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?