Pittsburgh, March 2002

Someday I'll have to fill in all the details--venues, dates, etc.--for some of these RT-list messages.



So I've come home to the veritable flood of messages about last night's Pittsburgh show. (Can you read my sarcasm?) OK, maybe the rest of you guys have lives to lead beyond the terminal and the feet of RT, so I'll won't whine too much. I'll try to keep my comments brief and hope that someone else elaborates.

Excellent show. Lots of newish material. I have the "official" set list and will herewith reproduce it, hoping against hope that I am not thereby preventing the nice man who gave it to me from ever bestowing such a gift again. Those of you who have seen RT's set lists and who have been keeping up with recent concert threads should be able to while away a happy hour figuring out these notes.

Running down the left of the long side of a 3 x 5 index card, graph ruled:

GETH
COLD X
CRAWL
OUTSIDE
DADDY
SLOTH
SIR PAT
[there is a bracket next to the latter two titles, and an underscore is
below them]
DESTINY
MADONNA
SO BEN
SHEN
OOPS!
[the last three are bracketed]
GHOST U
TIDE
[another underscore]
CANT W
PERSUASION
COOKS
DRUNKARDS

In the right-hand column, floating around near the Getty numbers:

DIM
FEEL
MIS

Then a box appears, bisected by a horizontal line. Above the line:

VINCE
AULD

Below it:

WALL
UNSEEN

He didn't keep to this set list. I think it contains some alternatives (we didn't get "Word Unspoken, Sight Unseen"...I knew that there was something I wanted to hear that I missed!) and we also got some requests ("Jimmy Shands").

Fine voice. Excellent mood. Wonderful, exploratory guitar...that attitude that suggests he could just stand there all day and play, whether we were there or not, if he deemed it appropriate. Nice suit jacket...but it's kind of long, isn't it? Sort of looked like he borrowed it from Dad.

One of the ballsiest things I've ever seen him do: He started to joke about the Taliban. Something like: "You know, many things that we think are bad have their good points." He seemed to back off this, maybe because he wasn't sure where it was going or because he lost his nerve or because the crowd wasn't responding as he expected. I was very aware of being not too far from the site in Pennsylvania where the plane that was headed for downtown Washington had been crashed, almost six months after the fact. I was also aware that I was hearing an avowed Muslim attempt a jibe that might really confuse some people. Maybe other people in the audience had these thoughts as well, and maybe he perceived their reactions.

The word "perverse" comes up a lot when it comes to RT. I know I use it pretty often, and in the Humphries bio, which I'm reading (at last I've dragged myself past page 96!), it comes up, especially in connection with Joe Boyd. But Boyd is also the person who was quoted as saying that back in the early days of Fairport, "My instinct was always to trust Richard in every possible situation. I would always say to myself that whatever Richard felt or wanted, or what his instincts were about something, were the ones that were apt to be right."

I couldn't agree more about Richard's musical instincts, insofar as allowing himself and being allowed to respond to them has created the musician he is today. I drove back from Pittsburgh listening to Richard provide Dylanesque backing to Ian Matthews, do oldies with the Bunch, and play long-legged electric guitar with the Golden Palominos. Last night I heard him take a Britney Spears hit and, as Rob put it when I burned up my cell-phone minutes enthusing to him about it, "find the song in there."

The timbre of Richard's voice is probably my single favorite thing about him as a musician, and it's the part over which he's had least control. But what he's done to imbue everything he touches with his own sound--while never grandstanding or grafting something on where it doesn't belong--is quite amazing, is entirely to his credit, and is certainly the result of a lot of concentration, work, and strongmindedness. It's not that he can do anything; it's that he can do anything he wants, and he wants the right things.

And the divine? Where does some higher being come in?

Oh, blah blah blah. Anyone else?

- - -

Duane said:

>I am drawing a blank on the second encore. What did he do? Anybody? I >don't think it was Wall of Death and I am certain it wasn't Words Unspoken >Sight Unseen. I really must start paying more attention... But by then I >was just grinning from the joy.

Wasn't that "Jimmy Shands," followed by "I Misunderstood"? He was ignoring strident requests for "Beeswing."

I could not make out the "Gethsemane" lyrics in my seat one meter from RT's shinbones, but that might have been because they weren't familiar. Or maybe the sound wasn't totally right yet. I know next to nothing about sound, but I bet that even after Simon and others have gotten everything set up where they want it, the presence of hundreds of sweaty bodies must affect the acoustics somewhat.

Speaking of sweaty bodies...did I misinterpret things because of where I was sitting, or were the house lights on for most of the show? It seemed very bright.