London 11/9 & 10

Not to rub it in Mr. Stoger, but if you were on Facebook, you would have seen some sound check pictures posted from the hall. 🙄

Sorry abaut spelling mistakes. My iPhone doesn’t help me much!!!

I assume BBC Radio 3 will be making a broadcast of these shows, as they are promoting this festival and there were audience-facing Mics at the front of the stage.
If anyone knows when this broadcast is going to take place, please let me know here, as I want to hear it.

The performance, sound and vista last night were truly truly wonderful. I can’t wait for Part 2 tonight 🙂

Great reports! Lu sounds in great voice on that video, LWj.

Blessed, thanks for the set lists, according to my handwritten notes (& memory unless I blacked out due to extreme overexcitement for 10 minutes!) Lu only played Passionate Kisses solo on the first night, Lake Charles & Motherless Children weren’t played at all, Doug joined her for Side of The Road, which was the second song of the night. Also only Bitter Memory was played and not Stowaway. Your second night setlist is spot on.

Wow what an incredible pair of shows, can’t decide which one was better, more than worth the 3 year wait, we were royally spoiled with virtually two completely different sets of songs. Boths shows were structured in a similar fashion starting with just Lucinda solo with Doug, then David then Butch joining as the sets progressed with the sets getting more & more rockier, the only difference being on the first night we got an additional solo Lucinda song with Blessed as the first encore. Also the second night’s set seem to get more rockier earlier on and for longer. Lucinda seemed to really enjoy both nights recounting numerous anecdotes and didn’t seem nervous at all, at previous London shows she has commented about how daunting it can be to play here, she also commented both nights on how good the sound of the room was, and it did sound great, I can speak from personal experience that this is not always the case there, so thanks to the sound guys whoever they were!

On the 2nd night I could see that Ray Davies was watching from the side of the stage and she later dedicated Essence to him as he had requested it. One other “celeb” spot in the audience was the great Joe Boyd, I’m sure there would have been others there.

Particular highlights for me were…
Born To Be Loved – especially loved David’s upright bass playing on this.
Get Right With God (both nights) – played with real fervour and great vocals from the whole band with Lu & David singing “Get Right With God” then Doug & Butch instantly responding with “Standing On The Rock” during the song’s finale.
Lake Charles – loved to hear this played solo, couldn’t have asked for a better start to the 2nd night!
Blue – Doug’s guitar work on this was simply beautiful.
Seeing Black – which I (very loudly!) shouted out for (and also someone a couple of rows behind me) when the band returned for the encores on the 2nd night.

Re the aborted Salt of the Earth – following the announcement from Lucinda that they were now going to play a cover of Stones song there was a debate with the band whether Lucinda should play the guitar or not, she didn’t, then the song was aborted after about a minute or so with Lucinda (off mic) saying to the band “do we know this song or not?” with some comments about there being an extra break or something followed by “this is really embarrassing” and then some comments were directed to the side of the stage asking if she “had to play the song” and would she “get in trouble if she didn’t” before eventually walking up to the microphone and saying “to be perfectly frank, it’s not one of their best songs anyway” which received a big round of applause & quite a few cheers.

Mostly though the audience were very quiet & reverential especially on the 1st night which was partly down to the venue, it did feel like being in some sort of modern church at times which I guess was not entirely inappropriate! Things felt a bit looser on the 2nd night, there were quite a lot of shouted out requests when they returned for the encores.

On the 2nd night Lucinda mentioned that the BBC had recorded the 1st night, she wasn’t sure if they were recording the 2nd (I think that was what she said). I think it may have been at this point that she made a very funny & astute quip about the BBC and their “recent problems”.

For guitar fans – Doug used just 3 guitars both nights, oscillating between black & blonde Strats for the quieter numbers then usually a black Les Paul for most of the louder ones, however he used one of the Strats on Unsuffer Me which made him sound almost Hendrix-like at times. He also used the black Strat on Get Right With God both nights.

And finally, I really enjoyed the new funkier numbers, perhaps the new album might be called Take It To The Bridge!

Your humble London correspondent.

Tremendous, exile (and blessed), thank you. It sounds like blessed was quoting from a set list for night one, what with the slash marks. I didn’t think Bitter Memory and Stowaway would be back to back, but it sounds like fans who went both nights got the pair. And how about Ugly Truth & Minneapolis back to back–oh my God.

Dr. W, I’m still waiting on that drummer “red card” throwaway comment of yours to be expanded upon. I’ve seen her turn and issue a kind of verbal yellow, but this sounds radical!

bigsubi, your impressions?

First of all, Thank You, Thank You Lucinda and TomO for Ugly Truth and Copenhagen on Sunday night.

Now a few thought on a superb weekend, thanks to very kind stage staff I managed to aquire a set list for each night at the end of the shows, Blessed and Exile earlier reports are very good and summed up much of what happened, although I would agree with Exile that Blessed seems to be quoting from a set list, however there were slight changes
Saturday started at 08:35 with Lu doing Passionate Kisses solo, then being joined bu Doug for Side Of The Road and Jackson, the plan at this point was for David to join them on stage for three songs, however Butch also walked on stage much to the amusement of Lu who wondered what was going on, and promplty telling Butch he should not be there (hence the Red Card), some good natured banter ended with Butch staying with the sound board staff stageside, whilst the others did World Without Tears, Lu then explained about the situation with her Brother before playing I Don`t Know How You`re Livin`, this was the most poignant moment of the weekend for me as we had arranged to meet my Nephew for Monday breakfast the first time we had met in over thirty years, he so much wanted to get in touch with the Scottish arm of his family after losing touch all those years ago, went great and sure will not be another 30 years, and his brother hopes to make it next time. Butch finally gets his cue right and joins for Fruits Of My Labour followed by my personal Saturday highlight Bus To Baton Rouge, those last two verses always send a shiver down my spine, at this point Lucinda commented on how great a venue it was and that the sound was good so Mama was happy, therefore everyone was happy.
The rest of the set was as described by others above with two NEW songs Bitter Memory and Something Wicked This Way Comes and Lu starting with the wrong guitar on Bleeding Fingers…superb work by Doug on Essence a three song encore and ending a long day at 10:36.

Sunday began at 08:28, again with Lu solo on Lake Charles, Doug joined then for Greenville, then David joined in and the tear in the corner of my eye had hardly dried when Lucinda announced a request for someone who is here tonight and played Ugly Truth followed by Minneapolis and one of my all time favourites Blue (first time live for me) and that teardrop just got bigger and bigger then she pulled out Copenhagen……at this point I though I had died and gone to Lucinda heaven…what an opening half dozen, Overtime,Concrete & Barbed Wire were followed by another new track Stowaway then Crescent City into Are You Down (just noticed my copy of set list says Are Love Down) another track in which Doug excelled and as he finished the word sublime entered my head. Drunken Angel was followed by yet another new song Protection and then yet another which sounds so good when done live Out Of Touch, by this time the crowd were really warming to the task and I am sure the band sensed this as they were just superb on the next one Unsuffer Me all four of them in top form at the same time, I lost count of how many sticks Butch went through on this song alone, I got a signed stick from Butch in Dublin 2007 and had my eye on one of these he had thrown over his shoulder, but did not manage to get one…the first part the concluded with Cross To Bear,Come On,Righteously and Honey Bee.
After a short break the four encores began with Lu doing a request from by Ray Davies, one of only three songs played both nights Essence followed by Seeing Black being introduced by Lucinda explaining the story behind the song then came the aborted Salt Of The Earth and yet another blistering Get Right With God to close with the show ending at 10:34.

A great weekend I must be pleased, got a total of 45 tracks 42 of which were different, we never got any Blessed tour dates, but over the two nights Lucinda played half of the album and they are great live and also got two NEW tracks each night and the quality of these makes the prospect of a new album in 2013 very exciting……..now……

Lucinda please tour the new album with us here in the UK and even better in here in Scotland.

Hope this has not bored you to death and just to finish by once more thanking Lucinda, Tom O and the band.

Love,Peace and Revolution.