Bob Dylan Amherst and Lowell MA 2010-11-19 & 20

OK I promised my wife we wouldn't travel to see Bob this fall and it sure looked like I was about to break my streak of 17 consecutive years. Then he books a Saturday show within driving distance and the opportunity arises to hook up with some old friends. Couldn't say no. And couldn't do just one.

A light drizzly snow for the ride out keeps the pace at moderate; a good way to start a 2,000 km weekend.

As an added bonus we got to stop at the Rat Pack themed Delmonico's in Utica NY
for some red meat and blue martini's. There was the Brushcetta Pomodoro and the Roma Tomato and Mozzarella Salad for openers. Ordered the smallest steak I could find, a 9 0z filet. The wife opted for a more sensible pasta meal.

For the first time ever we tried that 'priceline auction' site. Except for some difficulty getting a guarantee the hotel we select will be 'accessible' it worked out pretty good. Saved about $60 and it only cost us 10 minutes of driving time.

Now travelling for Dylan always results in more than just the music. Good thing too because since June of 2005 it's the side-bar stuff that makes these trips worthwhile. The extras this time centered around poets...Emily Dickinson's house in Amherst and Jack Kerouac's Lowell. Forget what you heard about spoken word, it's coming back strong in the inner cities.

Time and circumstance prevented us from getting to Emily's abode in time for a full tour.

It didn't prevent us from hooking up with friends for dinner and making it to the venue with time to spare.

Our seats sucked terrilbly, first row on the corner at the back. Seems like everyone who went on the floor passed in front of us. To add to the confusion there were a ton of late arrivers, people still taking their seats at the 5th and 6th song. They were bumping into the people who chose to leave by the 5th or 6th song. It was chaos.

But the sound was great.

And Bob was good. Most songs have new arrangements. The blues numbers have lost their punch, most notably in Hwy 61 and HWM. There's a sameness to most of the songs that makes it even more difficult to recognize them than in the past...and it had nothing to do with mumbling lyrics. The vocals were surprisingly clear.

No bombastic solos from Charlie, or anyone. The band is tight, all the tricks are small things inside the songs. Thankfully both Stu and Donnie are almost non-existant so Bob is inching ever closer to being back in a rock band and away from the country-swing, civil-war, bore band.

Highlights:

Someone has to transcribe the new lyrics for Gonna Change My Way of Thinking. The chorus is there but the rest seems new.
Shooting Star is always a rare treat, the song is better than any performance could be but it deserves an outing.
Tangled Up In Blue and Ballad of A Thin Man, with Bob at center stage, were worth the price of admission on their own.
Can't Wait was another rare and mystical tune that I'm always happy to hear.

Lowlights:

An unfocussed Hard Rain was less than stellar. The new arranagement of HWM has taken away it's few redeeming values and Thunder on the Mountain sounds worse if you can actually hear the words.

Songs that made me go, meh:

The fans like Spirit, but it's a one-trick pony. Mobile is as Mobile was...it takes up 5 minutes. Tweedles and Hwy 61, pretty regular in the set, don't advance the show much. Workingman's Blues #2 might be better than I thought on first listen but was so radically changed I couldn't discern. You gotta wonder what we're missing to get Jolene every night. Oh, wait, that would be Watchtower. LARS is nondescript, which is a crime for the greatest song ever written.

2010-11-19
Mullins Arena
Amherst, MA

1. Gonna Change My Way Of Thinking
2. Shooting Star
3. Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again
4. Spirit On The Water
5. Rollin' And Tumblin'
6. Tangled Up In Blue
7. Honest With Me
8. Can't Wait
9. Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum
10. A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall
11. Highway 61 Revisited
12. Workingman's Blues #2
13. Thunder On The Mountain
14. Ballad Of A Thin Man
(encore)
15. Jolene
16. Like A Rolling Stone


Lowell's not an easy city to drive around. With waterways and triangular street intersections it takes a few days to get your bearings. We didn't have that, so we spent most of our time half-way lost. But not all of it.

Cece did a great job scouting out my Kerouac locations and we were able to hit more than I would have accomplished going gonzo.

Some were easy, it seems we couldn't miss running into the High School.
"By nearly all accounts-classmates, teachers, even his own writing--Kerouac was a shy but popular student. A standout in track and football, and a fine outfielder on the baseball team, Kerouac also earned A's and B's in his classes. In Maggie Cassidy he mentions a Spanish course, the poetry of Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson, the great difficulty of physics, and "wonderful classes in some kind of pre-science fiction astronomy, with an old lady with a long stick demonstrating moons at the blackboard." Kerouac graduated from Lowell High School in 1939, three months after his seventeenth birthday."

A little more difficult find was the Memorial. I finally took a backdoor into it by travelling over the trolley tracks and finding a parking spot. A large group of marble obelisks with engraved writings.
"The Jack Kerouac Commemorative... must be one of the most unique public art pieces in the United States. The opening passages from Kerouac's five "Lowell novels," as well as passages from On the Road, Lonesome Traveler, Book of Dreams, and Mexico City Blues are inscribed on eight triangular marble columns. The arrangement of the columns and the surface stones form a kind of Buddhist- Christian mandala. The symmetrical cross and diamond pattern of The Commemorative is a meditation on the complex Buddhist and Catholic foundation of much of Kerouac's writing."

The best find was the grotto in Pawtucketville.  These are the Catholic "Stations of the Cross" leading to the cave. "The Grotto (fashioned after a mini-Lourdes, where a vision of the Virgin Mary appeared to a French peasant girl) and Stations of the Cross were constructed in 1911. Whole passages of Doctor Sax, including the very ending, are set here at the Grotto. Kerouac and his mother often stopped here on walks from their home in Pawtucketville. In Doctor Sax, the place is "mad, vast, religious, the Twelve Stations of the Cross, little individual twelve altars set in, you go in front, kneel, everything but incense in the air (the roar of the river, mysteries of nature, fireflies in the night flickering to the waxy stare of statues, I knew Doctor Sax was there flowing in the back darks with his wild and hincty cape)."

Came acroos the Moody Street Bridge. "Known to Kerouac fans as "The Bridge Where the Man with the Watermelon Died." The name is taken from the title, and events, of "Book Four" of Jack Kerouac's Doctor Sax. One "baleful black night," Jack and his mother were returning from a visit to Aunt Clementine and Uncle Mike's house. They reached the bridge a half hour before midnight, and a man carrying a watermelon passed them: "Suddenly the man fell, we heard the thump of the watermelon on wood planks and saw him fallen ... I look down with him and there is the moon on shiny froth and rocks, there is the long eternity we have been seeking."

And here's Boots Mills. Jack'd roll over in his grave if he knew it was being converted into condos. "The mills are a reminder that Lowell is a working-class city, established as a business venture. By harnessing the power of the Merrimack River through a carefully engineered system of mills and canals Lowell quickly became one of the largest centers of textile production in the world. The architecture of the Boott Mills complex mirrors the growth of Lowell--its nine mill buildings were built between 1835 and 1900...When Kerouac mentions any of the Lowell mills in his books it is most often the Boott. In Doctor Sax, the Boott is often seen in "a maze of haze sorrow," where the red chimneys sway in "the dreambell afternoon" or, at night, the windows shine "like a lost star in the blue city lights of Lowell." Kerouac's descriptions of the Boott are often amorphous, and insubstantial, as if the redbrick mills are only clouds in a fiery sunset. It's interesting to match Kerouac's descriptions of the mills with depiction of work in his novels. Kerouac's characters may have jobs, and we may see many people on their way to or from work, but the joy of life lies elsewhere. "Everything belongs to me because I am poor," he wrote in Visions of Cody. "Dicky and I covered these millyards.," he writes in Doctor Sax, "and agreed millwork was horrible."

Which brings us  to Edson Cemetary. You drive under the rusted bridge with the faded sign that says "Welcome to Spaghettiville". Drive past the large St Patricks Cemetary until the point where the road widens. The grave is three streets in (Lincoln) and 5 streets over (between 7th and 8th). Once you are there, you can't miss it.

Then we hooked up with friends for dinner and a show. Jethro Tull was in town but we opted for that Bob guy again.

Glad we did. Seats were much better, very close to the stage. If last night was the best show since 2005, tonight was the best show since last night.

The delivery was even better, though that might have been a condition of our improved seats.

Songs we lost: Shooting Star, Spirit on the Water, Can't Wait, Hard Rain, Workingman's Blues #2

Songs we got for those we lost: It Ain't Me Babe, Love Sick, Simple Twist of Fate, Visions of Johanna, Not Dark Yet

I'd say we got an upgrade.

2010-11-20
Tsongas Center
Lowell MA

1. Gonna Change My Way Of Thinking
2. It Ain't Me, Babe
3. Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again
4. Love Sick
5. Rollin' And Tumblin'
6. Simple Twist Of Fate
7. Honest With Me
8. Visions Of Johanna
9. Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum
10. Tangled Up In Blue
11. Highway 61 Revisited
12. Not Dark Yet
13. Thunder On The Mountain
14. Ballad Of A Thin Man
15. Jolene / Band Intro
16. Like A Rolling Stone

CR Avery and the Special Interest GroupThe RivoliToronto ON2010-11-12

"Sister, tell your Brother, Brother tell your Auntie, Auntie, tell your Uncle,Uncle tell my Cousin, Cousin tell my friend
Goin' up the (Rivoli) Mama, don't you want to go?" BwMcT

Finally a home game in Toronto The Good, Hogtown, Hollywood North, or, my favourite, Dirty Little York.

CR is back in town, pushing his new book of poetry and the DVD he made with Toronto film maker, Michael Levesque.

38 Bar Blues is available online and the DVD, Subtitles For A Foreign Film, should be out in December.

This venue is the shooting location for the two concerts that make up that DVD, it's kinda like home to the krewe I drag around to these shows.

And a second to home to CR, so The Rivoli's packed to capacity. The 'other CR', Toronto's Troubadour Corin Raymond is here. Members of the Toronto Youth Slam are in attendance in the hopes of learning tricks from the Bard of East Van.  Ronna Blume a Toronto area poet who was featured at last weeks Words Aloud. got up to do a Neil Young (sorta) poem, the drummers family, CR's videographer and some old guy who keeps following him around with a pair of mics.

So after 4 attempts I finally get a board. Was hoping to have enough A+ material for a live record but there's time enough in the future to nail that project. What I did get will tide me over the winter.

So what about the show? Well, it was Toronto and the audience was in the mood, so you know the band delivered.


CR Avery vocals, harmonica, keys
Noah Walker guitar
Evan Bates bass
Adam Farnsworth  keys, backing vocals
Kevin Romain drums


Set 1
Track 01 Shirley Dragon
Track 02 Is This What You Wanted?
Track 03 Ice Rinks
Track 04 Neil Young'sSongs Are Really About Cars (reading by w/ Ronna Blume CR on keys)
Track 05 Blackbird
Track 06 Motel 50 Miles Out of Town

Set 2
Track 01 This Disclosure
Track 02 Promiscuous Women
Track 03 Very Sarah Palin/Commercial Drive
Track 04 Honeymoon Is Over
Track 05 talk - 38 Bar Blues plug
Track 06 Dungeon of Love/Love Song
Track 07 Make It Count On Election Day (off board)
Track 08 Dinner For One
Track 09 Pryor/Dylan Rap/ Folk Singer
Track 10 band intro
Track 11 On To Something/Piano Lessons
Track 12 encore break/talk
Track 13 Doll House and Pocket Knife
Track 14 Midnight Gold Mining
Track 15 talk - Subtitles for a Foreign Film plug
Track 16 My Own Road To Go


3 nights that finish at 2 am ...  gruelling
850 kilometers on the road...  time consuming
Hotels, Food and Gas      ...      $400

5 sets of CR Avery in a week ...  priceless

CR Avery and the Special Interest GroupCarden St CafeGuelph ON2010-11-11

It's Remembrance Day and just remember this...war is for the corporations and the entitled. People got no issues with each other requiring that option.

This is the hometown of John McCrae, the poet who penned "In Flanders Fields". Now there's a coincidence you wouldn't come across if you didn't scour Wiki for an interesting tidbit about where you are going.

The Carden Street Cafe is not merely a funky (and cozy) live music venue, it's a decent eatery. Brought the wife out with me tonight for a little, umm, west coast culture in The Royal City, named after the descendents of King George the IV, and, more importantly, the current home of Sleemans Brewery. Guess I won't be quaffing any Stella from the tap tonight. Turns out there's no Sleeman's at this bar either, only Wellington. Family feud probably.

What a difference a couple of days make. While there's some dish crashing distractions because this is an eatery, the crowd was focussed on the artist with only one or two parties catching up on the days activities over the din.

CR has super-sized his set. We get a 40 minute warmup followed by a solid 70 minute closing set. Everything works on the audience. The spoken-word pieces get the silence they deserve.(Piano Lessons, A Few Thousand Words) The raucous songs get the response they require to take them over the top (Dungeon of Love, Dinner for One, Folk Singer). We got a snippet of Love Song tacked onto Dungeon and we got Birdcage wrapped up in On To Something...kapow!

Oh, wait, show ends with Midnight Gold Mining...wham, bam, thanks for coming out.

Set 1
Track 01 Piano Lessons
Track 02 This Disclosure
Track 03 Promiscuous Women
Track 04 Very Sarah Palin
Track 05 talk - art is boring
Track 06 A Few Thousand WordsTrack 07 talk - swag plug
Track 08 Dungeon of Love/Love Song

Set 2
Track 01 Maggies Farm
Track 02 Make It Count On Election Day
Track 03 Goin' To Bed Hungry
Track 04 Dinner For One
Track 05 Dylan-Pryor Rap/Folk Singer
Track 06 On To Something/Birdcage
Track 07 encore break
Track 08 The Marines Lament
Track 09 Band Intro
Track 10 Midnight Gold Mining

CR Avery and the Special Interest Group This Ain't HollywoodHamilton ON2010-11-09

We are in the "Ambitious City" of the early 1800's when George Hamilton founded the settlement that was going to unsettle the Iroquois nation once and for all. (Five Nations at the time, could have used that 6th Nation to shore up the defence but it's unsure if the Tuscarora would have tilted the balance.) Later, as industry took over, it was the "Birmingham of Canada" which was cool until they turned on the water hoses in the southern version.

Put the shameful history of our cultural genocide behind and what you have now is "Lunchbucket City", made up of salt-of-the-earth blue-collar workers, soon to be on display at the ROM, next to the dinosaurs.

"Steeltown" has just seen it's workers locked out of the US Steel plant this past week.

"Hammertown" is getting close to puttin' the "Hammer" down.

Well, that's my eulogy and I'm all out of nicknames.

In town to breathe some life into this shut-down-at-sundown city are CR Avery and friends. Dinner at a local Vietnamase eatery, 15 minutes of Roger Marin's set, too much of some other guys set, and not a minute before 11 pm the show starts.

Starts strong too with a punchy Boxer Who Just Returned From London. At this point it seemed like the middling-sized crowd was in the mood. But it was early.

Back in 1980 Iggy Pop taught me something when he walked out on a concert 23 minutes into the set, yelling at the audience, telling them that if they didn't want to rock, well then, neither did he. Shortest show ever! The lesson? The audience often gets what they deserve. Or, from a more positive perspective, the audience is an integral part of making a show great. Without the energy pouring back from the seats it's just a bunch of sweating guys pumping out chords.

This Disclosure, with a hook/melody borrowed from Small Town, is a gender-bending excercise in failed relationships.

CR gives a shout out to the less than 'magazine beautiful' in Promiscuous Women. Sensing the crowd is not yet engaged he first strokes them, telling them they look like a good Tuesday night crowd, then gently admonishes them, letting them know the fate of the show rests in their hands as much as his. He calls out for their help to elevate this set above mediocrity. A slightly better than half-hearted sing-a-long threatens to make this ploy a success.

But this crowd ain't that interested.

Very Sarah Palin starts as a diatribe and ends as an all out rockabilly blast. The band leaves the crowd behind half way through this song. They're gonna have fun and no one can stop 'em.

Dungeon of Love keeps up the pace.

Dinner For One is this tours litmus test. Rude, crude, and I'm guessing someone's tattooed. This is the song that lets the band know if there's life beyond the lights or if dead people really can smoke. (old joke, don't work no more in this new age of smokeless bars) Tonight's response from the girls was, let's say embarrassed, in a giggly way. It's much better when the women howl. The men howled, in a drunken lasvicious manner, which didn't make it any less embarrassing. Great '50's girl group' style to this song, complete with the shoo-be-doo-wops.

CR's still working hard. In a final effort to involve the crowd he brings the show to them, stepping off stage for an unplugged version of his 'Fanfare for the Common Man', Make It Count On Election Day. A tip of the hat goes out to CR's good friend Corin Raymond, who reminds us there will always be a small time as long as they are singing in the parlours. A little down-home country stomp-along for the populist crowd.

Back to the stage for a new rap, the Dylan Meets Pryor intro to a raucous version of Folk Singer.

The night closes with I'm On to Something and the band continues to rock.

Despite a drunken cry for 'one more song' from the one guy who was not paying attention all night, the crowd thinned out and CR was just about to do the same.

You can set 'em up but you can't knock 'em out every night.

Now on a totally unrelated note CR was gracious enough to allow me a soundboard patch of this show, as he did last time we were at This Ain't Hollywood. That time I mentioned to the sound guy that there was no feed to my recorder. He insisted there must be because everything was set as it should be. Until he realized it wasn't, with about 3 songs left in the set. This go round it seemed like all was well, I was getting a good signal, though I did not have headphones on, I was relying on my monitor. Turns out that when he cut the preshow canned music from the PA's he failed to shut it out of the soundboard, so it continues to play over the band. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, I won't get fooled again. Seriously though, shit happens, big thanks to everyone for the effort and the sound inside the venue was pretty good, except for that low hiss, which is what matters.

So these samples are from my audience recording I was capturing simultaneously because I trust no one.

Set List

Boxer Who Just Returned From London
This Disclosure (Small Town Redux)
Promiscuous Women
Very Sarah Palin
Dungeon of Love
Dinner For One
Make It Count On Election Day
Folk Singer
I'm On To Something

CR Avery and the Special Interest Group Words Aloud Festival Durham ON2010-11-06

A special day in the middle of CR's cross Canada full-band tour. Words Aloud
has invited him in for a weekend of concerts and workshops. We caught two unique sets; an afternoon bookstore set and an evening art gallery show.

Four members of the Toronto Youth Slam Team open the afternoon at the Great Books & Cafe at The Mill in Williamsford, a 20 minute drive north of Durham. The kids are alright, perhaps a little old for their age, but that's ok, there's plenty of time left to be younger. My favorite artist ended up 4th out of 4 today, so it shows you there is no accounting for taste, or I know nothing about poetry. All the kids performed well but I was drawn to the rough-edged urban poetry of Skummilk, he took some risks with his material.

What the venue bio doesn't tell you is this bookstore/cafe was a major grow-op in it's previous incarnation, which explains the 4 year renovation. Just a little local history.

This is a 'pay what you can' event for no more than 50 people, counting the one's standing in back and seated on the massive staircase. A very good turnout in this rural community a couple hours away from Toronto.

After an entertaining 3-round slam from the youngun's CR Avery takes the stage for what is one of the best sets I've seen him deliver, and I've seen more than a few good ones. He really takes to these intimate rooms. Using the house piano, one mic and his harmonicas he's got all the tools he needs to win the crowd. And win them over, he does.

You gotta give props to these local arts-community sponsored events. They make it possible for performers like CR to travel across the country and build a mini-tour around the event. People at Cicada Fest, Perth Folk Festival and this Words Aloud program are keeping the spirit of music alive in the face of the crushing mediocrity the major labels and distributors are hoisting on us. Search them out, be a patron, if only by showing up.

CR absolutely nails every song this afternoon. He starts at the piano, quiety, slowly, letting the audience settle into their chairs, atune their ears and focus their attention. When I'm Gone usually closes a set but CR is wasting no time warming up the audience. He's hot, they gotta catch up.

The sign that he really had his mojo working comes in the spoken word Hendrix/Dylan piece that follows. As he's moving through the story at his usual machine-gun pace he stumbles on a single opening word to a line and deftly drops into his 'hip-hop-beat-box-syllable-popping' vocal style and covers up the flub...I'm sure no one noticed. No one else that is. I believe he used it to the same effect in the PET poem that ended the set, the only two times he missed a step.

The audience is enlisted to play the part of orchestra on the lovely piano ballad, Like A Train In The Snow. It's only a mini-set so we can't be waiting until the encore break to reel them in. CR has a handful of terrific ballads (When I'm Gone, Bus To Baton Rouge,Rain Falls On Eternity)and though his press-kit says little about his ability to deliver these songs, they may represent the height of his combined playing,singing and performance skills. 'Course I only think that 'till he rips off a burning blues number like Motel 50 Miles Out of Town.

It's been a long wait, maybe close to 20 shows and a few thousand miles, but CR finally pulls out Down at the Cafe. Perhaps we had to be in a cafe. Perhaps we required the poetry slam to be part of the show...don't know, don't care, just happy to hear it.

Most of the songs are getting a little introduction tonight and CR invokes the spirit of Tom Waits' to shrug off the pressure of selling a million records Stateside in Big In Japan. The audience, once again, takes to his harmonica-beat-box riffs, resonding enthusiastically as sweat begins to pour off our boy on stage.

Come February we'll be watching the next song as part of a Hockey Night In Canada presentation, his homage to Wayne Gretzky and bitch-slap to the American sense of self-importance with Already the Great One.

38 Bar Blues is the new book of poetry, just released and now available online. We get a brief reading of Old Love The Gambler.

In December CR will be in the city of angels to record with a full orchestra. One of the 6 songs on the sked is the story of his outdoor friend, The Kind Man of Alexander Street. Inner city music, save your city music.

A spoken word piece, Pierre Elliott Trudeau closes out the set. This poem continues to morph. CR has injected a line about Diefenbaker's stand on the Bay of Pigs which makes his other claims about Trudeau's willingness to stand up to the US more historically correct. My guess is someone in Alberta made the case for Dief. While CR does use the "just watch me" quote he should add a couple lines about how PET handled the FLQ terror without terrorizing the people, as a leader should.

Here are some sound samples from the afternoon set.

Set List

When I'm Gone
The Grey Armpit of Rock n Roll
Like A Train in the Snow
Down at the Cafe
Big In Japan
Already the Great One
Old Love The Gambler (poem recital)
The Kind Man of Alexander Street
Pierre Elliott Trudeau

The evening set is at the roomier main hall of the Durham Art Gallery and CR has his band, The Special Interest Group, along for the unplugged session. Road veterans Noah Walker (guitar) and Evan Bates (bass) are joined by two newcomers Adam Farnsworth on keys and Kevin Romain on drums. Hope the boys are enjoying their initiation to life on the road with a circus.

Only one song repeated in the evening set, PET, and it was by request of the organizers. It got a slightly different treatment with jazz accompianament(sp?)to spice it up a touch. Gave it a finger-snapping beat-edge.

Two classic covers to open, both changed almost beyond recognition, updating the words of Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan.

He follows with a great version of Ice Rinks that builds in intensity and explodes at the end, complete with a little Salt n Peppa.
Blackbird gets the CR treatment then we get some new songs.

Sound samples below.

Set List

Is This What You Wanted?
Maggies Farm
Ice Rinks
Blackbird
Make It Count On Election Day
I Know I'm On to Something (I Just Don't Know What)
A Few Thousand Words
I'm Gonna Eat You Out
Pierre Eliot Trudeau
My Own Road To Go

Gord Downie Queen Elizabeth Theatre2010-11-05

OK, I'm thinking this concert is a sign that I try too hard to find shows. Nothing against Gord Downie , he's a consumate entertainer...it's just do I really have the time to start up an interest in his solo work? November was looking like a light month when I booked this show but now I've got 5 shows in 8 nights then a trip to Massachusetts in late November to catch a couple Dylan shows. It wasn't easy dragging my work-weary ass out of the house on this cold winter night.

Bonus fries right off the top - Gord is his own opening act. A quick 40 minute set was followed by a brief intermission and an hour and forty minute set to close.

He's doing a unique art show with his songs. On stage he has an overhead projector from your grade 5 math class. Using cut-out shapes of thin acetate, a pyrex bowl (one without Pyrex imbedded on the bottom, no product placement here) and assorted liquids and water colours. To introduce the songs he builds a scene from these assorted pieces, layering the cut-outs, then using the pyrex and liquid to bring scenes to life. It really was pretty good. We had a lighthouse against a dark ocean, the twin towers aflame complete with plane, assorted moonlight scenes with flying birds, geese in fact, and too many others to remember without a camera.

While this was something new, bordering on interesting, it was an anchor to the pace of the show. The silence was filled by assorted Hip-heads thinking it was a license to have a conversation with Gord. Any chatter coming from Gord, or introduction to the upcoming song, was off-mike and hard to pick up in this lovely, but too large, room.

Set 1
Track 01 ?The Myth
Track 02 The Dance and It's Disappearance
Track 03 Moon Over Glenora
Track 04 Yellow Days
Track 05 The Hard Canadian
Track 06 talk w/ projector art
Track 07 Night Is For Getting
Track 08 audience chatter/song intro
Track 09 Trick Rider
Track 10 Canada Geese
Set 2

Track 11 The East Wind
Track 12 Vancouver Divorce
Track 13 Christmas Time In Toronto
Track 01 Gone
Track 02 11th Fret
Track 03 The Drowning Machine
Track 04 Steeplechase
Track 05 Figment
Track 06 Yer Possessed
Track 07 outro/encore break
Track 08 ?What You Gonna Do About It?
Track 09 Broadcast
Track 10 Going Going Gone
Track 11 Chancellor
Track 12 Insomniacs of the World, Good Night

CR Avery Does Ontario Various Venues Durham, Hamilton,Guelph and TorontoNovember 2010

Back with a full band, a new book of poetry and a DVD, CR Avery is storming across the country and spending a little time in our nape of the woods, er, neck of the way, ummm, how come he's here?

It's the Rock N Roll Bandit tour with some spoken word tossed in for the thinkin' crowd.

Check out the dates!