McCarter Theatre, Princeton, NJ, October 30, 2001

Chris Bates said, "If we choose to see him (or any act, for that matter) more than biannually, this is something that we need to accept. The vast majority of his audience aren't like us, I imagine."

One hopes!

I've got to disagree with Kirk here on the quality of the McCarter show...although he's not the first person I've heard say that RT seemed to be phoning in bits of it. I found it energetic, fairly precise, and soulful throughout.

He did 22 songs, half of which were relatively new--not all new to those of us who see him all the time, of course. Three were from Mock Tudor (Cooksferry, Crawl Back, Dry My Tears). Five were as-yet-unrecorded Thompson compositions, included the already-oft-heard "My Daddy Is a Mummy." Two were covers from the Getty show. One, "Persuasion," was also relatively new (and gets better with each of RT's solo essays of it; I think at first he really missed having Teddy there).

Of the older (pre-MT) songs he did, only "Razor Dance" and "Turning of the Tide" were letdowns. (I admit to not caring much for ToTT, and I got a bit antsy at that point in the program.) His guitar work on "Shoot Out the Lights" and "Down Where the Drunkards Roll" was up to his usual high standards. SoTL revealed a rather elaborate, almost too-out-there conversation between high and low notes on the guitar, whereas Drunkards was sublimely beautiful, with bagpipe-like skirls that shimmered between a call to arms and a funeral lament. "Wall of Death" was quite different, as already discussed. "1952 Vincent Black Lightning" was...well, it was 1952 VBL, and therefore almost mandatory. (He didn't accept requests to do his other perennial, "Beeswing.")

I thought that, throughout the set, he took more chances, vocally, than I expected him to. Yeah, he screwed up some lyrics on "Razor Dance" (and rebounded fairly quickly), but it's been a long time since I've seen him do a show where he hasn't flubbed at least one lyric, and I don't hold it against him.

He left himself somewhat open to requests, though he didn't leave a lot of time for them.

I can't speak for the sound, since I was in an iffy seat for sound anyway (front and center--so I was getting a sort of echo from in back of me). (Am I complaining? Hell, no!)

I've seen him 20 or 30 times in the past couple of years; I've been to shows that were less than his best, and this didn't feel like one of them to me.

So Kirk, if you're sick of seeing him and want to get rid of those Englewood tickets.... :^)

Pam