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Just finished my last of five shows I was able to catch on this solo tour,
Santa Barbara, CA
Scottsdale, AZ
Oakland, CA (Bob Weir, First Night)
Medford, OR
Bend, ORSome random observations and news tidbits,
-Bruce confirmed tonight in Bend that, while he wasn’t originally planning to put out an album or some sort of release from the 22-show solo tour, he had changed his mind and that he would in fact be putting together a release. He then launched into “The Way It is” while starkly informing the audience “This song will definitely NOT be on it”
-Bruce shared with the audience in Medford that “Stranger” had a reading a couple weeks ago with some “Executives” and that it went horribly. He seemed to be serious and ended by saying it’ll probably be a “very long time” before anyone ever sees the play come to life again.
-Adding to the technical difficulties from Oakland, the Bend show had some horrible sound glitches and terrible feedback coming out of the right hand side of the theater sound system. Bruce didn’t seem to be aware of it but the audience definitely was.
-“I Can’t make you love me” is definitely a staple of his now, being played at every show I saw except Oakland. He went into detail in Medford about how it was written by an ex-football player and how he was “afraid he’d beat my ass” if he changed it around too much, but that in the end he was very proud of contributing to the song.
-Each show had a section of songs dedicated to the play, and the audience was really eating it up each time he did this. “Where’s the Bat” and “Holy Trinity” were the clear favorites at every show he did them.
-I certainly had more Marijuana smoke blown in my face in Oakland than i’ve probably ever experienced before at a Hornsby show, so that was interesting and slightly different. Still a great show, worth it alone for “Most of the time” with Bruce on Piano.
-Bruce rocked an absolutely epic solo-piano rendition of “Super Freak” in scottsdale after it being yelled out by an audience member.
-I had the VIP experience for the Bend show but I ended up getting a phone call from rocknroll tshirts.com earlier this week informing me that they had to cancel it due to the venue being “Unable to accommodate it”….which royally disappointed me. Judging from the audio quality of the show, seems as if they didn’t do a sound check at all.
-Medford was definitely the best show of the bunch that I saw….you could tell Bruce was excited to be close to the end of the tour, he was really engaged with the audience and had a ton of dialog with them, did some great freestyling on a lot of songs and was just an overall fantastic night.
-It occurred to Bruce in the middle of Medford that “Mandolin Rain” skaggs/hornsby style was born in the middle of a jam at a show in Oregon back in 2002, and he shared in Bend that when putting together that album, he played the demo of that version for him and Ricky absolutely insisted that they do that version together.
-Bruce LOVES telling the bit about Jimmy Martin’s “King of Bluegrass” front gate.
-Bruce acknowledged an audience member’s request for “Swing Street” at the Bend show and responded by saying “Come see the band play that. I can’t do that right now, because I would just suck at it. That’s a great, obscure request though, and we don’t do that song often enough”
And finally, the best quote from all the shows..
At the Bend show, an audience member yells “Barren Ground!” repeatedly in between songs, and finally Bruce looks straight down at where she’s sitting and says in a completely deadpan tone, “I forgot it”
Great read – thanks for sharing this.
Quote:-Bruce LOVES telling the bit about Jimmy Martin’s “King of Bluegrass” front gate.?! Not sure that I know the story!
Just prior to going into 20/20 vision>Night on the town, Bruce will consistently poll the audience on if there’s any Jimmy Martin fans in the audience. He’d make a crack about the two or three people that would hoot or holler, talk about how he’s a huge fan of Jimmy’s work, and that he was incredibly self assured in that if you were to drive past his estate in Nashville, you’d see his huge front gate to his driveway with the words “Home of Jimmy Martin – King of Bluegrass” inscribed on it in giant lettering.
si_twining wrote:Great read – thanks for sharing this.Quote:-Bruce LOVES telling the bit about Jimmy Martin’s “King of Bluegrass” front gate.?! Not sure that I know the story!
SiTwi —
What?! You haven’t listened to the first BH/Weir show? 😮
I’m marginally certain that BH tells the Martin story in a somewhat ironic fashion — what else is new, right? 😆 My interp: Jimmy Martin, bluegrass musician, resident of Nashville, apparently had a large sign attached to his front gate which read “Home of Jimmy Martin, King of Bluegrass.” The humor that I took from the anecdote was that perhaps he wasn’t worthy of the self-appended title?
I only say this from my own familiarity with bluegrass as a pop American idiom, as well as my upbringing — where I grew up just north of Tampa, FL was, believe it or not, somewhat of a bluegrass oasis with several touring bands residing therein. My guitar teacher was a gun for hire with a couple of said family outfits and as such would disabuse me (as a scoffing young metal/proghead with r&b flirtings) of any notion of bluegrass being “crap.” 😆 So I would hear lots about Nitty Gritty, Ralph Stanley, Monroe, etc….
I found the story funny, Si, ‘cuz I never heard of the guy and yet he had a “King” placard in front of his house. But then again, I could still be a dumb kid from FL. 🙄
T
Bounty8111 wrote:-Bruce acknowledged an audience member’s request for “Swing Street” at the Bend show and responded by saying “Come see the band play that. I can’t do that right now, because I would just suck at it. That’s a great, obscure request though, and we don’t do that song often enough”Awesome! I dropped a request on stage for Swing Street both this past year at the Nokia Theater in LA and on this solo tour in Malibu, but to no avail. I’d LOVE to see that played live.
Great observations. Will the release be a Live Noise type of deal for the solo show, or are we talking more like a Bride of the Noisemakers Official album of the solo tour?
Bounty8111 wrote:-Bruce shared with the audience in Medford that “Stranger” had a reading a couple weeks ago with some “Executives” and that it went horribly. He seemed to be serious and ended by saying it’ll probably be a “very long time” before anyone ever sees the play come to life again.-“I Can’t make you love me” is definitely a staple of his now, being played at every show I saw except Oakland. He went into detail in Medford about how it was written by an ex-football player and how he was “afraid he’d beat my ass” if he changed it around too much, but that in the end he was very proud of contributing to the song.
-Each show had a section of songs dedicated to the play, and the audience was really eating it up each time he did this. “Where’s the Bat” and “Holy Trinity” were the clear favorites at every show he did them.
-I certainly had more Marijuana smoke blown in my face in Oakland than i’ve probably ever experienced before at a Hornsby show, so that was interesting and slightly different. Still a great show, worth it alone for “Most of the time” with Bruce on Piano.
-I had the VIP experience for the Bend show but I ended up getting a phone call from rocknroll tshirts.com earlier this week informing me that they had to cancel it due to the venue being “Unable to accommodate it”….which royally disappointed me. Judging from the audio quality of the show, seems as if they didn’t do a sound check at all.
-Bruce acknowledged an audience member’s request for “Swing Street” at the Bend show and responded by saying “Come see the band play that. I can’t do that right now, because I would just suck at it. That’s a great, obscure request though, and we don’t do that song often enough”
-At the Bend show, an audience member yells “Barren Ground!” repeatedly in between songs, and finally Bruce looks straight down at where she’s sitting and says in a completely deadpan tone, “I forgot it”
Bounty —
Fab review, lots of juicy tidbits. Thanks for taking the time.
— “Stranger”: I noticed that (at least on the first Weir show) BH was still referring to the play as “SCKBSTD.” I wondered if that was telling in any fashion. Also, I seem to recall BH noting (perhaps on the solo Bend dld. from ’07) vis a vis “Don of Dons” that some Bdwy. peeps had heard “What Hap’d,” “Heir G,” “Hooray” and this led to him considering his musical, followed by him stating that “the streets are littered with pop stars who’ve stiffed on Bdwy.” or something like…
— “Make You Love” by Reid/Shamblin, with as Wikipedia states “interpolations by Hornsby.” Hmm. Didn’t know that.
— “Bat” and “Trinity”: Heard “Bat” on the Weir share, haven’t heard the latter yet. “Bat” I did like a bit better than some of the show tunes put on “Levitate.”
— “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes” Sorry, have to chuckle: “Whoa, DUDE…HOW many hands does Bruce have? Hey, have you ever really looked at your hand…” 😆
— Sorry to hear about your VIP experience…or lack thereof. You did get a refund, yes?
— Come and see the band play “Swing Street”? I’ve seen BH and the NMs 5 times and asked for it 3 times, still haven’t heard it. In fact, from browsing the setlists here I think the last time they played it might’ve been ’02, or possibly ’04. Which leads us to…
— “Barren Ground” which they played (according to setlist here) at last year’s Mountain Winery (w/Shawn C). So he forgot it between then and now? 😮
Again, cool review and write-up. The hardcore appreciate it, at least I know I do. The gossip was good, too… 😆
T
Takavl wrote:Come and see the band play “Swing Street”? I’ve seen BH and the NMs 5 times and asked for it 3 times, still haven’t heard it. In fact, from browsing the setlists here I think the last time they played it might’ve been ’02, or possibly ’04. Which leads us to…They actually played Swing Street on the last tour, September 30th, in Englewood, NJ (A few shows after I requested it in Los Angeles 😡 )
JF1 wrote:They actually played Swing Street on the last tour, September 30th, in Englewood, NJ (A few shows after I requested it in Los Angeles 😡 )Well, I guess you told me! 😆 Good that he’ll trot it out every once in while, it’s too good not to be.
Do you happen to have the setlist? It’s not listed here, unless I’m mistaken.
The Goon started a thread a while back about tunes we’d most like to hear that we haven’t; “Swing Street” is definitely one of my top five…
— Swing
— Hot House Ball
— Stander
— The Changes
— Mirror (electric, not hillbilly…sorry )T
Takavl wrote:JF1 wrote:They actually played Swing Street on the last tour, September 30th, in Englewood, NJ (A few shows after I requested it in Los Angeles 😡 )Well, I guess you told me! 😆 Good that he’ll trot it out every once in while, it’s too good not to be.
Do you happen to have the setlist? It’s not listed here, unless I’m mistaken.
The Goon started a thread a while back about tunes we’d most like to hear that we haven’t; “Swing Street” is definitely one of my top five…
— Swing
— Hot House Ball
— Stander
— The Changes
— Mirror (electric, not hillbilly…sorry )T
Don’t have the set-list, sorry. I just happen to have a recording of it (I think someone here got it to me per my request for a live recording of Swing Street).
JF1 wrote:Will the release be a Live Noise type of deal for the solo show, or are we talking more like a Bride of the Noisemakers Official album of the solo tour?He wasn’t specific, but from how I interpreted it, it sounds like a “Bride” type official album with a mix of different performances from the entire solo tour.
Takavl wrote:— “Stranger”: I noticed that (at least on the first Weir show) BH was still referring to the play as “SCKBSTD.” I wondered if that was telling in any fashion. Also, I seem to recall BH noting (perhaps on the solo Bend dld. from ’07) vis a vis “Don of Dons” that some Bdwy. peeps had heard “What Hap’d,” “Heir G,” “Hooray” and this led to him considering his musical, followed by him stating that “the streets are littered with pop stars who’ve stiffed on Bdwy.” or something like…It was interesting watching the progression of how he described the play during each of the shows. In both Santa Barbara and Scottsdale, he introduced it as “Sick Bastard” and then explained how the corporate types insisted on the title change to “Stranger”. He would then poll the audience on which they liked better, with “Bastard” as the resounding winner both times. He made a comment in Scottsdale that he was heading to New York the following week to have some meetings and work on the play. I’m assuming that’s when things must have taken a dive, cause next thing you know, he’s talking in Medford about how horrible things went.
But it’s funny you mention the halcyon days tracks. He played “What TH happened?” and “Heir” at pretty much each of the shows I saw, and he’d consistently introduce them as “A song that a broadway-type heard that they thought sounded a lot like a broadway musical, and inspired them to try and get me to write a play”
Takavl wrote:“Bat” and “Trinity”: Heard “Bat” on the Weir share, haven’t heard the latter yet. “Bat” I did like a bit better than some of the show tunes put on “Levitate.”Trinity is ‘freakin awesome. Brilliant, classic Bruce stuff. Consistently got some of the biggest laughs of the night from each audience. Surely Si is hiding a copy of it for a daily dose??
Takavl wrote:Sorry to hear about your VIP experience…or lack thereof. You did get a refund, yes?I did, but still really disappointing. I have the sneaking suspicion it was canceled because not enough of them sold for that venue. I was literally SURROUNDED in that Bend theater by folks that were just season-ticket holders there and had no clue who Bruce was or had heard anything he did.
I could’ve done it in Santa Barbara or Scottsdale but I was saving it for the end. I sat next to a couple in Santa Barbara that did it. They were telling me it was worth the extra cost and they got to have some fun dialog with Bruce.
Takavl wrote:— “Barren Ground” which they played (according to setlist here) at last year’s Mountain Winery (w/Shawn C). So he forgot it between then and now? 😮Bruce just cracks me up when people request stuff that obviously either drives him nuts or he obviously can’t stand or really doesn’t want to play anymore. He’s usually funny about it though and sometimes will give in. I remember a solo-show he did in Redding, CA a few years ago where an audience member were heckling him with “Every Little Kiss” requests every other song break, and he retorted that he doesn’t do that anymore because it’s too “Mushy”. Then he turned around and freestyled a portion of it into the next song he did just to be nice.
Well, I can help with Swing Street, as it appeared as a dose from a show last summer. I think I was sent it as a one one file (which explains why I don’t have the setlist).
Try the Dose archive page:
https://bruuuce.com/2011/08/05/doses/?dl_page=2
As for Barren Ground and Holy Trinity, leave it with me…
Bounty8111 wrote:Bruce just cracks me up when people request stuff that obviously either drives him nuts or he obviously can’t stand or really doesn’t want to play anymore. He’s usually funny about it thought and sometimes will give in. I remember a solo-show he did in Redding, CA a few years ago where an audience member were heckling him with “Every Little Kiss” requests every other song break, and he retorted that he doesn’t do that anymore because it’s too “Mushy”. Then he turned around and freestyled a portion of it into the next song he did just to be nice.Limited sample I know, but the shows I’ve seen (Lowell, Foxwoods, Berklee, Albany for 4 NOT 5 as stated prev.) have not featured BH (audibly or visibly) humorously song-blocking anyone’s reqqie. Maybe I should take it as yet another example of NE/left-coast jadedness that not too many peeps have written or shouted something he didn’t wanna do…too much. I do recall that the Berklee Perf. Center had great acoustics, as such rendering any hollered-out song title very perceptible. Not to mention that any shout-out for “Jack Straw” I just took as an in-joke. Could be wrong about that.
Ya never know — I might get to hear BH ripping on a lame request this fall at the Keene & Rutland make-ups…
T
si_twining wrote:Well, I can help with Swing Street, as it appeared as a dose from a show last summer. I think I was sent it as a one one file (which explains why I don’t have the setlist).Try the Dose archive page:
https://bruuuce.com/2011/08/05/doses/?dl_page=2
As for Barren Ground and Holy Trinity, leave it with me…
Leave it to SiTwi to come up with a “one and done” from lovely Englewood.
Thanks, Si — you’re the best, and you know it —
T
I read the other night on the Ratdog.org board about a few ‘deadheads’ whining about Bruce ‘talking down’ to the crowds at the ‘Alone & Together’ shows he did with Bobby Weir. I laughed my ass off when I read what these guys were complaining about.
You can sorta hear it in the recordings but still funny to me because even though I am a huge deadhead I still think that it is the most pretentious crowd and I gotta feeling Bruce may feel the same way at times….especially when the hetty request of Jack Straw is yelled constantly at his shows by the peeps there for the wrong reasons.All in all…I enjoyed the previous random observations and comments…especially that T character’s what you thought I retired from the board.
GuinnessGoon wrote:I read the other night on the Ratdog.org board about a few ‘deadheads’ whining about Bruce ‘talking down’ to the crowds at the ‘Alone & Together’ shows he did with Bobby Weir. I laughed my ass off when I read what these guys were complaining about.
You can sorta hear it in the recordings but still funny to me because even though I am a huge deadhead I still think that it is the most pretentious crowd and I gotta feeling Bruce may feel the same way at times….especially when the hetty request of Jack Straw is yelled constantly at his shows by the peeps there for the wrong reasons.All in all…I enjoyed the previous random observations and comments…especially that T character’s what you thought I retired from the board.
Okay, one question answered! I’ll have to take a look at the Ratdog forum for some late-night giggles.
Retired? No, I just thought that you were celebrating Maddon’s Mashers… 🙄
T
I appreciate very, very much the five-concert review, and I thank you for posting it.
One thing, though: I was in the third row @ Scottsdale, and I did not hear or see a performance of “Super Freak.”
Also, a question–and pardon my ignorance here: When you say “…a great show, worth it alone for “Most of the time” with Bruce on Piano,” are you referring to “Most of the Time” by Bob Dylan?
Thank you.Highway_61 wrote:I appreciate very, very much the five-concert review, and I thank you for posting it.
One thing, though: I was in the third row @ Scottsdale, and I did not hear or see a performance of “Super Freak.”It’s possible it was Santa Barbara the night before, but I was almost sure he did Super Freak in Scottsdale towards the end, either during or right before the encore, after getting heckled with it by an audience member. It is entirely possible the drive time and jet lag from that weekend might have done crazy things to my memory.
He did do Bird Music there after getting it requested, *AND* explained to the audience what it was. I’m positive that was Scottsdale.
Highway_61 wrote:Also, a question–and pardon my ignorance here: When you say “…a great show, worth it alone for “Most of the time” with Bruce on Piano,” are you referring to “Most of the Time” by Bob Dylan?Correct. Bob Weir’s been covering it…there’s a great recording of him doing it with The Nationals on YouTube right now if you search for it. Someone also posted a recording on there of him and Hornsby doing it at that show, but Si also has it here for download on the front page at the moment. Definitely check it out.
Bounty8111 wrote:“
It’s possible it was Santa Barbara the night before, but I was almost sure he did Super Freak in Scottsdale towards the end, either during or right before the encore, after getting heckled with it by an audience member. It is entirely possible the drive time and jet lag from that weekend might have done crazy things to my memory.Yes, I can imagine. I live only twenty-five minutes from the Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts, but I was so tense from anticipation and so moved by the concert that I was exhausted by the time I got home. I can’t even imagine that whole thing times five. But I’m certain that he didn’t do “Super Freak.” (He did it when I saw him Ricky Skaggs in Mesa a couple of years ago, though.)
Bounty8111 wrote:He did do Bird Music there after getting it requested, *AND* explained to the audience what it was. I’m positive that was Scottsdale.Yes, he absolutely did perform Bird Music.
Highway_61 wrote:Also, a question–and pardon my ignorance here: When you say “…a great show, worth it alone for “Most of the time” with Bruce on Piano,” are you referring to “Most of the Time” by Bob Dylan?Bounty8111 wrote:Correct. Bob Weir’s been covering it…there’s a great recording of him doing it with The Nationals on YouTube right now if you search for it. Someone also posted a recording on there of him and Hornsby doing it at that show, but Si also has it here for download on the front page at the moment. Definitely check it out.Thank you. I definitely will check that out. Somehow, I didn’t realize that “Most of the Time” had been on the front page. Again, thanks.
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