Graham Parker ~ 2005 October 16 ~ Iron Horse Music Hall, Northampton, MA
Graham Parker accompanying himself on Fender electric guitar, Gibson acoustic guitar, and harmonica
Set List (with guitars noted)
[Gibson acoustic]: That's What They All Say - Between You and Me - You Silly Thing - Almost Thanksgiving Day - Waiting for the UFOs - Chloroform - The Harridan of Yore - I Discovered America - I'll Never Play Jacksonville Again - [Fender electric]: Weeping Statues - You've Got To Be Kidding - Mr. Tender - Long Stem Rose - Right There Where I Belong - Temporary Beauty - Did Everybody Just Get Old - Back To School Days ... encore ... [Gibson acoustic]: If It Ever Stops Rainin' - Things I Never Said - Hold Back the Night - [Fender electric]: Stick To Me - Passion Is No Ordinary Word
Review
The Iron Horse is a great place to see a show in this western Mass. college town. There is seating at tables and an upstairs balcony, which the club did not open for this show. The ceiling has art deco-style decorative copper panels, which undoubtedly help the acoustics. Along the side of the first floor there is a row of photos of musicians who have performed there, many with autographs. They have a reasonably good pub food menu and a pleasantly attentive waitstaff.
The opening act was local roots guy Erik Allen, an accomplished finger-picking guitarist, a good singer, a cute guy with a silly hat. His songs were a little mellow and he could have used better pacing, but overall he was a good opening act.
The master of ceremonies, located thirty feet behind the stage at the soundboard and thus invisible, gave a fairly long introduction to the opening act, so when Graham came on stage and was met with silence, he introduced himself. "You know who I am, I need no announcement," and with that good-natured opening he was off and running.
He was dressed in a long-sleeved blue shirt with vertical white stripes with the sleeves rolled up, grey trousers, and a stylish pair of blue sneakers with yellow stripes, and lightly tinted glasses.
GP was in the good humor that I have come to expect at a solo show. He was in excellent voice and sang really well all night, including throwing in some jazz-style scat and some silly lip noises here and there. He also played guitar very well and with considerable enthusiasm. I got the impression that he was enjoying being a guitarist again, after playing the role of frontman/vocalist when he toured with the Figgs earlier on this year. He had two guitars which he alternated throughout the evening, a Fender electric and a Gibson acoustic, as well as adding harmonica on a bunch of the songs.
An audience member took a flash picture at just the moment Graham sang a line that had the word "flash" in it -- it must have been the line "All I saw was the flash in my head" from "Between You & Me" -- and at the end of the song Graham commented on how perfect the photographer's timing was and called him a "flasher." The flasher happened to be my Concert Going Partner, and the pictures are in the photo gallery to the right. Unlike some other artists he's happy to let people take pictures -- we checked -- "as long as you don't overdo it." (If I'm using a flash, generally I go by the rule of no more than one picture per song, unless something extraordinary is happening on stage.)
In his intro to the season-appropriate "Almost Thanksgiving Day," he quoted a funny poem that went something like this: "I'm not the pheasant plucker, I'm the pheasant plucker's son. I will keep on plucking pheasants 'til the pheasant plucker comes." He dared us to repeat it, and said that he had made the mistake of reciting this to his son.
In his intro to "Waiting for the UFOs," he said he wasn't going to do one of the good songs from "Squeezing Out Sparks," he was going to do the worst song on the album.
At the end of the recorded version of "Chloroform" the song slows down slightly as if reacting to the anesthetic drug that is the title of the song. When performing the song, Geep slowed down his phrasing and his voice went into a lower register as if the battery in a tape deck was slowing down, and he tottered forward as if he was going to fall down. A bit of theater that really made the song.
One new song was "Harridan of Yore." He pronounces harridan with the third syllable stressed equally with the first. It was a spare song he and the Figgs recorded during the Songs of No Consequence sessions to be included on a Bloodshot compilation (which is now available and is full of good stuff, not just GP's track). It would be obvious that this song is directed at Barbara Bush, even without the intro, but GP's intro explained the origin of the song. Air America host Al Franken told the story of being on a plane with Barbara Bush, and she disdained to even talk to him, saying to him when he tried to be polite to her, "We're through." GP liked that story well enough to write a really great song about it. It has a nice melody and very pointed lyrics -- "gold and jewels and rings, paid for by Saudi Arabian kings ... her ermine sleak and thick." I wonder if Al Franken has heard the song?
Because he had two new songs he had a lyric cheat sheet on a music stand, which at one point he moved back to make sure it wasn't blocking the view of audience members on the audience right side. I have seen other artists with music stands who wouldn't have been so considerate. Then he hardly glanced at the lyric sheets during those songs.
The other new song was the wonderful "I Discovered America," which he said has not been recorded yet, and maybe on his next album, and joked that we should now start our recording devices. Evidently he doesn't mind audience recordings any more than flash photography. The song has a nice melody and some very Parkeresque rhymes: "Don't tell Columbus / Don't tell his queen for sure / I had the accurate compass / and I discovered America."
"Jacksonville" got a lengthy intro, and while describing the horrible gig in Jacksonville that partly inspired the song, he said that the opening act sounded like a cross between Neil Young and Johnny Rotten, and proceeded to sing a few bars in which he did an uncanny imitation of both of those singers. After performing the song, he said it wasn't true, really -- he would play Jacksonville if they made him a good enough offer. Someone up front asked "would you play 'Jacksonville' -- the song -- if you played Jacksonville -- the city?" He said he'd play the song for an hour and a half. He then told an additional story about a news reporter who called GP to ask what the first part of the song is about -- "two young girls were swept down the culverts in the rain" -- and then wrote a newspaper story about the incident.
"Weeping Statues" received a long and funny intro, in which GP talked about weird visions of the Virgin Mary and of Jesus Christ, referring to these individuals as "imaginary friends" (they're my imaginary friends, too, he said) and mentioned that a piece of burned toast with the image of Jesus had sold on eBay for big money, which led him to spend sleepless nights trying to burn the image of Jesus onto a piece of toast.
Then he couldn't remember what album "Mr. Tender" was on, and folks in the audience helped him out (Burning Trousers, echoed Geep when they said Burning Questions), and after he played that wonderful song, he said to prove he really is Mr. Tender he would play another slow ballad and did "Long-Stem Rose," a song I personally like better with just guitar and not the strings on the record. He apologized for the lack of a string quartet and said they were lost in Springfield.
Introducing "Did Everybody Just Get Old," he commented there were a lot of young people in the audience -- he seemed pleased at their attendance -- and said they made him feel young -- "you make me feel 48."
There wasn't much of a break before the encore -- he really didn't have anywhere he could go other than just behind a curtain at the back of the stage -- and he came out for five more songs. The first was my own personal favorite, "If It Ever Stops Rainin'," which GP played in response to the very rainy week of weather in Massachusetts. He thanked us for taking time out from swabbing our basements to come hear him.
He played "Things I Never Said" from Your Country and said it was one of the songs he's the most proud of writing. He had copies of that album for sale, as well as Bastard of Belgium, Songs of No Consequence, the book Other Life of Brian, and the remaining t-shirts from the Your Country tour.
When he played "Passion Is No Ordinary Word," he said it was from "The Big Enchilada," Squeezing Out Sparks, and he had a new lyric in it, something about new idols on the TV screen, lip sync-ing, which was very funny and I wish I had written down exactly what it was. Aftewards, GP came back into the club, sat down at the bar with a glass of wine (someone asked if it was bad chardonnay), signed autographs, posed for photos, and generally hung out with fans for a while after the show.
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