Birchmere, "Chrono Show," November 3, 2003

It took me several RT-list messages to get all my thoughts out, as you'll see.


[In response to Patti's "Wow wow wow!"] I second those "wow"s--y'all won't believe the set list, which I know was jotted down by at least one member of the Greater Capital Area Richard Thompson Appreciation Society and Pesto-Eating Guild (GCARTASPEG)--and ask here: OK, does anyone have extra tickets to Princeton anymore? 'Cause I'm about ready to cave in and hit the road after tonight.

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I had a theory about the songs RT was playing last night at the Birchmere--especially the new and obscure ones.

It seemed to me that RT took great relish in choosing these particular songs and tunes because of the opportunities they provided for his fingers to dance on the strings.

(I've worked on the last half of that sentence for a while--I'm normally a spontaneous writer, all first drafts--and I'm still not happy with it. It's more than just his fingers, you know? But I'll move on.)

He got to play around with a lot of tune snippets in "Nobody's Wedding" and "Walk Awhile" and a whole trad tune in "Choice Wife." The new songs, too, seemed built on jigs and strathspeys (I was too mesmerized to count beats, though). I think he wanted to go back there to explore musical (and perhaps emotional) territories he'd left behind, places he was now ready to revisit.

He's resisted this before, you know, scorning the old stuff, chafing at Fairport connections, reticent about his youth. Very much someone who wants to look forward. And last night he not only sang about boyhood--and sang the songs of his boyhood--he even talked about that time a little bit, at least to a few people after the show.

Of course, those stories and songs, and the emotions with which they're imbued, could well be fictions. We don't know where the hair ends and the toupee begins, to paraphrase RT.

I can say that, for me and for others among my friends, this was more than just a chance to hear the oldies. This was an unusual encounter with an artist who seemed to have things he needed to say--for his sake, maybe, but certainly for art's sake.

(Sorry for the length of this message.)

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I think this IS the retro show. He called us "you retro people" or something like that near the end, when we acclaimed him for all the rare stuff.

Incidentally, the shocker for me was "I'll Regret It All in the Morning," which, as I told my spouse, wins my vote not only for darkest RT song (or at least one of the darkest) but for RT song that's least appropriate for a wedding.

Rob is sure he's heard "Jack of Diamonds" before. I reminded him we heard it at Cropredy the other year (with band backing), and maybe that's it, but then someone else at the show said he thought he'd heard it acoustic before. Anyone know whether/when he's played it acoustically?

Pam (who will go away now, really)