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Thanks Sean and Tony. I forgot to report that at the end of “Rockin’ in the Free World,” Lu started quoting some Dylan Thomas (“Do not go gentle. . .”).
Yours back on [boring, dull] terra firma, Stoger
“Guitar Pull” in the Round, with Dave Alvin, Charlie Sexton, and Steve Earle
The stage is set up with five chairs, but only four guitars. Stuart Mathis was never introduced, though he backed not only Lu’s three songs, but some others too–Dave Alvin calling for a particular chord on one of his, and Stuart answering the summons.
1 Blue
2 Bad News Blues {Lu calls for the instrumental break by saying “this is the solo part” + she repeats some lyrics at end, as the boys are trying to figure out how to close it. After, she pats Steve’s shoulder and thanks him for his harmonica work on it, and for helping her in general through the years]
3 Passionate Kisses [with a long intro, as was the tendency of the other guys on theirs: Nashville is deemed “NashVegas” and Chapin, Patty L, and Emmylou are praised, Shania Twain dissed]Nice format. After Charlie does a song about him and his brother Will, Lu speaks up to praise it and ask more about it, though it was not her turn next.
May her guitar days come back soon. .. .
The “guitar pull” awaits us today, Lu with three others; I’ll report. Lu did one Merle Haggard song in a mass tribute yesterday. I figure we’ll get five or six tunes today, depending on the format. Of course there’s a certain paradox in that a woman who no longer plays guitar will be anchoring the “guitar pull,” but hey.
Yours from the Norwegian Jewel, surrounded by SUNNY skies. . .
Night Two Setlist:
1 Faith & Grace
2 Something Wicked. . .
[Lu pauses to tell the crowd why she played the first one, all of us being in need of faith and grace in these times]
3 Real Live Bleeding. . .
4 Can’t Let Go
5 Drunken Angel [intro includes, foreshadowingly, mention of Charlie Sexton playing Townes Van Zandt in the movie Blaze]
6 Fruits of My Labor
7 Ventura [her intro mentions Buck Owens & Dwight Yoakam]
8 Are You Down [Lu kind of apologizes after for it not being “country enough” for this cruise: then brands her own music as “goulash”]
9 Let’s Get the Band. . .
10 Essence [with the producer of that album, Charlie Sexton, on guitar]
11 You Can’t Rule Me [with Sexton]
12 Joy [with Wayne Kramer (of MC-5?) on further guitar: he comes running on the stage and takes a nasty fall; whether intentional or not, Lu seems to enjoy it. Also, tour manager Travis joins the front row to take pics]
13 Rockin’ in the Free World [with everybody]Sea legs good, Internet Cafe functional. Night One:
1 Steal Your Love
2 Right in Time
3Those Three Days [Lu calls this crowd of outlaws “a tad bit wilder” than the usual land lubbers]
4 Lake Charles [David reverts from upright to standard: thus, no solo]
5 Big Black Train
6 Are You Down [after, a fan shouts out “Are You Alright” & Lu pauses before saying “I’m fine.” A beat later, she interprets this as a request]
7 Let’s Get the Band Back Together [punctuated by frequent throat spraying]
8 Out of Touch
9 Stolen Moments [Lu seems tentative and asks the crowd if they understand the Tom Petty intro narrative]
10 Essence
11 You Can’t Rule Me
12 RighteouslyShe’s amphibious, everyone! This fine set was indoors, nothing for the wind to blow over on stage. Grumpymama is in the house, so to speak. Who else?
I don’t know what the reception/posting opportunities will be while on board, especially for low-tech me. But I will do my best, either during or after.
Seventeen songs, three of them covers, graced the set of Plains last night–the side project of Katie Crutchfield and her sister bard Jess Williamson. Pappy & Harriets moved the show from outdoors to indoors late in the game; the Plains tour manager, one Peyton, told me they arrived in town fully expecting to perform outdoors (as both Lucinda and Katie’s band Waxahatchee had done in the past there). Apparently it takes a 100& complete sellout to merit this; we were crammed indoors like sardines, more than at any of the half dozen shows I’ve seen indoors there. The covers were former Lu collaborator (and Outlaw Cruise participant) Terry Allen’s “Amarillo Highway” and the chestnut “Mamas Don’t Let your Babies Grow Up to be Cowboys” and some Dixie Chicks number. No Lucinda covers, despite my Little Honey t-shirt up front and a tendency to cover Lu in the traditional Waxahatchee configuration.
They played all 10 songs from the 2022 Plains record, plus two of my favorite Waxa compositions of Katie’s (“Can’t Do Much” & “Lilacs”) plus two Jess Williamson songs, one of them a new unreleased one. On the Plains record itself, the writing credits are split fairly evenly: five, four, and one cover. At both my live hearings, “Lilacs” was dedicated to a fellow singer-songwriter, Lucinda in Evanston and last night’s fine opener, a gentleman from North Carolina whose name I am blanking on. Both he and Plains had full backing bands.
I didn’t talk to Katie, but briefly to the Texas-born Jess. The tour manager took my liner notes for them to sign. Just as well, for I am quite shy about asking women to sign topless images of themselves.
Let the land shows go on hiatus while the liquid shows begin!
Aye aye, Cap’n. Funny, the name “stoger” is in such small print on the poster that some folk might miss it. Yes, despite David Foster Wallace’s compelling essay “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again,” it’s ship ahoy for this Tennessee landlocked boy. At my age (let’s leave that numeral ambiguous), this will be my maiden voyage on the high seas. As the Chuck Prophet song title says, “Wish Me Luck.”
Tony and easyMike, I returned to the “scene of the crime” last night, Pappy & Harriets, for Plains–the side project of Waxahatchee frontwoman (and super Lu fan) Katie Crutchfield. I didn’t stay at the onsite “hotel,” but full electricity seemed prevalent all across the grounds. I will update the Crutchfield strand with a brief report soon.
Not sure the format, seangod, but I think it will be a good domestic year, even with two European stints and an Aussie one.
Signed? Signed? I like it, guys, though I’m a brick-and-mortar kind of fellow, and fancy that I might get Lu to sign my copy at, say, the foot of the bus, or during a lucky backstage Green Room get. But April is not the cruelest month, at least not next year: let’s look forward.
IS SHE TOO BLUE FOR YOU: LU DOES A POLITICAL BENEFIT FOR US HOUSE CANDIDATE HEIDI CAMPBELL
That’s Williams, Campbell, and Devon _______ left to right, who opened with three songs, including a cover of Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On?”
This set featured Stuart Mathis and Travis Stephens on twin guitars (see the Prine tribute thread)
1 Blessed
2 Passionate Kisses [with much acclaim to “Chapin”]
3 World Without Tears
4 People Talkin’ [with Travis doing some, but not all, of the background vocals David normally does]
5 Fruits of my Labor [followed by Lu dissing a Vanity Fair interviewer who asked her why she chose to live in Nashville]
6 Out of Touch [more like the stripped-down version on the Car Wheels demos than today’s usual rocker]
7 You Can’t Rule Me [“I’ve been really looking forward to doing this one”]
8 So Much Trouble in the World [Marley]
9 We Have Come Too Far to Turn Around [some might remember this from a few years ago, written for a documentary which never came out: far as I know, it won’t be on the upcoming 2023 album, but oh baby–“anthemic” I believe I called it in a previous post]
10 Keep on Rockin’ in the Free World [even the aging lefties in the seats get up for this one]A unique show, in a house where Lucinda once appeared with her father in the “Poetry Sung, Poetry Said” series (the Belcourt Theatre). In an adjacent hall, the excellent Todd Field/Cate Blanchett film Tar proceeded apace, hopefully without too much fuzz from the Stephens guitar bleeding through.
Heidi Campbell spoke briefly between Devon’s short set and Lu’s set, mentioning “I Lost It” as her favorite Lu song and quoting from it.
