New Haven, June 26, 2015

Lucinda headlined the International Festival of Arts and Ideas on the New Haven Green last night, on a gorgeous summer evening. After a truly impressive run, stoger is traveling home today, so I will post the setlist in his stead. Driving the three hours to the show, hoping to make it in time, I just kept thinking that it felt so much like driving in “I Just Wanted to See You So Bad”! Lu’s lyrics are everywhere in life.

– Something Wicked This Way Comes
– Can’t Let Go (stoger sings!)
– Car Wheels on a Gravel Road (with a restart about half way through the song when Lu stops and says something about “rules” and then “stand wherever, sit wherever” – both of which appear to be directed at something going on in the audience; perhaps overzealous security?)
– Drunken Angel (“This one strikes a chord with people.”)
– People Talkin (stoger grooves!)
– Passionate Kisses (solo)
– Lake Charles (“This is another one that strikes a chord with people.” Lu says that Clyde’s friends scattered some of his ashes over Lake Pontchartrain. “So you can be from Louisiana if you want!”)
Lu dedicates the next two songs to the victims in South Carolina:
– World Without Tears
– So Much Trouble in the World.
– Are You Down
Lu introduces band and notes that “Butch gets the most applause… We don’t know why that is.” 
– Protection
– Foolishness (dedicated to Obama)(stoger sings AND dances!)
– Changed the Locks
– Honey Bee
– Joy
– Righteously (with a black tee shirt thrown on stage??)
– The Rising
– Get Right With God
– Should I Stay or Should I Go
– Rockin in the Free World

Someone sitting near us was telling his wife or girlfriend before the show that Lucinda’s music is “like if Janis Joplin and Waylon Jennings had a love child.” I know he was being complimentary, but it felt a little reductionist because Lu is so singular, but I will accept the Lu love.

The fashion report is that Lu changed her jewelry from silver-themed to gold! Funky gold alligator necklace and gold accents on a mala prayer bead bracelet on her left wrist. The boots were brightly embroidered short Old Gringos.

I take pictures during concerts, so this comment indicts me as well, but so many people now seem to be more busy documenting concerts than experiencing them. I happily took some pictures of people who wanted a shot of themselves with Lu in the background, but it struck me last night that I’m going to stop doing so much of that, including taking my own and then looking down to see the shot. It’s the dialogue with the heart that matters during Lu’s shows, not the cool pictures at the expense of it (although I did get one total goddess shot of Lu… oh well, let’s see what I do at next Lu show when I’m enthralled and thinking it’s the happiest place on earth and want to share it with everyone). I bet it’s irritating for the artist to be looking at a bunch of iphones instead of audience faces, tho.

Stoger, Anything to add? Did I miss anything? Oh, there was the grandmotherly woman who was essentially doing interpretive dances in between tokes, and the woman at the stage who was in the throes of religious-like ecstasy, resting her hands in a prayer pose on the stage with her eyes closed. I know just how they feel! I love that Lu creates these moments for us. Such a gift. That’s what it’s all about. It never gets old.