From: owner-jangle-poets-digest@smoe.org (jangle-poets-digest) To: jangle-poets-digest@smoe.org Subject: jangle-poets-digest V10 #42 Reply-To: jangle-poets@smoe.org Sender: owner-jangle-poets-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-jangle-poets-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk jangle-poets-digest Monday, September 28 2009 Volume 10 : Number 042 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [JP] The Crossfall Show - TK 9/26/09 Good Folk Coffeehouse, Rowayton CT [] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 27 Sep 2009 23:17:58 EDT From: MercyHouse1@aol.com Subject: [JP] The Crossfall Show - TK 9/26/09 Good Folk Coffeehouse, Rowayton CT "And the hardest part Was letting go, not taking part, It's the hardest part. And the strangest thing Was waiting for that bell to ring It was the strangest start..." (Coldplay, "The Hardest Part") There was a strange start to Pete & Maura Kennedy's Good Folk show Saturday night, and there was a strange ending too. Near the beginning of the show, during "River of Fallen Stars," a huge 8-foot tall cross, directly behind Pete & Maura and in full sight of everyone in the room, suddenly listed to the right, falling to become lodged on the wall at about a 30-degree angle. Pete & Maura kept on playing their jangly guitar fretwork, true Jangle-Poets that they are, talking with the crowd about what had just happened, before returning to singing the song about a River of Fallen Stars. A fallen cross during a song about Fallen Stars. It was so eerie. I wouldn't have missed that for the world. It was so spontaneous, so unplanned, and it seemed deeply significant somehow. Pete & Maura tried to go with the flow, and let the moment generate the kind of magic for which the Kennedys have already become legendary, and they totally succeeded IMO. I thought the cross falling was some kind of sign, a revelation as clear as ringing a bell. P&M seemed kind of spooked, and played a spooky song, Dylan's "As I Went Out," shortly after. They spent the rest of the evening reflecting on how they might exorcize whatever bad vibes or bad spirits might have caused the crossfall during their show, and they introduced their last song, "Stand," as a means to that end of atonement. And bells were rung during the song "Stand," one exactly when the chorus "Allah Buddha Yahweh Jesus Brahma" began, and one on the very last chord of the song. It was really effective and powerful. Bells do drive out bad spirits, right? Soon after the cross fell, I thought of the beginning of the movie "The Mission," where a cross falls down a waterfall with someone attached to it -- sort of a visual metaphor for the whole movie. So I requested "A Bend in the River," since it is based on that movie, and Maura explained the part where the man on the cross goes over the "Bend in the River." Spooky! Life Is Large Dharma Cafe River of Fallen Stars (cross fell) Wall of Death (cross was lodged against the wall) Bend in the River (cross falling down waterfall in movie) Midnight Ghost (song about a ghost) As I Went Out (ghost story) The Thing With Feathers (described by Maura as "gothic") Make It Last Shadows With the Lonely (Maura thanked 2 Bruces for championing this song when she was thinking of dropping it) The Bells Rang Alabama Rain Nature Boy Breathe Season of the Witch Air (My Lagan Love) Down Down Down Matty Groves Rhapsody in Blue Stand (w/ bells) The end of the Kennedys' set before the encore, namely the songs "Season of the Witch," "Air," "Down Down Down," and "Matty Groves," was all done without a break, in Strangelings fashion. I always loved when they did that, and it was very impressive this time too. The tension generated by their not stopping between those songs was so great, when they played the opening chords of "Matty Groves," I felt like a bottle-stopper that had just been uncorked. The Kennedys work a unique kind of magic when they play together -- Maura weaves her own special spell of enchantment, solo -- and then Pete wows us with his own wizardry when he does his own sets. And then on top of all that, the Good Folk Coffeehouse has its own one-of-a-kind magic too -- I think of it in terms of Cadence Carroll, who did her solo CD Release show there so many years ago. Good Folk Coffeehouse is a "Place of Love," having already fully evolved to a place of love, as Cadence sings in the title cut of her album "Evolve." What a great Kennedys show! Bruce Check out the Kennedys' Official Home Page: http://www.KennedysMusic.com/ Fab photos, the Official tour diary, dashboard Buddha haiku, groovy merchandise...what more could you ask for? ------------------------------ End of jangle-poets-digest V10 #42 **********************************