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Louisville show–Slight Review

sorry i didn’t get to meet up with any of you for Bowling For Bruce. my wife had to catch a nap after we did some grocery-getting and we didn’t get down there until 6. i hope you all enjoyed 4th Street and i can’t wait to hear the stories of what transpired.

Just got home from the show and trying to compile it all in my head. I made the cardinal sin of forgetting my notepad and pen so i didn’t get to jot down the set in order. i’m sure someone will come through for us. here are a few thoughts about tonight:

So it has been way too long since i saw Bruce last–August of ’01 i believe–but there is no moss gathering on that rolling stone. Bruce was in phenomenal form playing-wise and his voice is as sharp as ever as well.

We were sitting about four rows back center and when i got to my seat i noticed no keyboard on top of the Steinway. i stood up and saw the Korg behind the piano sitting on the floor. I was like, ‘how is he going to pull this off?’ Bruce came out and was like ‘wtf’ when he noticed this as well. so he called for the two guys, one whose name i can’t remember but who produced halcyon days, and they came out and started to put it up there as Bruce started to play. he was like, ‘no, go ahead and put it on,’ and they were like, ‘no, bruce, we don’t want to interrupt the show.’ so he rolled into spider fingers sans keyboard. it was a very comical moment and i was curious to see how Bruce would take it. he took it in stride of course, and after the second song the guys were back out there to set up the keyboard.

i did learn tonight, which may be old news to some but not me, that Bruce is writing a musical for some “big wigs on Broadway” as he put it. he played a song about the lowlands which was requested by “someone here that is in the know”. also he played one from the musical about Donald Trump. it was hilarious and the crowd ate it up. he mentioned the album with Ricky Scaggs coming out next year and played darlin’ cory, another request. he had an impressive stack of requests and said that most if not all were going to be requests tonight so that no one can complain, lol. in the encore he played mandolin rain and then talked about an alternate version he’s recorded (with ricky scaggs i think) and played that too. it was much lower and suited his ability to sing in a low range quite nicely. also, old news to some, but Bruce was recording the show and this led to the ushers being very officious about any recording devices of any kind. i kept trying to take pics with my RAZR and my wife would go, ‘they’re watching you. better put that away.’ so no pics came from the show from me.

overall the concert was incredible of course and my wife was blown away by her first Bruce concert. Bruce played about 2 hrs, 20 mins. over two sets.

also something of note for Bruuuce.com fans, Big Rumble got a mention from the stage and Bruce labeled him as famous in some circles and ‘he’s famous to me, anyway,’ and then played WWL as requested by Big Rumble.

i’m off to “Dreamland” now and i’ll wait to hear from the rest who attended tomorrow.

Bruce on Stern

Sorry i didn’t get back to the show rundown guys. Things got hectic at work and i had to actually DO something. Here is a recap of his interview from another Web site that reports on Stern’s shows:

During the commercial break Howard ended up talking to Bruce Hornsby who was warming up on the piano they had in there. Bruce said the piano was okay but he’s used to huge, 9 foot grand pianos. Howard started interviewing him about how he got started in the business but he was in the middle of a commercial. Howard wrapped up the commercial and came back on a short time later to do the ‘official’ interview with Bruce.
Howard said that Bruce has a new CD box set out called ”Intersections 1985-2005.” He said that Bruce was going to perform ”That’s Just The Way It Is” for them. Bruce said ”Oh I am, am I?” like he wasn’t going to do it. Howard told him he was going to put him in the RoboSpanker if he didn’t play that song.

Bruce talked about how he sold a song to a commercial production company so he will get paid some good money for residuals on that commercial. He said that Lowes is the company using his song and it should bring him some good money.

Howard read that Bruce used to prank call Jerry Garcia years ago and he would have him convinced he was on the radio with a guy down in New Orleans. He would jerk him around with that but he’d eventually tell Jerry who it was and he’d call him a weasel.

Howard read that Bruce didn’t start playing piano until he was about 17 years old. Bruce was playing sports and doing other things in school before that. He said that he was in a high school that was almost split 50/50 black and white. he remembered playing a game one night when a couple of black guys threatened to cut him if he won the game that night so that has stuck with him since then.

Bruce said that he had a song he could sing for them about the first interracial relationship in his town but Howard told him to hold off on that. He was asking more questions about his influences and how he got into the piano thing. Bruce said he was self taught and picked up on that stuff pretty quick. He said he wrote some songs back when he was in high school but they weren’t all that great back then.

Bruce said he spent about 7 years in bars and stuff without a record contract. Then one of his worst quality demo tapes was discovered and he was signed by a record company. He said that his friend Huey Lewis had gotten screwed over in his record deal so he kind of knew what to expect. He thought about taking a $40,000 deal and if things didn’t work out he’d go back out on the road with Sheena Easton which is what he was doing back then. He said he was even in one of her music videos.

Howard asked Bruce if he ever watches porno. Bruce said he doesn’t go out of his way to avoid it if it’s playing on the tour bus. Howard got back to the story about the $40,000 deal he turned down. Bruce said that Huey called him and told him he wanted to record one of the songs that he was going to do. That’s when Bruce realized that he was going to sell his songs to other people like Huey.

Howard gave Bruce some plugs for his upcoming tour and his web site BruceHornsby.com where you can find out all of the details. He then had Bruce perform ”That’s Just The Way It Is.” Bruce sang and played piano by himself with no interruptions from Howard or Robin.

Howard asked Bruce if that’s fun for him still. Bruce said that’s him just winging it. He doesn’t like doing it the same way every time. Howard said he gets very sad when he hears the song. Bruce said it’s really not a sad song though. He said he wrote it back in 1985 in his garage.

Bruce told Howard that you really need to know how to write music in this business to keep your career going. you can find many great singers out there but if they can’t write songs it’s tough to sell albums.

Howard took a call from a guy who asked Bruce if he’s upset with Sean Hannity about using his song for his theme song. Bruce said he was never pissed, he never heard how he was using the song. Bruce said that he did an interview with a newspaper and made a very general statement about the use of his music and he got a lot of negative e-mail about that. He said he was never really pissed off at Hannity though.

Howard took another call from a guy who said he’s a super fan of his and has seen him about 18 times. He told Howard he should go see him because he really is great. He said watching him play is amazing and every time he performs a song it’s different. Artie said that he saw Bruce in concert with the Grateful Dead back in the 80s.

Gary said he went to see Bruce back in 1988 and hung out with him but he doesn’t remember a thing about it. Howard said he was going to wrap things up and play some of his new album as they ended the interview. Bruce said he had fun coming in to play for them. Howard asked him about this one song on the album he was going to play called ”Gonna Be Some Changes Made.” He played a little bit of the song and goofed on it a little bit while Bruce was still sitting in. They went to break a short time later.

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Howard also asked Bruce about Tupac covering his song and also they went into more detail about selling a song for a commercial and how much can be made. If you’ve never heard a Stern interview the two main threads are how much you’re getting paid and/or how much you’re getting laid. They also got into Bruce’s religious upbringing as a Christian Scientist which he said kind of kept him as the clean cut guy. He said if he were to advertise that he was going to get drunk at a party and charge admission that he could fill a room with thousands because his friends back then were always trying to be the one to get Bruce loaded.
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Bruce on Stern Show

Accidentally had a double post here, sorry. At the beginning of the show Stern said that Bruce was coming in to play a song he really likes, “The Way It Is”. He was saying there were going to be quite a few guests on the show, so i don’t know how long he’ll devote to Bruce.

Louisville Show!

Hey guys,

Haven’t really posted much on here before. I live in Louisville and am going to the show. It will be my first solo Bruce show and i am very excited about it because it is my wife’s first ever Bruce show. The Brown is a very small venue (maybe around 750-800 seats) and there really isn’t a bad seat in the house. if you decide last minute to come up for the show tickets can be had (and really good ones at that) at the box office the day of the show. We saw Lucinda Williams there and got 8th row seats about an hour and a half before the show started.

The venue is at 5th and broadway and about 2-3 blocks north of there is 4th Street Live! which is an entertainment complex with bars and restaurants and shopping all included and all covered under a big glass roof connecting two buildings. You can walk around with drinks and go from shop to shop and restaurant in any kind of weather. Just to name a few there is The Pub, kind of a replica of a tavern over in London, if you will. Maker’s Mark bar serving–wait for it–Maker’s Mark. Being that this is a sunday show i’m not sure how that will affect the liquor sales. my guess is it won’t really. They also have a TGIFridays and a Lucky Strike bowling alley, which even has good food and drinks and a nice atmosphere and a Hard Rock Cafe.

Just Google them and you can find out all you want to learn about it. That will probably be the best spot to arrange a meet-up IMO. I don’t think we have plans for that afternoon yet and it would be fun to hang out with some Bruce fans. Keep me posted on what everyone plans to do and we’ll go from there.