🦋 Gig notes -- Freehold
So there you are with about sixty other Fegmaniax sitting on
folding chairs in
Mark C.'s studio in Freehold (Central Jersey -- just around the corner
from where Springsteen went to high school), everybody's introducing
themselves and chatting and feeling psyched for the evening's show. And
Robyn Hitchcock comes in! He notes as he walks up to the stage how this
venue is a bit like an airplane cabin -- five seats on each side, please
keep the center aisle clear; take time to locate the exit nearest you, and
if you need to use the restroom, please use the appropriate one for your
class. If you think somebody else paid more for their ticket than you did
for yours, defer to them. "So everybody was here last time, right? ..." He takes off his coat and picks up his
guitar; wearing a hot pink shirt with embroidery and a green scarf that
gets tangled in the strap as he takes it off. "I don't wear glasses when
I'm performing, I just wanted to see you for a moment -- now I'll return to
my womblike state of myopia," and hangs his specs off the side of a lamp
next to the mic stand, and starts to play. "You'll never have the damned
thing out," he sings, and you sink into the beat of Surgery
(Gotta Let Ths Hen Out!, 1985†).
"This is a song about the emotional baggage you carry with you from
one relationship to another. I didn't figure that out for about 20 years
after I wrote it. Could you give me some delay on the vocals here, Mark,
this is sort of a rock & roll sea chanty." The Ghost
Ship (You & Oblivion, 1995). I wonder where my love has
been, tonight -- "Just imagine I'm Art Garfunkel:" Swirling
(Queen Elvis, 1989), which "I wrote when I was in the middle of
splitting up with someone, and also splitting up with with the second
person... it was a memorable experience." He explains how we
have to be angry, or we wouldn't be alive -- so "do you indulge
your quite justified rage at existence, or bite the bullet and inherit the
earth?"
From here he moves straight into The Devil's
Coachman (also from Queen Elvis). A bit of a digression
here about how his guitar strings are all worn out -- just yesterday they
were fresh and new, like tulips! "But thrash on tulips for a few hours,
they're not tulips anymore. You're just beatin' on that daffodil, baby! ...I
see we're just over Iceland now." Travel in the future, you learn, will be
much easier: just reduce yourself to a powder and FedEx yourself to your
destination to be rehydrated. "Wilbur! You're here! Welcome to Marin
County." All you've got to do is Ride... (Perspex Island, 1991) "Oxycontin
for mama, baby Jesus for the rest of us:" Madonna of the
Wasps (Queen Elvis again), going out to P. Buck.
"The practice known as vudu has been around for a long time. (Like
most things.) When you wish ill on somebody, a tiny grain inside you dies.
But you can't wish well on everybody -- can you? What do you think when
you look in the mirror? -- besides wishing for a face lift..." Wax Doll (yes,
Queen Elvis).
And now the harmonica is out! Drink a little coffee! ("We proudly brew
Starbucks™! ...How else can you brew Starbucks™?
shamefacedly?...") And a bit of tuning, tuning "as an agent provocateur,
pushing the string farther out of tune and then bringing it back so it
sounds better," leads into Queen Elvis (Eye, 1990) A bit of a digression
here asking whether the lamp by the mic stand (not the one he hung his
glasses on, a different one) is a Tiffany lamp... What distinguishes it
from a Tiffany lamp? Could it be made into a Tiffany lamp? Various
people from the audience are throwing in commentary, differing on a
variety of points, which is good -- "Consensus is very disturbing; if
everyone thinks along the same lines it usually means there's some kind
of fascism afoot." Maybe tonight you're dreaming... Arms of Love
(Respect, 1993). "If you're in Nashville, be sure to stop by the 5
Spot... especially if you like smoke and alcohol, like I do. (I'm from the
past, where it's not dangerous.)" More tuning -- "this guitar took a fall
today, coming into Amboy, South Amboy, it might be a problem..." -- and One Long Pair of
Eyes (Queen Elvis!) is the last of the back-catalogue tunes.
He closes out the set with two covers, Oh Yeah by
Roxy Music and She Belongs to Me by Tubby the Evangelist, and a
new song not yet released*, with the lyric "A window of bliss/ that
opened just once/ for the price of a kiss."
The encore happens in Mark's dining room next to the potluck supper,
and is 100% Basement Tapes tunes -- "Tiny Montgomery", "Lo and
Behold", "Quinn the Eskimo", and "Open the Door, Richard". You have some
baked beans and some pasta salad and a beer, and marvel at the glow of
happiness on everybody's faces.
 †(On the video tape of GLTHO -- It was not released on a record until You & Oblivion)
* (as far as I can tell -- not able to find anything about it on Google or in conversation with other fans.)
posted morning of Saturday, March first, 2014
➳ More posts about Robyn Hitchcock -- gig notes
➳ More posts about Robyn Hitchcock
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Saturday's set in Bordentown -- Main points to bear in mind (1) a lovely set list and deliverance of same was marred by the harshness of the amplification -- the encores, which were in the audience and unamplified, were the high point. (2) Opening act the Grip Weeds have a pleasant jangly sound and nice harmonies; alas they have only one pleasant jangly sound which you hear on all of their songs. Worked pretty well as an opening band, and they backed up Robyn on the last two encore numbers, which was great. List (possibly the ordering is not quite right):
In the Abyss
Mexican God
Only the Stones Remain
The Lizard [!]
Adventure Rocket Ship [funny, just before the show I was mentioning to @Kate how this was the song which broke my 20-year stretch of not hearing any new Hitchcock tunes, in 2007.]
Cynthia Mask
Glass Hotel
Sometimes a Blonde
Lysander
I Often Dream of Trains
My Wife & My Dead Wife
Be Still
Olé Tarantula (going out to Tubby the Evangelist)
Encore:
Visions of Johanna
Gigolo Aunt (by "the British Bob Dylan" except for Syd was out of the running before they opened nominations -- the official title has gone to Bowie)
Hide Yer Love Away (grip weeds on rhythm guitar and backup vocals)
Listening to the Higsons (ditto)
posted morning of March second, 2014 by J
The Bordentown show is now torrentable at Dime a dozen -- members only, membership is free but limited. Looks like I omitted "NY Doll" from my listing.
posted evening of March second, 2014 by J
my envy knows no bounds
posted morning of March third, 2014 by cleek
Great write-up of a great show. I spoke to you briefly at the end. I missed Bordentown but saw Sellersville on Monday night.
posted evening of March third, 2014 by Chris Sikich
Hi Chris! Wasn't Sellersville great? It seems like Bordentown was sort of a rehearsal for Sellersville -- a lot of the same songs, but at Sellersville Robyn was rested and in top form, and what a fantastic venue!
posted morning of March 4th, 2014 by J
The song at the end of the Freehold set, with the lyric about the price of a kiss, is "Recalling the Truth", released on The Man Upstairs. You can see him performing it at the City Winery recently, November 10, 2014.
posted afternoon of December second, 2014 by The Modesto Kid
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