McCarter Theatre, Princeton, NJ, October 28, 2008

From the RT list.



This was not an easy day to travel. As I type from the comfort of my hotel room, I nevertheless hear the wind outside the window, sometimes whirring nervously like the first tent zipper of morning, other times groaning like gothic death.

The McCarter felt extra cozy, extra safe, tonight. It was a sort of shelter against the chill of unfriendliness, expediency, commerce, all the ugly dull things and the ominous winds that knock against our souls out there in the not-in-the-presence-of-art world. Never mind that not all the off-the-cuffs were truly off the cuff, that I knew all the punchlines in "Hots for the Smarts," that there were few set list surprises relative to the current tour. This show was a warm, good thing, like coffee in the brightness of an all-night store amid a late-night drive.

Scribbling in my notebook before the show, I worried, "It's a fragrant crowd, a rattle-your-jewelry crowd." I misjudged them. I should have recalled my experience with Philadelphia/New Jersey audiences: engaged, enthusiastic, sometimes a little liquored up.

The guy next to me had never seen Richard before. I kept seeing him out of the corner of my eye, transfixed. I leaned over to him after the opener, "I Feel So Good," and quipped, "Don't worry. It gets better." At the end of the show, he was too choked up to put into words, other than to say how emotional he found it.

Man, I take so much for granted. We who go to a lot of these shows take them for granted, I think.

I felt myself crawl up inside one of the songs tonight, during a long solo, to listen to a couple of motifs chattering with each other, back and forth, like birds speaking a language I only thought I understood. Here I am now, and I can't even remember which song it was, to share it with you. I was in that forest, and I'm out of it now.

This was one of those nights that I didn't mind at all that RT was playing "1952 Vincent Black Lightning"; in fact, I anticipated it. I really got it tonight, the power of the story, in a way I haven't in a long time. Same with "Beeswing," which he dedicated to someone named Barbara ("May I call you Barb?") for her birthday. The people around me leaned forward, chins on fists, drawn in by every turn of the page of these stories.

There's a comfort in these tales, and yet tonight there seemed to be a newness, fueled by some divine energy. I choose to think of it as love, sappy as that may sound. It's the overwhelming, life-giving energy of people who really wanted to be there, who really felt that music and appreciated what has become an annual tradition. That energy, and the energy which burns through Richard's art like the flame on a perfect wick, constant and true.

Surprises? Well, I didn't expect "She Twists the Knife Again" or "Dimming of the Day." And I didn't expect to smile so much that my jaws would be sore, which is what I'm feeling right now.

Pam