From: owner-jangle-poets-digest@smoe.org (jangle-poets-digest) To: jangle-poets-digest@smoe.org Subject: jangle-poets-digest V11 #15 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 Friday, September 24 2010 Volume 11 : Number 015 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [JP] Kennedys Full Band 9/19/10 City Winery, NYC [KPalmatier@aol.com] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2010 22:51:26 EDT From: KPalmatier@aol.com Subject: [JP] Kennedys Full Band 9/19/10 City Winery, NYC Seeing the Kennedys at City Winery with a band, with bass and drums, was like seeing the Kennedys for the very first time, all over again. I first saw the Kennedys 5/9/96, in a co-bill with the full-band Nields, at the Bottom Line. In those days, I almost never missed any of the Nields shows at the Bottom Line. I still have never missed a Nields Iron Horse show since 1995. So I was all about the Nields back then, but I had never yet seen the Kennedys. The 5/9/96 Bottom Line show was a "Life Is Large" CD Release for the Kennedys, with Pete and Maura supported by 3 other musicians, bass, drums, and keyboards. I was totally blown away by the Kennedys. I immediately thought they were better than the Nields. They rocked harder than the Nields (in that full-band alignment) -- I thought their songs were great -- and Pete and Maura were just fantastic, he on electric guitar, she on lead vocals. This was 5/9/96 at the Bottom Line. I wanted to start following the Kennedys right then and there. But for various reasons, I did not start following the Kennedys for another 5 years, until the eve of Easter 2001, at the Sounding Board in West Hartford, when the Kennedys sang Kate Wolf's "Across the Great Divide," and I found a road. Now to Sunday night's Kennedys set. All were dressed in black. Maura was centerstage, with Pete playing guitar to her right, bass player Ward White to her left, and drummer Tommy Allen bringing up the rear. This configuration, with Pete, Maura, and Ward in front, and Tommy behind, was a veritable Bermuda Triangle of folk-pop rock-and-roll energy, an Isosceles Triangle of imaginative contemporary music, a very Devil's Triangle of fun. Maura was on fire, with perfect lead vocals, jangly rhythm guitar, and leading the arrangements throughout the set by cuing each of the other musicians in turn, especially for the endings of each song. It was so wonderful to hear Pete's seamless and scintillating fretwork on Rickenbacker and electric sitar in this setting, considering that Pete often plays acoustic guitar with just the duo, and plays only bass in the Maura Kennedy full-band gigs I've seen. Ward White was a revelation. He looked like 20, played like 50. I thought he was the best bass player ever to play with the Kennedys, that I'd seen, and I'd seen the Kennedys play full-band in 2000 when they were touring for "Evolver," as well as the 1996 Bottom Line full-band gig already alluded to. I'd seen Tommy Allen play with Maura Kennedy's solo band before, so it was almost like hearing an old friend, which of course he is in a way, since Maura told the City Winery that she'd known Tommy for a longer time than Pete! "Pick You Up." Maura's played this in her solo shows. A great way to open up the set, from "Evolver." "Mystery." I'd never heard the Kennedys play this one in the 15 years I've seen them, from "Life Is Large." "Didn't It Rain." A staple of Pete and Maura's shows with the Strangelings, originally from "Get It Right." "And Your Bird Can Sing." A bonus track on the re-release of the CD "Life Is Large." "I Found a Road." If not for "Stand," always my favorite Kennedys live number, because it sums it all up so perfectly for me in just those three or four minutes of folk-pop perfection. From the "Better Dreams" album. "New Way to Live." Maybe the most rocking of the songs from the Maura Kennedy album "Parade of Echoes." "Breathe." The always-inspiring anthem about dying into a new life, from "Better Dreams." "Make It Last." This was the first solo Maura Kennedy song I ever heard, way back at the 120-Minute Folk Festival in Titusville NJ 3/29/08, when the Kennedys shared the stage with Christina Thompson Lively, Hungrytown, Pete Kennedy solo, Maura Kennedy solo, the Stringbusters, and the Strangelings. From Maura's "Parade of Echoes." "Never Learn." A rarely-heard ballad, from "Evolver." "Blackberry Rain." Along with "Mystery," another one I'd never heard the Kennedys play in all of my years, from "Life Is Large." "Wall of Death." From "River of Fallen Stars." I distinctly remember the Kennedys playing this one at my first-ever Kennedys show 5/9/96 at the Bottom Line, the thrill of recognition of "Kindred Spirits," since I'd been a huge Richard Thompson fan for so long already prior to my first hearing the Kennedys play it. "Life Is Large." The title cut from the album of the same name, and prior to "Stand," *the* Kennedys anthem par excellence. I wanted to jump for joy during this song, but I didn't feel that the venue would put up with such dumbass gleeful behavior, it being a sit-down club and all. I really wanted to jump for joy throughout this whole show. Maura as the central focal point of the band seemed just right to me, my own judgment in this being influenced, I suppose, by my 3 years of following Maura Kennedy as her biggest fan of her solo material. Pete was just right, too, as *true* guitarslinger, since he could really let her rip on Rick and sitar as only he can do, but as he really cannot do when it's just the two of them as the duo of Pete and Maura. Ward White was just right on bass, for three, and I hope to see him play many, many more times in the future, along with Tommy Allen, who powers the pulse of percussion. I hated the drive -- the horrific New York area expressways, the four-and-a-half hours each way, really almost a driving nightmare -- but I loved the Kennedys, and I'll do it again, given half the chance. 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 V11 #15 **********************************