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Taras is currently in both the Richard Thompson Trio and Merle Haggard’s band. And his own band the Mojo Monkey’s. He played on Matt Blake’s CD I think.
Not only does Phil play the iconic keys on Iron Butterfly’s most famous song currently, he sings the lead!
Matt and Doug yes. With Phil Parlapiano and Taras and others.
Matt Blake killed it. His songs were great.
Edit: Phil P. is on tour with Iron Butterfly!
This has been an especially well-reported tour. Thanks to all the road warriors who went out there late at night and in the dark to cover the story.
Special thanks to T.O. who put a lot of time and effort to his tour reports and exclusive photos. A lot of emails were flying around in the middle of the night to make all of this possible. 8)
Few requests yes but all of them granted, no? Request away you semi-rural fan.
P.S. Request Wrap My Head Around That and see what happens.
From T.O.:
Well this will give new meaning to what happens in Vegas needs to stay in Vegas. After a long hot bouncing drive from Missoula to Las Vegas, with a stop over in Provo it started to feel like there was light at the end of the tunnel. Only two more drives on the Beverly Hillbillies bus to go and a night in Sin City. That light in the tunnel was an oncoming train, and bad went to…. ridiculous. At first things seemed good -a day room at the hotel, a chance to get off the bus and relax before the show, a little dinner–ok so far so good. Then it was time to pack up the luggage and go down and meet the runner who was picking us up to take us to the venue. Yeah. Good plan. The runner, where is the runner? After walking thru a large casino going to the door where we thought we were getting picked up- nope that can’t be it, that’s Las Vegas Blvd (one of the busiest streets in the country) and there’s no pick up area. Let’s walk back through the casino to the other door -nope not that one either. An already upset Lucinda is saying “I thought you knew where we were going. We are going to be late”. Right. Let’s call the tour mgr and have him call the missing runner. Oh that’s right it’s Las Vegas and we’re standing in front of a casino-cell phones don’t work. What the *&^%. Lucinda now really upset. As Boz Scaggs sang, (There’s A) Breakdown Dead Ahead. What to do, what the f*** to do? Wait, where’s Lucinda going? She is going to walk to the gig thru a crowded Las Vegas outdoor mall pulling close to 100 lbs of luggage. This is going to be bad. Lucinda gets to front door of gig with everyone inside and walks up to the doorman. “Hi—I’m Lucinda Williams and I’m the artist playing here tonight”. Awesome.This can’t be happening. It is. Way too Spinal Tap for comfort. Maybe someday we’ll laugh about this.
After emotions calmed down, Lucinda just walked out and knocked it out of the park. How can she do that?
And yes she told most of the above story during the show. They don’t get any more honest than her. Miss Open Book.
A lot of the songs were requests —and lots of highlights – well there was just a little anger being channeled into the show. Right In Time back in the set for the first time in awhile. Come On and Seeing Black were red hot back to back. Great venue.
Ok we’re thru the worst right? Wrong. Let’s head to the bus. Let’s get lost in building. Bus generator is out yet again. Bus is parked in loading dock of building -it’s 8000 degrees on the bus and the garbage in the loading dock is coming to life. This cannot be real.
Please god let this night end. After the bus generator gets charged after a two hour delay-we’re on our way Taos- all is going to be good now right?
Nope -not yet. Fat chance.
From The Tom:
All the signs were there. The show sold out in a couple hours, everyone was telling us that we would love Missoula. They weren’t lying. It’s a very unique thing from night to night but sometimes you can just feel the energy the minute you walk in the venue and this was one of those nights. There was definitely electricity in the Top Hat. With all of the problems with bus etc. really starting to wear on everyone (little did we know it was about to get worse) it was perfect timing for a night like this. Simply a fantastic rowdy,vocal crowd and Lu loved every minute of it. On a song not -great versions of Those Three Days, Everything But The Truth and it was great to hear Atonement again.
Thank you Missoula for being there on night when we really needed it. We will absolutely be back.
From Tom:
I think we can officially, and retroactively, call this tour the Fingers Crossed Tour. Every time we get on the bus to head to next city -especially with the long drives -everyone crosses their fingers that we’ll make it. Right after we got to Billings the electrical generator blew out, but we did get there. Had a great mellow night before the show with dinner at Walker’s and then across the street at Jake’s.
A long time Lu fan who travels around to most of the shows had reached and wondered if 2 Kool 2 Be Forgotten was going to be in the setlist in Billings. Thinking it was a request we put it in. As Lu sang the line “Rosedale Mississippi Magic City juke joint” the crowd cheered and then we realized why he asked the question. You never quite know what you’re going to get closing out a festival on a Sunday but everything was perfect -the crowd, the weather. the hospitality of everyone working the festival. Magic City indeed.
Fingers crossed as we head to Missoula.
From Tom:
Someone in Calgary told how acoustically tuned the Winspear is -we have played there before but I believe it may have been redone since that last time Lucinda was there. It is definitely one of the “livest” rooms we’ve played in a while—really beautiful. We got a lot of requests and some of those turned out to be perfect requests for this room. Side Of The Road, Blue, Fruits Of My Labor were all requests and sounded incredible as Lucinda was in excellent voice. We also surprisingly had multiple requests for Sweet Side so Lu decided to do that for the first time on the run. Thanks Edmonton for a great night.PLACES WE LOVE (EDMONTON)
Sherlock Holmes English Pub
From Tom:
Well that was bit more of an exciting ride from Edmonton to Fargo—especially after we crossed the border. Several times the bus was really swaying and felt like it was going off onto the shoulder—and in some really wicked potholes and it made for the scariest ride we’ve probably ever had -and also kept most everyone up most of the night. Red Fred the driver needs to slow down a little bit. On the lighter side Red was actually wearing a Fred Sanford / Redd Foxx t-shirt, but he wouldn’t let anyone take a picture of it. He did tell someone in our crew that people have said that he’s been compared to Fred Sanford for years.OK more importantly we had a great show and a great lively crowd. Lu mentioned at the beginning of the show that she liked to hear the crowd make some noise and they definitely did -as I recall much different than the last time we were there when it seemed that the city’s “old guard” sat in the from row. That was definitely not the case this time.
Cold Day In Hell and Greenville both made their first appearances in the set on this leg—and it was great to hear both of them. Just can never fit everything in.
At this point we were just glad we made it to Fargo at all. There but for the grace Red Fred go us.
From Tom:
I believe this was the first time ever in Bismarck and Lu was in particularly talkative mood. Right form the beginning she said “I think I’ll tell all the stories behind these songs tonight”. Not sure where that came from but for the entire first 2/3 of the set she told very detailed stories about each song. Every show is different and tonight was no exception. Almost every song in the set was a request. West and Fruits Of My Labor were real highlights and it’s always cool as there is a small lyrical thread between the songs, albeit unintended. In West Lu sings “come out West and see the best that it can be..” In Fruits Of My Labor Lu sings “I got in my car and drove out west…”.
And now we’ll all get back on the bus and head out west to Magic City. Thanks Bismarck.
