Someones Gotta Change Your Mind, and I would kill to see DW Suite from Go Insane but Im guessing it would pretty hard to play live.
Cant wait till the promised "all electric rock" album thats supposed to come out later this year.

[pophead2k]

Thanks for the report- that sounds incredible. Any Big Love?

[verbal gymnastics]

Any Big Love?

Only between me and Mrs VG