State College, PA, October 29, 2008

Written for the RT list just a few hours ago, and now I must get some sleep.


State Theatre, State College, PA, October 29, 2008

Here in State College, Pennsylvania, rowdy young men are bruising up and down College Avenue shouting as if part of some Milgram experiment. Apparently it's got to do with some kind of sporting event. What do I know? I just go to Richard Thompson concerts.

Cozy in the confines of the very last seat of the front row, stage right--with a speaker right next to my head--I felt anonymous enough to jot down a set list.

I Feel So Good
Shoot Out the Lights
Time's Gonna Break You
Hope You Like the New Me
Dad's Gonna Kill Me
Hots for the Smarts
Walking the Long Miles Home
I Want To See the Bright Lights Tonight
Sunset Song
1952 Vincent Black Lightning
Persuasion
Crawl Back Under My Stone
Great Valerio
Cooksferry Queen
King of Bohemia
Valerie

encore:
Beeswing

encore 2:
Dimming of the Day
Substitute

This was, I think, a different "base" set list from the ones I encountered in Brattleboro and State College. "Beeswing" and "Dimming" were requests, but they were already very likely to be played in the slots in which they were played. A request for "MGB-GT" was denied by RT, apologetically ("I'm very rusty--and so are the cars").

I scribbled a few other notes during the show...for "Sunset Song," something about the tension between pleading and resignation in the instrumental melody.

"Persuasion": "light nimble rough rich." It seemed stripped down, almost tossed off, almost unconscious, in a very appealing manner. Sometimes I hear RT strain at this song, seem to struggle with it. maybe even overreach. Tonight it was very natural. Not that it didn't have rich emotional moments; I noticed, for the first time, the synchrony of sound and intent when his voice arches high on the word "start."

"Beeswing" had him accusing us of being "softies" and requesting a "big girls' blouse song," which had me in mild convulsions. (I never heard that term before about a year ago, and now I keep running into it.)

"King of Bohemia" was as lovely and melancholy as anyone could have hoped, and "Valerie" and "Cooksferry Queen" as vigorous.

"Wall of Death" has seemed slightly problematic to me these last three shows. This is where I admit certain disquieting observations I've kept to myself until now. At Brattleboro, and especially at Princeton, I felt that I was seeing the old man inside the young man during this song: less precision and passion in the guitar and, at Brattleboro, a strange, slight break in RT's voice when I thought I could hear weariness. Tonight, I caught some of that same hesitation, slight distractions or missteps, in the first several songs. But by the time he got to "Wall of Death," he had more than warmed up. It was stately and a little wistful--there's a real sense of begging in "Let me ride...one more time."

And by the time he got to "Substitute," he sounded as if he could go on for hours more.

I drew a picture during "King of Bohemia." It shows the black curtains at the back of the stage in this shabby-grand 1930s theater, with a lighting effect on them of a circular disk of stylized vines and curlicues, in a darker black. At the very bottom of the curtains, from my vista, was the very small shadow of RT's head and a bit of his shoulders, as if he was some small thing emerging into something vast and dark.

Pam