JF1

Bruce should get all the Grammy’s!

Thanks for posting this! Moyes Lucas is on Drums, and I’ve been interested to hear a full show with him, so that was cool. I wonder how Bruce went about getting Lucas as a backup to Sonny.

I’ve been trying to think about what 7-4-7 could mean.

The only thing I’ve come up with so far is the plane, Boeing 747 haha. Something tells me I’m off.

West Coast Tour!?!? Full band or solo?

And what kind of “dumb” questions did you ask Bruce haha? I’m sure I have some similar questions.

I downloaded the New Brunswick show Si just posted. Boom, opens up the show with Try Anything Once; which I’ve never come across a recording of live and it’s awesome.

I found a show from Boulder in 2009 that I had not yet listened to, that I’m playing now. China Doll is one of the songs they played. Also awesome.

It’s so awesome for them to play songs that are rarely played like the two I mentioned.

I came across this and thought it was interesting. Under JV’s profile on Bruuuce.com, he lists the following songs as some of his favorites to play live:

“China Doll, Spider Fingers, Hot House, Mandolin Rain, Country Doctor. Stander on The Mountain, There are too many to mention.”

This is from a Q&A from 2002, quite some time ago. I’m sure things change, but still. 4 out of those 6 songs are almost never played. Imagine going to a show and hearing Hot House Ball played? How awesome would that be.

I couldn’t agree more. And the odd thing is, Bruce has always prided himself on playing for the people, disregarding the hits if need be. But in my opinion, it’s not necessarily that Bruce needs to take more requests, and the majority of requests are your hit songs, or songs close to hits. Instead, Bruce and the Noisemakers needs to pull more from the library to diversify the set-list. There’s nothing better than Bruce pulling out a song you’ve never heard live out of nowhere, and just killing it.

My biggest problem is lately, it seems like Bruce has picked a song or two from albums, and just puts them on repeat, as if to say, ‘Well this covers playing that album.” For example, See The Same Way on Spirit Trail and WWL on Hot House. Additionally, it seems like Bruce used to stick to the rule of only playing one hit a night. But over the last few years you can see all 3 of Way It Is, End of the Innocence, and Mandolin Rain played on any given night, which by default, decreases the number of requests/uniques that can be played.

Someone was awesome enough to put up basically the whole Boulder set from this summer on youtube. I was watching them and bang, one of the songs played was Another Day, and played really, really well. Not only was it just awesome to hear, but it was just refreshing and exhilarating hearing a song that hasn’t been played much live. That’s what Bruce has to strive to do more, even though it might not sell more tickets (And believe me, I completely get that selling tickets is the number one priority of a musician).

I’m just going to list a bunch of songs I’d personally like to see Bruce play more, many of which have been played live a decent amount over the years, but not so much recently.

– Longest Night
– Swing Street
– Cruise Control
– The Changes
– Sneaking up on Boo Radley
– Sad Moon (FULL BAND, which according to Bruce Base, has never been done live before. I would love to hear this)
– Line In The Dust
– Barren Ground
– Stranded On Easy Street
– Another Day
– Harbor Lights
– Long Tall Cool One
– On The Western Skyline
– Mirror On The Wall (Would be great on the Dulcimer with Sonny on the washboard)
– Red Plains
– Road Not Taken (Has done versions in the last 5 years with an incredible instrumental build up towards the end)
– Jacob’s Ladder (I even feel like this hasn’t been played much over the past few years)
– Simple Prayer
– Show Goes On
– Take Out The Trash
– So Out

That’s just 21 songs that’s I’ve chosen that should be played more. Obviously there are tons more. If Bruce even took a handful off the list, and mixed them in regularly, shows would seem a lot more diverse.

Wow! Just by looking at the set-list, I figured Another Day was a quick segway by Bruce on solo piano, but I was wrong!

This is the first time I’ve heard this done live. Awesome!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZzdQVXaWOc

Was “So Out” and audience request? Pretty cool that you got to see them play it for the first time. Would love to hear a recording!

Woah! I guess I got so excited that I read S-A-D M-O-O…. And then raced to ask you if it was solo or not 😆

Agreed 100%. Granted any note played by the band I’m thrilled to hear. But, the Top 40 requests get to me.

Even if I want to hear WWL, End of the Innocence, Way it Is, etc, I’ll never request it because I know there’s a good chance they will be played.

I’m all about requesting songs that you almost never hear Bruce play; on the small chance that he does play them, it’s incredible.

Swing Street
Longest Night
Sad Moon
Red Plains
etc