Graham Parker ~ 2009 March 28 ~ One Longfellow Square, Portland, Maine
Setlist (with guitars indicated)
Review
Finally the traveling companion and I got to do some tourist stuff as we stayed in a motel just over the Maine border, and visited York and Ogunquit. Although it was a foggy day it was pleasant to be outside, we visited a fort, walked across a "wiggly bridge" and did the Marginal Way.
An attentive reader may have noted that I hadn't gotten lost, not even once, previous to this on this GP tour. To expect to maintain that throughout an entire tour is unrealistic. Portland was my last chance to get very lost trying to find a venue, and very lost is what I got. For some reason we were on Route 1 heading into the city, and it morphed without warning to Route 295 and before we knew it we were north of the city and heading to moose country. There was an exit in there somewhere that I guess I should have taken. Oh, well. A combination of getting off the highway, turning around, consulting a map and taking some wild guesses got us to a parking space just a block down from the venue.
It was extremely cold waiting outside and the line had only grown to about a dozen folks when the doors opened, despite the fact that the show was now sold out. The doors opened promptly at 7:00. The venue seats about 200. There are about a dozen rows of seats on the floor and another two or three in a balcony. The stage is higher up off the ground than at many venues, about 2 and a half feet. They sold soft drinks, hard drinks, and cookies. I had a surpassingly excellent double chocolate cookie. Behind the stage was a screen on which were projected previews of coming attractions (their upcoming music schedule), which was interesting and gave us something to look at while waiting for Geep to come on.
He came on about ten past eight, wearing the alien communications symbol shirt, and opened, as he had each of the previous shows, with "If It Ever Stops Rainin'." I think this is a stellar opening song especially when followed by "High Horse." After these two Geep greeted the audience and said he was frankly worried about some of the larger bands the venue has scheduled -- e.g. Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks -- because the stage is not very secure! GP demonstrated, making the stage wobble back and forth by just shimmying -- all nine stone of him. One of the folks we were sitting with had been to One Longfellow a few times and said the owner puts money into improvements -- maybe a heftier stage is in the works!
GP again played "Black Lincoln Continental," saying he ripped it off from "You Always Find Me in the Kitchen at Parties" by Jona Lewie. I think I have that song on a Stiff compilation; I'll have to take a listen. He said the venue had wanted him to play two sets because having an intermission enables them to sell more drinks and food. Graham told them he wouldn't do that but he would play some bad songs which would have the same effect. He followed this comment with "Devil's Sidewalk," and even said that Up Escalator is his least favorite of his albums. He couldn't possibly have actually meant that.
The year is 2009, thirty years since the release of Squeezing Out Sparks, and GP has been making a point of playing a handful of songs from that masterwork of his. He also said there are wild parties going on all around the world celebrating the anniversary, and in fact, he said the prime minister of Norway was hosting one that very night. (I think Norway has a king, Graham.) "Love Gets You Twisted" and especially "Passion Is No Ordinary Word" were highlights of the SOS segment.
"Get Started. Start a Fire" ended the main set, and Graham actually went off the stage to very enthusiastic applause from yet another fantastic audience. He came back on the stage and to my huge delight told the Brian Porker and the Debillitators story and did "Brain Surgery." It was even better than last night, he managed to look even punkier than last night, and the crowd loved it. I wish he had recorded it with the Figgs when they were doing Songs of No Consequence. To my even greater delight, the encore set again featured "Last Stop is Nowhere." Another song in the encore set was "Back in Time," Graham Parker's most Kinks-like song. He ended with the singalong "Local Girls" and "You Can't Be Too Strong."
So are we glad we went to Portland? Hell, yes.
An interesting note from this Parker four-fer is that he played no covers, well, unless you consider the Tex Skerball and Brian Porker songs to be covers. (I sort of think of "Crawlin' From the Wreckage" as a cover since Dave Edmunds' version is so strongly imprinted on my mental jukebox, but of course Graham did write it.) Graham performs some covers that are stellar, particularly the two a cappella songs that he likes to sing, but I'd almost always rather hear a Graham Parker song than a cover.
Another point I'd like to make is that although Geep has always been very funny and entertaining, and has always told funny jokes, done great impersonations, and made the audience laugh a lot, he took that to an entirely new level in this mini-tour. In this mini-tour, for the first time since I've been watching him, Graham Parker actually acted on stage. He took on a character and for the duration of a three minute pop song he was someone other than himself. He did this the first night of the tour when, with the aid of an audience member's baseball cap and the "disguise" of taking OFF his sunglasses, he became Tex Skerball. And he did it again the last two nights of the tour, when he adopted a cockney accent and a snarly attitude and became Brian Porker. It's obvious that besides being a real hit with the crowds, Graham is also finding this acting to be wicked fun.
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