Graham Parker (solo) ~ 2008 March 22 ~ The Towne Crier ~ Pawling, NY
Setlist (with guitars noted)
[Gibson acoustic] Hard Side of the Rain - Watch the Moon Come Down - Guillotine of Guadeloupe - Habit Worth Forming - First Day of Spring - Disney's America - Somebody Saved Me - [Fender electric] Can't Take Love for Granted - Tough on Clothes - Release Me - You've Got to Be Kidding - My Love's Strong - Don't Ask Me Questions - Discovering Japan - Someone to Watch Over Me [a capella] - [Gibson acoustic] Next Phase - Heat Treatment - Go Little Jimmy - Local Girls ... encore ... [Fender electric] Lady Doctor - Get Started. Start a Fire - You Can't Be Too Strong
Review
Graham Parker played the Towne Crier in the off-the-beaten-track small town of Pawling, New York. Pulling into the parking lot one is greeted with a fifteen-foot tall statue of a cactus. Inside, it is a restaurant with attached bar and a substantial stage at the front of the restaurant. The décor is faux Southwest, with wall hangings that are vaguely evocative of Native American tribal art, and a menu that tends toward the Tex-Mex. What this is doing in the Hudson Valley is another question. But it's a good place to see a show, with a roomy stage about 2 feet high, and the seating area rises in tiers so that everyone has a good view, even in the back.
Around 6:30 the crowd started to flow in. They were lively and talkative but not obnoxiously drunk. Various denizens of Parkerville began to arrive, and there was an unnecessarily long discussion with the staff about what one had to do to be allowed to order dinner if one had made reservations for the show only. Waving a small handful of twenties seemed to do the trick, and soon everyone was happily eating from the slightly expensive but varied and enjoyable menu.
The opening act, starting at about 9:00, was a local fellow named TeeJay, or it might have been JayTee (we'll just call him Initial Guy). He was an athletic looking young man with a lively stage presence, who sang well, played well, and whose songs seemed interesting, but who entirely ruined his set with the use of his guitar loop pedal. He would play a riff on the guitar, loop it through the pedal, do it a couple of more times, and pretty soon it sounded like a whole band. He did this on every single song. This is Not A Good Thing when it's one guy. It made his set seem more inauthentic than the décor. I suffered through about a half hour of this while Initial Guy's friends in the audience hooted and hollered like he was the greatest thing since, oh, say, JayTwo (Joe Jackson).
A few minutes later on came the real Initials Guy, GP, carrying his Gibson acoustic onto stage with him. He started with "Hard Side of the Rain." He's taken to singing the "ah but" in an exaggerated way. He debuted this song at this venue a little over two years ago. After just two songs GP began his witty banter with the audience, introducing "Guillotines of Guadeloupe." He said he read an Arthur C. Clarke book called Caribbean in which he learned about the French treatment of the Caribbean natives, and "I wrote a song about it" (the classic Parker response to anything he finds interesting). This is a gruesomely funny song (how does a songwriter pick such cheerful music to go with such a grizzly subject? the guy's a genius), and it has some of the best funny lip noises in any GP song. After this he said he wanted to "out-obscure" it and played "Habit Worth Forming," a song originally released on a cassette only version of one of the mid-period albums. (I forget which one; also available on the Vandelay rarities comp.) He also said the Rumour's Andrew Bodnar claimed the song was based on a chord progression he had written, but GP said he actually stole the chord progression from an English children's song, "Food Glorious Food." His voice sounded exceptionally good; maybe the break from performing did him good.
Next up he inquired of the audience, "what was two days ago?" but it was hardly a difficult question, and he played the glorious "First Day of Spring," then followed with another tune from 12 Haunted Episodes, "Disney's America," a song with a permanent spot on my top-five GP songs list. This was followed by Don't Tell Columbus's heartbreakingly good "Somebody Saved Me," that next-to-gospel ode to having something very good, and very unexpected, happen, in a life that seems headed to ruin. A couple of tunes later "Tough on Clothes" had the audience laughing out loud (one guy was laughing so hard he had to get up and leave the room on the line about "black dress we bought ya ... been through some kind of torture"). There was a corresponding grin on Graham's face. Next up, a brilliant selection from Burning Questions (he did NOT say Burning Trousers as he sometimes does): "Release Me," which has a driving rhythm and fabulous chord changes, a hard rocker even in a solo show. I'd like to see that one with GP and the Figgs. Next tune was "You've Got To Be Kidding," during which Graham made a couple of faces at his guitar as if to wonder why it was playing the notes it was playing. Maybe the guitar was out of tune, but I think it was just that the guitarist was a little rusty.
Next, from the sometimes-maligned Human Soul, he performed "My Love's Strong," which I don't particularly like. It has a pretty melody, but I think it's a little choppy. It's no "Depend On Me" or "Oasis," in my opinion. But I don't get to pick what he plays, and more than once I have come to appreciate a song after I've heard him play it live a few times. A couple of tunes later, he plucked a note on the guitar and the audience "ommmm'd" along with the note. He was finding his pitch for the a capella "Someone To Watch Over Me." This has never before been an audience singalong, but tonight somebody in the middle of the crowd joined in and pretty soon half the audience was singing along with the chorus. It didn't throw the performer off his stride ... and it was very, very nice.
I found out after the fact that a handful of my friends who were sitting at a table toward the back had knocked over a candle on their table and their tablecloth was on fire. Amazing the things that go on during a concert that I don't see because I'm always in the front, always with my eyes on the stage. It was also around this point in the show that the club manager brought Graham a note and asked him to inform the audience that there was a car in the parking lot that had to be moved. The things these performers have to suffer with ...
Back to the music ... the lovely "Next Phase" followed, and then the fabulous "Go Little Jimmy." Parents sometimes tell bedtime stories to their children in which the children star as heroes, and this is Graham's bedtime story to his son, Jimmy Parker, aka Merch Boy, who was in attendance to help with sales after the show. Concert Going Partner said he likes the fact that Graham has written a song about an imaginary boy; it's not like anything else he's ever done. He slipped "Towne Crier" into the lyrics where the song tells about the various venues Blues Harmonica Kid (aka Little Jimmy) has played. "Local Girls" was even more of a singalong than usual, as GP let the audience handle the "don't bother with the ..." section, vocalizing a "Nation of Shopkeepers"-like counterpoint above our singing. The encore set was the swinging "Lady Doctor," a rockin' "Get Started. Start a Fire," and the slow-it-down "Can't Be Too Strong."
GP wore dark shades (he said he was still following his first manager's instructions, who 32 years ago said he looked good in shades and should keep wearing them), gray trousers, a long sleeved white shirt with vertical gray stripes with the sleeves rolled up, and a black wrist band. In my opinion, despite the absence of any new songs, GP put together the best set list in quite a while. The overly-long "The Other Side of the Reservoir" had worn out its welcome with me and I never did see the point of "Sailing Shoes" (Little Feat cover that GP has been performing of late); and dropping those two in favor of those Parker obscurities was an excellent choice.
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