From: owner-lucy-list-digest@smoe.org (lucy-list-digest) To: lucy-list-digest@smoe.org Subject: lucy-list-digest V4 #180 Reply-To: lucy-list@smoe.org Sender: owner-lucy-list-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-lucy-list-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk lucy-list-digest Saturday, August 10 2002 Volume 04 : Number 180 In this issue: [lucy-list] Lucy in Huntington 8/8 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 9 Aug 2002 10:37:38 -0400 (EDT) From: "Benay Bubar" Subject: [lucy-list] Lucy in Huntington 8/8 This may be a somewhat abbreviated and less than fully detailed review (well, compared with my usual) due to the lateness (well, earliness!) of the hour and the fact that I have to be at work in a few hours (so as to leave work early, so as to see Lucy again in Pawling tomorrow!). BUT...I just have to say that tonight's Lucy show in Huntington was amazing, not only because it was free (thanks again, Huntington Arts Council!), but also because...well, music-wise, let's just say that I think it may have been my second favorite Lucy show of all time (my favorite having been at a small coffeehouse in the Bronx several years ago in the middle of winter...I can't explain too much here, but that was just weirdly great). I went out to Huntington with Sharon and Suzi, and after a dinner that featured much coveting of pickles and coffee (but not at the same time) and the halfhearted gnawing of what was not the ham-and-cheese sandwich of my dreams (which I will probably still be trying to finish into next week, so as not to waste it!), and after a lesson for me in the new skill of closing gates ("But Suzi, I live in the city! I don't HAVE a gate except where I take out my trash!"), we settled ourselves down in Heckscher Park. Lovely park, lovely big stage...and, except for a few random squeaks, good sound for an outdoor show. The opener was Jim Dawson...there was talk of him and Lucy having worked together before, but I didn't get a clear sense of that and I wasn't terribly enthralled because I was waiting to hear Lucy. The notable thing about Jim Dawson, though---besides momentous, climactic pauses during his songs during which everything stopped dead and it sometimes seemed we would have had time to get coffee and go take a nap before he continued---was that just before the end of his set, he launched into...Someday Soon. Yes, THE Someday Soon...the Someday Soon that Lucy learned from Judy Collins that she sang at Falcon Ridge...the Someday Soon Lucy couldn't sing tonight because Jim Dawson did. And his version just didn't compare. Sad, sad, sad. BUT...despite the lack of Someday Soon in HER set, Lucy...on "the most beautiful summer night in the history of the world," which I think is close to what she said...dressed in a rather fancy long-sleeved white top (she called it "preppy" and said she'd always wanted to be preppy) and the jeans with the lace on them (yes, I saw the lace this time...it was fine with me...she called the jeans "hippie" and said she'd always wanted to be a hippie too, so tonight she was doing both)---did a truly magnificent set of songs, and sang for a good solid hour and a half. The setlist, which in some ways will speak for itself (but I'll try to speak for it some too): Small Dark Movie Written on the Back of His Hand I Had Something Don't Mind Me I Know What Kind of Love This Is (a truly stunning version of a song she hadn't done in a while...even after hearing it all those times on the Cry Cry Cry CD, it doesn't seem any LESS when Lucy sings it by herself...this was much better than the Nields version, and I do like the Nields) (bug intro---discussion of whether Lucy's bug was a palmetto bug---later she decided it probably was) Ten Year Night Scorpion (coincidence that the song with that title so often follows the song with the bug intro these days?) I'm Looking Through You (Lucy talked about doing this Beatles song at Falcon Ridge and how she HADN'T known beforehand that the Paperboys were going to do I've Just Seen a Face and she couldn't do that one...so she came up with I'm Looking Through You almost on the spot and just hoped she'd remember the words. My jaw dropped at that. Lucy performed it so flawlessly at Falcon Ridge that I just assumed she'd known about the Paperboys' plans and had specifically prepared this particular song. Anyway, how incredibly fortunate that this happened...this song deserves to stay in Lucy's setlist...she's fantastic with it even if she still isn't sure how it ends!) This Is Home Land of the Living (particularly hard to hear tonight...at an outdoor show in August on a beautiful summer night...since I remembered so clearly being there last August 29th when Lucy sang at the WTC with John Gorka, before there was ever a need for Land of the Living to be written...) Just You Tonight (on piano) Song About Pi My Name Joe (!!!!---think she only did it because some guy yelled for it twice, rather insistently, but I was thrilled since I hadn't heard it in AGES. Lucy truly does a terrific job with this song; it's still one of my favorites.) Turn the Lights Back On (this has sort of become an anthem for me recently in relation to a very specific person and situation in my life---nobody, I hasten to say, who has anything to do with Lucy or this list---so it's always very SATISFYING) By Way of Sorrow Encores: You're Still Standing There Goodnight (with story about being on NPR and being #1 on Amazon...hooray, Lucy!) The funniest moment of the night was one Lucy herself missed. Between songs, somewhere in the middle, she mentioned the cute kids in the audience, and how they were up late, and how that must be cool for them, and then she said, "Your parents are cool too!" (presumably, for bringing them to the show in the first place). And at that precise moment, this one little kid sitting near us said, very definitely, in a clear response to that very comment, "No," as in, "No, my parents AREN'T cool!" Everyone around us cracked up, and Lucy could hear the laughter but didn't know what was so funny until we told her later! I can pretty much be counted on to love any Lucy show, as you probably all know by now, but there was a particular magic to this one. Lucy was clearly having fun...a different kind of fun than she has with Duke Levine or with a band, but fun nonetheless. She did plenty of standards, but at times when she could have stuck with fairly standard choices (even when people were yelling out requests), she branched out and did some of her less-often-performed songs (I think this was the first time I'd heard You're Still Standing There live). It was one of those shows I'm going to remember as a highlight of my Lucy-listening career, and I've seen her be so good so often that that's saying a lot. Well, I've finally lost all the momentum I gained from the caffeine in the Pepsi Blue I drank earlier in the day. (That's a new soft drink from Pepsi, if anyone wonders, as I would have...bright blue, "berry-flavored" cola...I always have to try these things once...this one, like the disappointingly artificial-tasting Vanilla Coke, is a bad, bad idea. Its taste is vaguely reminiscent of cotton candy, but cotton candy as a LIQUID does not have the same appeal...it gave me an odd feeling of being at or near some kind of children's television show. I mean, all I could think was, if I were ever attacked by Barney the dinosaur or the Teletubbies, THIS would be the beverage I'd probably be drinking when it happened. So...general warning...avoid Pepsi Blue at all costs. See the valuable public service information you pick up on the Lucy-list? Anyway, I digress. But that is, after all, my specialty...and the Pepsi Blue and my negative realizations about it were a significant aspect of my day...so, how does Pepsi Blue relate to Lucy? Drank Pepsi Blue...then saw Lucy...hah! Got it!) And now I'm going to bed. On to Lucy in Pawling tomorrow...after I get through that crazy little thing called WORK! No more Pepsi Blue tomorrow, though. Just coffee. Lots of it. Benay ------------------------------ End of lucy-list-digest V4 #180 ******************************* This has been a posting from the Lucy Kaplansky mail list digest To unsubscribe send mail to Majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe lucy-list-digest" in the body of the message