Graham Parker (solo) ~ 2007 November 10 ~ The Muddy Cup Café, Kingston, NY
Graham Parker accompanying himself on Gibson acoustic guitar, Fender electric guitar, and harmonica
Setlist (with guitars noted)
Review
There were no directions on the Muddy Cup Coffeehouse's website -- just a not very helpful link to Mapquest's home page. As Concert Going Partner and I got off the New York Thruway and followed the signs for Kingston, we arrived at God-Knows-Where, as opposed to Broadway, where we wanted to be. We had a map, but a road that looked like it would intersect Broadway actually went over Broadway on a bridge. Finally after a few creative turns we found the venue, which was invisible from Broadway anyway, since it is not on Broadway at all but on a side street and the sign faces in the other direction. If for some reason you are looking for the place, it's just across from Planet Wings, a fast food place that did quite a business from Parker concert goers.
The venue is a fairly good sized room by coffeehouse standards, with a high ceiling, and glass windows along the street side that reached from floor to ceiling. Curious passersby were able to peek in these windows and watch a bit of the concert as they went about their business. There was no stage, but a corner of the room was equipped with a carpet, microphones, and the usual amplification equipment. There was one dim spotlight on the stage (this fact will play a part in the story). The seating area fanned out from this performance space, providing seating for maybe 100 people. The first row consisted of soft easy chairs that probably belonged to the coffee shop -- not as comfy as it sounds -- I wound up perched on the forward edge of mine for most of the show. The rest of the chairs were white folding plastic wedding reception rentals.
The place filled up, people got coffees and settled into their seats. Around 8:00 the MC introduced the opening act, Andy Bopp, a singer-songwriter with a guitar and a nice voice ("Chris Trapper without the quirkiness" someone said). Concert Going Partner actually knew who he was (member of power pop group Myracle Brah). After an astonishly short break GP came on, carrying the Gibson acoustic, and began with three tracks from Don't Tell Columbus, after which he chastised himself for bad set list construction. (I disagree.) He commented that this was the second time this year he'd played a venue with the word "muddy" in its name, the other being the Muddy River Smokehouse in Portsmouth, NH, with the band last June, and noticed he's gravitating toward places with earth tones or the word café in their name. He was dressed all in black including his sneakers, and wore dark sunglasses. He insulted the audience a couple of times, implying he'd seen folks yawning, and promised he'd finish in time for the audience to get to the bars before they closed.
I hadn't seen GP since SONO, the South Norwalk, CT festival show in August so I was ready for a good hit of GP and I was not disappointed. There were three real standout highlights in this show.
The first highlight was the fourth song, accompanied by the history of the writing of the song. While recording 12 Haunted Episodes he wrote a song based on a huge Disney development that was planned for a Civil War battlefield site in Virginia. There were groups opposing this development -- he called them "veggienazis" -- but he figured that there was no hope they could stop Disney and its huge money machine. So he wrote the song as a protest against the development which was to be called Disney's America, but "put a couple of more layers in it." After he wrote the song, the groups opposing the construction of Disney's America actually succeeded in stopping the development. So he was left with this "useless pre-empted protest song." But he recorded it anyway.
And he played it Saturday. It was only the fourth song of the night but the show could have stopped right there and we would have gotten our money's worth. His singing was so affecting I had "goosebumps on my goosebumps."
There are some GP fans who consider this to be Graham's best song, or at least one of the best songs he has ever written. Graham wrote this song as a protest against a theme park that was never built, but if you didn't know that about the song, one could interpret the song in many other ways. What is "Disney's America"? Is it only a specific proposed place where aspects of American history are presented in a theme park ... or is it a place where wishes come true ... or a place where fantasy is real ... or is it a place where people celebrate their personal nostalgia ... or a place where clever marketers put straws into wallets and suck out the money ... or something else altogether? The song is far more than a "pre-empted protest song"; it is a song about lost opportunity and respecting what is authentic about our past.
The second highlight came just two songs later. GP announced he was going to play a song from Songs of No Consequence, one he'd never played live before because it was recorded in an alternate tuning (open-E) and for a live show he had to work out how to play it in normal tuning. GP confessed that he was going to need his lyric sheet, and moved his music stand around in the dim lighting to try to find a spot where he could see the lyrics, then realized it was going to be impossible with his dark glasses on ... and he TOOK THEM OFF. Geep actually performed a song without his sunglasses. Possibly a first in the history of Parkerville? He said that his first manager had seen him in shades one day, said he looked good, suggested he wear them, and "I've kept them on for 31 years." The song was the fab "Go Little Jimmy," a good song to do since his son Jimmy (Merch Boy) was at the show. The song was very high energy and bopped right along with a jaunty rhythm and a couple of ad libs ("had his old man on the upright bass, although he can't play"). At the end of the song, to thunderous applause, partly for the song, partly for the naked face, GP reached very quickly for those familiar shades.
The third highlight was three songs later. You'll never hear me complain when he plays anything from Deepcut to Nowhere, but it was particularly nice to hear one that GP hadn't played live in a very long time, this being the laugh-out-loud funny "Tough on Clothes." What other songwriter could write this: "Your mother's spending so much time on stitchin', you'll have us all eating in the soup kitchen" ... or "that little black dress we bought ya, looks like it's been through some kind of torture." This is a soul song that really should have a backing chorus who are doing a series of choreographed dance steps behind the singer, but GP had to settle for the Muddy Cup audience and our help on the one word "tough!" with its tricky rhythm ... "one ... two ... three ... four ... pause ... TOUGH!"
"Ambiguous" was the third of the introductory trio from the new album, and it really swung. GP included both "Almost Thanksgiving Day" (very beautiful) and "Christmas is For Mugs" (which, like "Local Girls" is one of the best-ever sour grapes songs) and announced that he'd be giving away copies of The Christmas Cracker to anyone who bought any other merchandise. (Getting tired of lugging that box around, eh, GP?) When he played "Black Honey" he said that he had to come up with songs quickly for his second album and that as a result a couple of the songs weren't about anything, and he's been wondering ever since if people would catch up to him and realize he was a fraud.
After "Local Girls" and its usual singalong, GP would have gone off stage but there was nowhere to go, so he just stood there and enjoyed listening to the crowd hooting and hollering, and then he announced "I'm back." We were supposed to pretend he'd gone somewhere. The encore began with "Heat Treatment," then segued so quickly into "Socks 'n' Sandals" that one wondered if they are really the same song, and ended with "Don't Ask Me Questions" and "Get Started." (Is Graham ending a show with "Get Started" the equivalent of going to the Start Menu to shut down a computer?)
A lot of fans gathered around the merchandise table to do business with Merch Boy, who had brought a skateboarding mate to the show with him, and GP himself showed up a few minutes later to do the usual meet and greet.
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