Tuesday, October 25, 2011

The White Stripes
a krewechief flashback
Patriot Centre, Fairfax VA
2007-07-28
This May Be The Last Time

UPDATE: Actually it was the last time, just didn't know it then. I thought I'd be seeing The White Stripes well into my 80's. Just not to be as Jack and Meg recently announced the roller coaster ride has come to an end.

In my original blog I didn't go into detail about what a horrific fast-break trip this turned out to be. Always the food troubles on a long trip one-way, Fairfax VA is about 13 hours away from home. Decided I could drive after the show, cut off some hours from the next days travel while coming down from the buzz. Would have been a good plan...except for the torrential downpour that had visibility at zero on the highways and no vacancies in any hotel you stopped at. We pulled off the road to sleep in our car for 4 hours before waking, still in the middle of a downpour, and driving off towards home.

In retrospect, I'm really glad I went.




"Okay, you hear and see it and it's going to happen fast. Now, you're not going to get it all, and you might hear the wrong words, and then afterwards, see I can't...I won't be able to talk to you afterwards..."
Bob Dylan in Don't Look Back.

He could have been looking ahead.

An above average show from an artist that never fails to amaze. I'm on about my 18th show with Jack and there's always something new.

Overall the show was a little shorter than some this year but filled with more than enough special moments to warrant a "BEST EVER" or two in the immediate afterglow.

Standard opener in Dead Leaves And the Dirty Ground from the breakthrough third album, White Blood Cells. Usually the first two slots are fast-paced warm-ups. Tonight it was done at about 3/4's speed. Not quite the 'rip your face off' pace it usually has. I think it was better for the care he took with the song.

What You Might Have Missed:
"I didn't feel so bad till the sun went down (plaintive moan)
then I come home
no one to wrap my arms around."
He did a 'timrod' on this one and just stole those words from Son House.

Always like it when he steps over to talk to Meg in a spot where you expect the second 'candy cane' song. Jack opts to do a verse of Icky Thump (normally the third song) and create a medley with When I Hear My Name, the song likely slated for the #2 slot. The extended center of this song explores the melody of WIHMN before
Jack closes with the remainder of an energetic Icky Thump. A two-fer.

What You Might Have Missed: WIHMN...not much to this one besides a monster beat. Icky Thump; "White Americans, what?/ Nothing better to do?/Why don't you kick yourself out?/You're an immigrant too?"

The long musical interlude had the effect of slowing the tempo, making this opening trio of songs a little less driven than normal. Later in the show Jack questions the audiences enthusiasm, saying he can't tell if they're excited or bored. He might have laid the seeds for a reticent audience in the opening segment. Icky Thump closes with some intensity but that momentum is lost during the rather long break for a guitar switch before Death Letter Blues. This made no difference in the quality of the opening, it just made it slightly different than your average show.

Death Letter Blues has moved up the set list a few slots. It's traditionally the blow-out guitar extravaganza of the night...or one of a few, in any case. In slot #4 it's shorter by a few minutes but no less intense. This song is the best modern-rock
interpretation of a Mississippi Delta Blues song I've ever heard. Jack's love of the blues is evident in most of what this band does but this song shows his unconscious talent. He has tapped into the soul of this music and it's passion explodes where it may have merely simmered in the original version. We got a very good version tonight.

What You Might Have Missed: The ghost of Son House slapping his knee.

A show without Cannon is no show at all. When it's paired with Little Room, instead of it's normal mate, John the Revelator, it becomes a rare moment to savour. I'm not sure why we didn't get JtR but if you listen at the point the song switches and Meg starts her beat, Jack is laughing, saying "oh, oh, oH, OH, OH", as if he is reading her lead and gives her what she's playing. Maybe he's not the control freak some make him out to be.

What You Might Have Missed: "Lord above, how could man, be evil?"

Hotel Yorba is fun filler at the best of times. And fun filler at the worst of times. Mostly it's just fun filler.

What You Might Have Missed: It's country night in Virginia.

Finding It Harder To Be A Gentleman is another treat. Love the songs where Jack switches from piano to guitar.

What You Might Have Missed: "every single girl needs help/ climbing up a tree/ you know it don't take much/to satisfy me"

And now for the NIN-moment, complete with disco ball and crowd grunts. Slowly Turning Into You is the center piece of the whole set. Jack pulls out all the audience-participation tricks and light-show he has at his disposal.
Lovely moody piece that kind of noodles along until we get the hook and Jack implores the crowd to chant on queue. Great lyrics, the song is broken into two segments...the primary verses and the chant...which is where he really channels Trent. A little exploration of love-hate, coming down sqaurely in favour of love.

What You Might Have Missed: "I even love it when you're faking it/And it might sound a little strange for me to say to you/But I'm proud to be you/ And I'm slowly turning into you"

Next up another rarity...an instrumental. Instinct Blues tease with Rat tease, basically the primary riffs from both those songs repeated alternately three times. Sometimes, most times in fact, when you get these musical teases you get a song
with lyrics attached to them. Lately the Rat tease has accompanied Martyr For Your Love and for a brief moment at the end of the triumvirate pair of teases it sounds like that is what we're getting, then he breaks down into the chords for
One More Cup of Coffee.

Coffee was extremely well done and much more enjoyable than the last time I heard it, while ducking flying beer pints in Glasgow. He really nails this, the quaver in his voice is bang on.

What You Might Have Missed: Likely not a beat.

Martyr For My Love For You is fast becoming a favorite from the new record. I don't worry too much about the possible age difference between the main characters or the reason he has to be a martyr, it's just a bitter-sweet story told with an edge and from a perspective not often seen in rock. He has come close to mastering that pregnant pause before he delivers the title...tonight it was excruciatingly long and he waited as long as we could bear.

What You Might Have Missed: the tricky word dance that is the opening verse; "She was sixteen and six feet tall/ In a crowd of teenagers comin' out of the zoo /She stumbled started to slip and fall / Teeter-tottered on the top of patent leather shoes /I happened to catch her and said, /"maybe these ruby shoes are a little cumbersome for you"

Meg always gets a good reception from the audience. Deservedly so too. For all people want to argue about her drumming style I'll say this: Jack White can play solo, he can play with the Raconteurs or he can back Dylan...he'll always be great.
He'll only be The White Stripes when Meg is on the drums. She's a much stronger singer now than she was a few years ago. Gotta like the way Jack sits at the back of the stage, with his back to the audience, and lets her have her moment. He also takes the opportunity to mention it's her Virginia debut, as the Stripes are playing this state for the first time.

What You Might Have Missed: this is one creepy song.

What You Couldn't Have Missed: Meg's kinda cute when she's coy.

One verse of Do is a gift, tonight we get the second verse. Unfortunately it's coupled with/lost in a medley with Black Math, a screamfest that has it's own charm though it may not be immediately evident.

What You Might Have Missed: the angst in Do, "it doesn't matter cause my eyes are lying/and they don't have emotion/don't wanna be social, can't take it when they hate me/but i know there's nothing i can do "

What You Surely Missed: the slam at the education system in Black Math, mostly because he absolutely butchered the lyrics on this one. He repeated the first verse twice, almost catching himself the second time by putting the last couplet of the first verse in there. Hedoes nail the middle verse: "Mathematically turning the page/Unequivocally showing my age/I'm practically center stage/Undeniably earning your wage/Maybe I'll put my love on ice/And teach myself, maybe that'll be nice."
Then he spits out one line of the last verse, the wrong line, and packs it in, closing with guitar and drums.

Let's Shake Hands is another 'candy cane children' song, a single, not on any album. Well loved by one and all. Too raucous to be called filler but not that complex.

What You Might Have Missed: "oh, say my name/ oh, baby say my name/ you can do what you wanna do/ you can do it in a garbage can/say my name."

Ball and Biscuit finds Jack having some trouble with his onstage monitors. He claims it sounds like "donkey", which is a strange description for an audio sensation. He keeps on trucking though and we get a good sounding version from our side.

What You Might Have Missed: Having played this song live with Dylan he was channeling him a bit early on...dropping words from lines, either
by design or through sloppiness or distraction.

Hardest Button To Button is appropriate the day after the debut of the Simpson's.

What You Might Have Missed: I don't care to go on about the more popularly recognized tracks. It's the gems I'm looking for.


On to the encore. A fairly full first set clocking in around 60 minutes so I don't expect more than a half hour in the next segment.

The Blue Orchid tease at the start of the encore was actually a relief...not too keen on the song. An extra bonus when he broke into Screwdriver and even that was up another notch when we get the alternate opening verse. I don't know what monkey Jack was talking about but that was an enjoyable experimentation in ad-lib. He really extends this song as Meg finds a groove and elicits a wailing refrain of "got
a little feelin' goin' now" to close.

What You Might Have Missed: "what am i supposed to think?/drop a nickel in the sink/i love people like a brother now/ but i'm not gonna be their mother now/ what if someone walked up to me/ and like an apple cut right through me?/ i'm not just gonna stand their grinnin'/ i'm not the one that's sinnin'/screwdriver!"

300 MPH Torrential Downpour Blues is one that has to grow on you. Tonights version might not be the one to turn the trick. It was a little slow to start though he did nail the final verse. Jack visits his fetish for three's (and red-headed women) in this song probably better suited for a concert hall rather than an arena. It's not the easiest song on the new record to replicate live so many points for effort
and outcome. The lyrics to the whole tune are substantially changed in the center portion.

What you might have missed: the screamfest that closes the song and somewhat approximates this; "But I can't help but wonder if after I'm gone will I still have these three hundred mile per hour, finger breaking, no answers makin', battered dirty hands, bee stung and busted up, empty cup torrential outpour blues...." which is where it ends as Jack leaves out the closing couplet:
"One thing's for sure: in that graveyard
I'm gonna have the shiniest pair of shoes"

He admonishes the crowd for it's silence before sucking up to them and talking to some chick in a red dress.

Seven Nation Army sees the return of the malfunctioning monitors and Jack's whine.

We Are Going To Be Friends in yet anothe 'candy cane children' song. I like it. The wife doesn't. You can decide.

Now we get to the absolute gem of the evening, Sam's Place, a Buck Owen's cover. First a little useless information. Back in '05 when I was about a year into my 'bored with Dylan' phase, Cece had completed my database of Stripes songs.
I turned my energies to producing a couple compilation of rare songs and blues covers. One of the comps was called: Jack White's Kitchen: Rare Songs Well Done, a nod to Robert Johnson's Come In My Kitchen that appears on the disc. That comp opens with a bunch of songs that contain the name 'Jack'... Jack On Fire, Everywhere I Go, I'm Jack and Black Jack Davey. I also had a song, played only once and unidentified, that came from a 2003 show. The taper called it "Oh Well", due to it's appearance throughout the song. I subtitled it Jack's Prayer, because Jack is talking to God in the song and that would make four consecutive songs with "Jack" in the title. Flash forward to Icky Thump where that song appears as Little Cream Soda. Around the Stripes boards I came across a post that posited that Ben Blackwell, a member of the Stripes camp, passed on a 'show' with song called "Jack's Prayer" that had only been done live once. Legend (if we can build it) has it that Jack liked it so much he did a slight rework and put it out.

Now one might think that was stretching it a bit but Sam's Place is also on that comp. It's likely just as rare. I don't have all the shows but I have more than a handful. If we ever get Red Death at 614 all doubt will be eradicated.

So Buck Owen's, eh? told you it was country night. This was a terrific version of the song and a real special treat. Nothing to say about this song except enjoy it as many times as you can.

A really good version of I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself, a song I'm at risk of tiring of but really enjoyed this evening.

What You Saw: a rock god.




The White Stripes
2007-07-28
Patriot Center
George Mason University
Fairfax VA



Disc 1/Main Set
Intro
Dead Leaves
Icky Thump>When I Hear My Name>Icky Thump
Death Letter
Cannon>Little Room>Cannon
Hotel Yorba
Finding It Harder to Be a Gentleman
Slowly Turning into You
Instinct tease>Rat tease Medley
One More Cup of Coffee
Martyr For My Love For You
Cold, cold, night
Do >Black Math
Let's Shake Hands
Ball & Biscuit
Hardest Button to Button

Disc 2/Encore
Blue Orchid tease>Screwdriver (monkey version)
300 MPH Torrential Downpour Blues
Jack Talks
Seven Nation Army
We Are Going to Be Friends
Sam's Place
I Just Don't know what to do with myself

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Corin Raymond and the Sundowners
Cameron House
2011-10-20

Heading downtown in the rain, 5:30 on a Thursday night...er, nevermind.

Back for another dose of Corin and he has the whole group behind him tonight.

Not gonna bore you with the usual excessive verbiage.

There's not a better deal to be had in the city of TO than seeing these guys for two hours at a PWYC room.

Corin's in the Yukon and NWT for a month and will be back at The Cameron House the day after his b'day, November 24.

Without further ado, some great songs.

t01 100 Candles (The Swiftys)
t02 Anastasia (Max Metro)
t03 Slip Away (Jonathan Byrd)
t04 Mama It's Too Late (Scott Nolan)
t05 I'm A Fucking Genius (Raghu N)
t06 Rivertown (Hayes Carll)
t07 Canadian Tire Money
t08 Stealin' My Heart
t09 3000 Miles
t10 Ole Ft Mac (Rob V)
t11 Hard On Things
t12 Take Me To The Mountain
t13 Big Truck Brought It
t14 There Will Always Be A Small Time

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Corin Raymond and CR Avery
30th Anniversary of The Cameron House
2011-10-13

There's trouble brewing in TO this weekend and it ain't just the Occupy Toronto crew you gotta watch out for. Lock up your daughters and keep your wives close by, Corin and CR are on the prowl.

Corin's about to embark on a month-long tour of the semi-frozen tundra before he returns to create and record a live album of indie covers. CR's wrapping up a short Southern Ontario tour but it looks like he'll be back around the same time, late November, early December.

'Till then, here's what went down last night.

Great to be taking in some live music with my longtime travelling companion, Michele. Last week she introduced her husband to the phenomena we call CR. This week she's brought along her daughter-in-law for a daytrip into the city, a little shopping and a surprise sit-down in a darkened bar off Queen St, through the curtains into Paradise. Cece and I have shared way too many Dylan shows with Michey, time to branch out.

With Corin tonight the ever inventive David Baxter on guitar and Sarah Fitzpatrick fiddling around.

The impromptu neo-Sundowners are in fine form. I'm guessing it was a two handkerchief night for Corin, would have been three, but he had an extended break.

He's still working the covers that should be on next years record; Ole Fort Mac, Sugar Candy Mountain, Dirty Mansions and I'm guessing the Jonathan Byrd cover, Slip Away, is going to make it too. That song is a creeper, I like it more and more, every time I hear it.

He brought along some old songs; Ridin' West on Dundas, 3000 Miles (recently included in a Blue Rodeo encore), Micheline, Stealin' My Heart and the lovely Blue Mermaid Dress. It'll make you pine for your youth.

A couple new songs; Hard on Things and Canadian Tire Money. The first has a little more gravitas as you might imagine.

That weren't all but the song of the night was a house-led version of The Cameron's theme song, There Will Always Be A Small Time.

CR's set was shorter, but no less passionate. He was hindered by a crying baby but even managed to work that into the set as you can't always get what you want. Don't even ask me why there was a crying baby in a bar.

The opener, Springsteen's 57 Channels and Nothing On is getting better every night. The beat-boxing and lyrics are becoming more defined, you can pick up more lyrics early than you could a year ago. The harp solo is bombastic. This song should be moving down the list to set closer or encore piece soon.

The new big ballad this year is a waltz,Israel's Saviour and Queen. I've been trying hard to get a pristine recording of this song but I've been running into a string of problems. Back in Kitchener, where we had the Grand Piano and a soundboard patch, I plugged into the wrong outlet on my recorder. In Stratford there was no opportunity for a board patch. I think the Ottawa one is the best but CR had a strange introduction and it may not sound right out of context as a single track on a record. Which leaves us with The Cameron. Could have had a patch but I left my expensive rig at home. Brought the pre-amp, brought the mics, just left the rig. Fortunately I had a back-up but decided to forgo the patch and just do an audience capture. Good news is...it came out great. Bad news is...the attack of the crying baby.

I don't quite get this song yet but that's OK, I'm still trying to decipher many of CR's word bombs. He's like an aural version of Dali's Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus. You can look at the whole picture, or hear the whole song, and get a sense of the subject but you really have to break down the elements to discover the hidden content. Trouble is, once you have all the parts it's not always easy reassembling them into a cogent thought.

Israel's Saviour and Queen is filled with small pictures, little scenes,pop-culture grenades, apparently unconnected. We open and close with the wish for a Tarantino/Spike Lee collaboration, written by Joplin and discovered in the floorboards of the Chelsea Hotel. A song about wishing things could be different, that those on either side of an argument could find their way together. Big E and Tupac freestylin', Romeo and Juliet conceiving a saviour in a West Bank motel. More telling; "i wish... my ex-lover and I could remain close friends." Those things can't happen in a world where "jealousy is gentrified by ambition," and "rich and famous aren't even a couple anymore, they just like getting drunk together and rolling around in the nude."

Tonight's version gets lost as CR's already been distracted to the point of fumbled lyrics and now the crying baby is adding to the soundtrack, squeeling at the word "nude" and totally breaking down the song as CR turns into Charlie Harper and creates his own kids jingle, adding "boobies" and "poopie" for laughs but relegating this track to the dustbin of 'interesting shit that happens at live shows'.

The song is brought together by a wonderful chorus, that tied to the lone 'ex-lover' allusion, exposes the theme of the song;

"tonight, no music fills my room
i can't sing
here's the thing
she said she'd ring

but then didn't call.
there were 35 candles on my birthday cake
you know i could blow out them all."

This is delivered with a lovely little waltz swing. A gem inside this ceiling to floor pastiche. Even the sequence of the words in that last line, a deft handling of the available words as you want to say 'i could blow them all out' but the rearrangement adds an unconscious beat.

Picking up a banjo and making his way into the crowd we get an off-mic unplugged Hollywood Movie Blues, a great send-up of the industry's tendency to mask reality behind sentimental bullshit and misrepresentation. A fun song.

Cr's back to the hip-hop-beat-box-mic-poppin' spoken word stuff. He's honing his skills for this weekends poetry showcase and pulls out The Boxer Who Just Returned From London for a training session. Also helps to drown out the baby.

Back to the piano for another ballad, One of Those Faces. A story of being in the right place and the wrong time.

Last song of the night finds CR channeling a little Corin Raymond as he opens with an extended story in front of the spoken word piece Commercial and First. This poem is a challenge to deliver. Machine gun speed and more words than an Obama answer to any question. It closes with the punchline to the introductory story.

So brings an end to the fall concert season, time to search out some pumpkin carving patterns, get footloose and visit some haunted houses.

Here's the set list and some sound samples.

Corin Raymond
Cameron House
2011-10-13

t01 Intro
t02 Ole Ft Mac
t03 talk
t04 Micheline
t05 talk
t06 Slip Away
t07 talk
t08 I'm A Fuckin' Genius
t09 talk
t10 Ridin' West on Dundas
t11 talk
t12 Hard On Things
t13 Canadian Tire Money
t14 talk
t15 Stealin' My Heart
t16 talk
t17 3000 Miles
_____
t18 talk
t19 Sugar Candy Mountain
t20 talk
t21 Dirty Mansions
t22 talk
t23 Hello, Hello
t24 There Will Always Be A Small Time
t25 talk
t26 Blue Mermaid Dress



CR Avery
Cameron House
2011-10-13

t01 Intro
t02 57 Channels and Nothing On
t03 Israel's Saviour and Queen
t04 Hollywood Movie Blues
t05 The Boxer Who Just Returned From London
t06 talk
t07 One of Those Faces
t08 talk
t09 Commercial and First
t10 talk

Sunday, October 09, 2011

CR Avery in Southern Ontario
October 4,5 & 7
coming to The Cameron House
on October 13th

It's been a long hot summer and we're getting an instant replay in Southern Ontario. Sunny and 24 degrees all week. Great time to be on the road taking in the fall colours and a home-grown talent.

Tuesday night in Kitchener finds us hooking up with long-time friends, Dylan-travelling companions and fellow music fans, Michey and Rick, who live close by. Wings and beer before we make our way to the cozy Jazz Room inside the historic Huether Hotel. They've done a good job of filling the place, it's packed to capacity.

CR's set has a few new songs and some familiar staples. The venue provides a Grand Piano which entices CR to spend quite a bit of time on the stool. We get a few harp-beat-box tunes (Boxer Who Just Returned from London, Grey Armpit of Rock n Roll and Springsteen's 57 Channels and Nothing On.) One on banjo Hollywood Movie Blues. Piano ballads abide with the wonderful Troubled Youth, Just A Hobo and the new Israel's Saviour and Queen. Dinner For One never fails to get the house laughing out loud, even if some are a little crimson faced. Bus to Baton Rouge, a Lucinda Williams cover, gives him room to roam as he combines his knack for pounding out a few chords with his penchant for delivering a hip-hop ballad. A couple other spoken word pieces; the always pleasing homage to the last great politician this nation has seen, PET, and his advice to my daughter on her miscellaneous birthday, Dollhouse and Pocket Knife.

Now that is a night out.

Home and in bed at 1 pm last night, off to work for the day and back on the highway at 5pm. Heading a little farther west, the Evergreen Terrace Cafe in Stratford ON.
Richards ghost is gonna have a fun time tonight.

Stratford is 40 minutes down a dark road away from Kitchener. Town closes at 5:30 pm on weekdays and the business square is taken over by skate-boarders. Not a lot of opportunity for walk-ins so we have a sparse, but loyal and appreciative crowd tonight. Big thanks to Carol Mcleod and the St Mary's Storytelling Inc for putting this show on tongiht. You can never tell what kind of crowd you will entice, there are so many factors involved. Carol was a gracious host and while the numbers weren't high, the quality of attendees was. The fortunate who gathered close to the stage for CR's set get treated to a house-concert and a bunch of big songs; Dylan's Things Have Changed, Waits' Big In Japan and Birdcage among them. CR is showcasing a waltz, Israel's Saviour and Queen, hoping to include it on an upcoming album with the banjo song, Hollywood Movie Blues. Another new song tonight, that may or may not, be called I'm No Genius. We get a reprise of 57 Channels and Nothing On as CR seems to be taking a liking to the extended harmonica blow-out in the middle of this one. He delivers an epic spoken word piece, Commercial and First, and doesn't miss a beat. We get Purple Cotton Dress in the mix and he closes with Motel: 50 Miles Out of Town...a song that sounds different every time I hear it.

After a day off to successfuly make sure the Conservative Party doesn't get a taste of power in Ontario it's back on the road early Friday morning, towards our nation's Capitol. We head north to Peterborough, joining Highway 7 Eastbound, the scenic route. It's taking us through CR's old stomping grounds in and about Lanark County. Time enough to stop for some fall photos. Except we didn't come across too many accessible opportunities. We did pass some wild turkeys on the side of the road. I stopped to shoo them back into the woods. Like, don't they know what weekend this is?

Some people bring their friends to the shows when CR comes to their city. We try to go to our friends cities and bring them to CR shows. In Ottawa tonight we have our children-from-another-mother, Ryan and Teri. They talked Ryan's sister, Janine, and her boyfriend, Aaron, into joining us for the set.

This show was organized by Noah and Margaret Sullivan and they did a great job. The sound was superb, the venue a cozy as you can get. Bit of a churchy feel to it but we are praying at the altar of independent music. Opening tonight is Lindsay Ferguson. Only a few songs but an impressive set. She opens with a French Language tune and closes with a Celtic acapella ballad. I'm a French Canadian sitting here with my Irish Canadian wife. It's like we called the tunes.

Stellar performance from CR tonight. Opening with The Boxer Who Just Returned From London, he's momentarily distracted by the return of 15 patrons who were outside having a smoke break between sets but found themselves enjoying the lovely fall weather a little too long. By his own admission he had trouble focussing during Israel's Saviour and Queen because his keyboard stand was a little unstable. That was not evident from the audience as he delivers a superb performance. Sometimes he's an unconscious talent. It's during a slightly self-indulgent, in a good rock n roll way, harp solo in 57 Channels and Nothing On that he finds his mojo. He gets control of his brain-waves, pushes aside the distractions and tells himself to just pitch to the audience. So we get some curves, a change-up, a slider and a screaming fast ball down the center of the plate. (Hey, it is October after all.)

So far we've had a spoken work piece, a piano ballad and a harp-laden, beat-box cover of Springsteen. It's only a one-man show how many more incarnations can there be? Well, one more, banjo-strummin', talkin' bluegrass, CR. Hollywood Movie Blues is a laugh-riot. Usually it's delivered unplugged, while walking in front of the audience, and tonight is no different. Doesn't make recording any easier but it's an important element of the set and never fails to hypnotize and engage the crowd.

Next up a huge spoken-word piece, The Wind Is A Speed Reader followed by Neil Young's The Campaigner and Hendrix' Voodoo Child complete with feedback solo's. Both Nixon (from The Campaigner chorus) and Hendrix will make another appearance in this show.

CR sits down at the piano for (Blame It On My) Troubled Youth before standing to deliver the Hendrix/Dylan tome, The Grey Armpit Area of Rock n Roll to close the set.

In the encore we get a song about the Montreal Airport, PET and a new ballad about the ebb and flow of success and failure on the road, One of Those Faces.

Highlight of the night was the intro to Folk Singer, and the performance, as CR shares a story about the pitfalls of impromptu stage patter.

So that brings to a close this week's adventures with CR. See you at the Cameron on the 13th, you can find him at The Pilot on the 14th, in Niagara Falls at the OCFF and on Sunday, in St Catharines, at a yet to be identified venue.

Here are the set lists, with a few select samples.

Kitchener ON
2010-10-04
t01 The Boxer Who Just Returned From London
t02 Israel's Saviour and Queen (for CR STE000 vg)
t03 57 Channels and Nothing On
t04 don't talk talk
t05 Troubled Youth
t06 Hollywood Movie Blues
t07 PET
t08 talk
t09 Dinner For One
t10 talk
t11 Grey Armpit of Rock N Roll
t12 encore break
t13 Just A Hobo
t14 Bus To Baton Rouge
t15 talk 2nd encore
t16 Dollhouse and Pocket Knife

Stratford ON
2011-10-05
t01 Intro
t02 57 Channels and Nothings On (Springsteen)
t03 Israel's Saviour and Queen
t04 Purple Cotton Dress
t05 Hollywood Movie Blues
t06 Things Have Changed
t07 Commercial and First
t08 I'm No Genius
t09 encore break
t10 Big In Japan
t11 Birdcage
t12 talk
t13 Motel Room 50 Miles Out of Town

Old Town Hall
Ottawa ON
2011-10-07
t01 The Boxer Who Just Returned From London
t02 Israel's Saviour and Queen
t03 57 Channels and Nothing On
t04 Hollywood Movie Blues
t05 The Wind Is A Speed Reader
t06 The Campaigner
t07 Voodoo Child
t08 Troubled Youth
t09 Grey Armpit of Rock N Roll
t10 encore
t11 talk
t12 Folk Singer
t13 PET
t14 One of Those Faces

Special Track, Lindsay Ferguson's O'Donnell Oge , a lovely Irish ballad.