Phoenix 8/8

From Tom:

By the time we got to Phoenix….Well we made it, that’s about all there is to say at this point. AC still only partially working, but hey who needs it, it’s only 108. With two separate shows, the first one at the beautiful little theater in the Musical Instrument Museum and the second night at the Crescent Club we decided it was a great opportunity to do very different shows. The first one at the MIM was billed as a stripped down night of Ballads and Blues, for lack of a better way to put it, and the second night was the rock night. We’ve only tried doing that one other time, in Chicago a couple years ago and it may be something we do more of as it really gives Lu and the band a chance to do some different songs that don’t get played as often-and just in general a completely different style of show. Of course we made a big list of songs for this first night and a lot of them still didn’t make it. We also thought it would be cool to have Lu start the show with some solo songs and then have the band members come out and join in as the set went along, and that gave the show a completely different flow. There were several songs that hadn’t been played for awhile -or very much. Walk On was only the third or fourth time she had played it. Ugly Truth hadn’t been played for a couple years and was a real highlight -it worked really going into Overtime which also doesn’t get played as much as it should. Another one that hadn’t been played in quite awhile was Still I Long For Your Kiss -Lu just hadn’t liked it the last couple of times it was played so it was taking a long rest, and maybe that’s all it needed as it was a great version of it -and most of all she was happy with it.
All in all a very different and special Lu show. It seemed like a night that everyone in the band just relaxed a bit from all the challenges this leg presented. It didn’t hurt that everyone that wasn’t going home to Los Angeles was now of the bus for good.
Next up -a rocking’ night at the Crescent.