Gandalf Murphy and the Slambovian Circus of Dreams ~ 2011 July 30 ~ The Guthrie Center, Great Barrington, MA
Band personnel: Joziah Longo (lead vocals, guitar, harmonica, mandolin); Sharkey McEwen (backing vocals, guitar, mandolin); Tony Zuzulo (drums); Tink Lloyd (backing vocals, accordion, cello, melodica, ukulele, tambourine, xylophone) ... also known as the Grand Slambovians
Set List
Grand Slambovians - Windmills - Motorcycle Song - Song For Woody (Dylan cover) - Subterranean Homesick Blues (Dylan cover) - Bird is the Word - Pushing Up Daisies - Very Happy Now - Tink (I Know It's You) - Trans-slambovian BiPolar Express ... intermission ... Northern Sea - Everybody Needs a Change - Chinese Vegetables - Folsom Prison Pinball/I Wish - Ravenous Ways - Talking to the Buddha - Alice in Space ... encore ... Tom Dooley - Long Gone Lonesome Blues - The Invisible
Scroll down past the videos for review; photo gallery to the right.
Videos
Grand Slambovians
Northern Sea
Review
What a thrill it is to go to a concert at the church where Arlo Guthrie enjoyed that "Thanksgivin' dinner that couldn't be beat," the very place, practically the scene of the crime, kiddies, the place where Arlo and his friend packed up the half a ton of garbage and drove off in their VW microbus with shovels and rakes and implements of destruction, looking for a place to dump the garbage. All that's missing is the 27 eight by ten color glossy photographs with a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was ... to be used as evidence against them.
After Arlo made so much money on that song that he didn't know what to do with it, he bought the church and turned it into an arts center. I can't think of a better place for Slambovia to establish a diplomatic mission, now, can you?
Joziah and the gang seemed to agree, and played an extraordinarily good show, even by their stratospheric standards. They played a snippet of the "Motorcycle Song" and Joziah claimed that he actually wrote the song, and traded it to Arlo for his hat. They took a flyer at "Chinese Vegetables," a song from a children's off-off-off-Broadway musical that Joziah wrote, although they only played about one verse of it. The encore was livened up by a spoof of folk music. Joziah says that songs like "Tom Dooley," when he learned to play them as a child, landed him in therapy (with lyrics like "I met her a mountain, and stabbed her with my knife") and that he had to start a death metal band to wash the damage that folk had done to him out of his psyche.
It was a good big stage, with plenty of room for the band and their many instruments. The seating area consisted of tables that might seat four. They had good food, although the selections were somewhat limited. All in all it's a great place to see a concert.
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