Graham Parker ~ 2005 April 9 ~ Narrows Center for the Arts, Fall River, MA
Graham Parker accompanying himself on Fender electric guitar, Gibson acoustic guitar, and harmonica
Set List (with guitars noted)
[Gibson acoustic]: Watch the Moon Come Down - Nothin's Gonna Pull Us Apart - Silly Thing - Between You and Me - Final Page - Waiting for the UFOs - She Swallows It - Evil - Brand New Book - I'll Never Play Jacksonville Again - [Fender electric]: Vanity Press - Long Stem Rose - Have I Told You Lately - White Honey - Get Started, Started a Fire - Passion is No Ordinary Word - [a capella]: Someone to Watch Over Me - [Gibson acoustic]: If It Ever Stops Rainin' - Hotel Chambermaid - Local Girls ... encore ... Sugaree {Grateful Dead} - Temporary Beauty - Protection
Review
This venue is on the third floor of an old mill building, up a steep flight of steps. The seating consists of chuch pews donated by a local church with a few tables in front of the pews. The sound is good although I would prefer it to be a little louder. Coffee, soft drinks, and homemade baked goods are for sale. (You can bring your own beer and wine.) The staff are friendly and helpful and altogether this is a great place to see a show. The place was sold out, which I do not believe it was when GP played here last year.
The warm-up dude was a local singer-songwriter named Ryan Fitzsimmons who only played about five songs. His songs were competent, but before every song he re-tuned his guitar, which I found annoying, although to his credit he was able to chatter at the audience while he was tuning. He was actually quite funny; he made fun of himself for bringing a CD to sell and then not playing any songs from it. If he gains enough confidence to open his eyes and look at the audience while performing, it will help considerably.
Then on came Graham, wearing gray trousers, a long-sleeved black shirt with the sleeves rolled up, black Keds, a gray wrist band, and not-very-dark dark glasses. His graying hair was extremely short. He played two guitars, a Gibson with a very pretty strap and a Fender, and played harmonica on a few songs. He played a thoroughly satisfying mix of older songs, newer songs, and three songs from the new album, due for release in June. I saw Graham about a year ago at this same venue and at that time he was promoting Your Country -- it's exciting to have two new GP albums in just a little over a year.
Geep was extremely funny and made some insightful references about current events. He introduced "Jacksonville" with an entertaining story similar to the one on the Live Cuts From Somewhere official bootleg. He was playing a gig in Jacksonville and there were only 30 people in the audience, but it turned out almost all of them were there to see the opener, and when he came on everyone left except for two couples and a "mentally challenged" guy who wandered around the room staring at the women's legs until he got into a fight with one of the husbands. Geep apparently was so appalled by this that he was inspired to write the brilliantly, viciously funny "Jacksonville." The song was a highlight of the night. He also told a funny intro to a song that took me by surprise, "Waiting for the UFOs," where he talked about its unusual chords and the fact that the song didn't really fit in to its original album (with which I agree).
He mentioned the official bootleg Bastard of Belgium several times, encouraging people to go to his website to order a copy (unfortunately he didn't have any copies with him). When he played "Final Page" from Bastard -- a song that is about the deterioration of everything and the end of the world -- he introduced it as a "Goth monstrosity" -- and when he was done singing said, "Well, that was depressing." Graham doesn't take his seriousness too seriously. He played the song "Have I Told You Lately" ('ease my troubles, that's what you do') as a tribute to Van Morrison, and followed it with "White Honey," which he said was a cross between Van Morrison and Busby Berkeley.
He said that on the new record, Mike Gent (of The Figgs) plays the same Flying V that Brinsley Schwartz played on some of the early Rumour-era records. Apparently Graham bought the guitar from Brinsley years ago. He explained that the album title Songs of No Consequence was originally meant to indicate the songs were not about anything really important, but as he was writing and recording the album, it took on a different tone, but he kept the title anyway. Graham led from talking about Bastard of Belgium to commenting on how you can't get a Belgium waffle in Belgium, can't get French toast in France, can't get an English muffin in England, and then he said you can't get a free media and press in the land of the free, a remark that elicited a loud groan of (I think) agreement from much of the crowd. Graham talked about "video news releases" that are made by the U.S. government and given to news outlets such as Fox and CNN, to use as if they were real "news," but they are actually government propaganda, and led into the new song "Vanity Press" which is about this practice. The two other songs he played from the new album were "Evil" and "She Swallows It" (a sympathetic song about a woman being duped by her lying boyfriend).
Another highlight of the show was a number he sang a capella, "Someone To Watch Over Me," (which also appears on Bastard of Belgium). Graham's reputation is that he sings like a growling English pub rocker (which he can certainly do), but he can handle a ballad or even a capella number with just as much skill. Graham didn't play as many covers as he sometimes does; other than the Morrison song the only other cover was "Sugaree," from the last album.
After the show Graham signed autographs, gave advice to budding musicians, and accepted gifts from some of the fans. One gets the sense he genuinely enjoys rubbing elbows with the fans. I laughed as a picture was taken of Graham with a group of three football player-sized fans; I imagine any one of those three guys weighed about twice as much as Graham. He told me that when he performed on New Year's Eve in Boston he was just getting over a bad case of the flu (which certainly was not apparent at the time).
More Chairman
Interested in my other Graham Parker reviews? Here is a page with a handy list of links to all pages on this website with Geep content.