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September 21, 2007
A Tab worth picking up
I was dreading walking into the Fairfield Theatre Company Thursday night with the sinking feeling that nobody would turn out to see Louisiana bluesman Tab Benoit perform.
We ran a nice feature on him in Thursday’s paper, but I didn’t know if Benoit had the name recognition to get people to drop $40 or so to see him. But, lo and behold, there was a nice crowd at FTC. There’s nothing worse than seeing an incredibly talented performer play before a meager crowd.
I’d like to think my story helped get people off their butts and out to the show, but I often like to give myself too much credit.
Anyway, Benoit was an eye-opener. I like his new album, “Power of the Ponchartrain,” and I’ve enjoyed a few of his older discs, especially the ones he did with Jimmy Thackery, but nothing in his recorded output prepared me for Thursday night.
I was blown away, to say the least, and ended up doing something I hadn’t planned on: staying for the whole show, plus the encore. I am so glad I did. I knew it would be a fun show, but I just sat there, mesmerized by Benoit’s guitar work.
And I was not alone, as the audience was into it from the very first song, “I Got Loaded.” Benoit is a wizard with the guitar; a wonderfully gritty singer; and, as he showed in his encore, not a bad drummer.
He also was dryly humorous, with a sharp wit and cutting comeback for some of the interruptions yelled out by audience members. He was a lot less serious than he was in our recent phone interview, where he launched into a 20-minute diatribe on the conditions along the Gulf Coast, especially New Orleans, and the erosion of the surrounding wetlands that has been going on for years.
Benoit played most of the night with two members of Louisiana’s LeRoux, but he also shined during the three songs he performed solo at the beginning of his second set. Included in that stretch was a charming cover of Hank Williams’ “My Bucket Got a Whole In It.”
Benoit made it known he’d like to be asked back to FTC and it’s a safe bet everyone in attendance Thursday night will be back if that happens. It’s also a safe bet that they’ll tell their friends and the small theater near the Fairfield train station will be rocking louder than any passing Amtrak.
Posted by Sean on 8:39 PM | Comments (2995)
September 17, 2007
Genesis in Hartford
Before heading to the Hartford Civic Center for the Genesis concert Sunday night, I checked the Internet for recent set lists so I could get a sense of what to expect. The song lineup was definitely not what I expected.
I wrongly guessed that the band would play two hours of its radio-friendly hits amassed after drummer Phil Collins took over the singing duties from Peter Gabriel in the mid-1970s. Instead, the reunited group revisited its entire career, all the way back to the prog-rock of the Gabriel years.
In fact, the concert did start out much like I initially envisioned when, after a merging of two instrumentals from the 1980 album “Duke,” Genesis cranked out three of its classic-rock standbys in a row – “Turn It On Again,” “No Son of Mine” and “Land of Confusion.”
It was during “Land of Confusion” that Collins pulled the smooth move of the night, taking the cell phone from somebody in the front row and singing into it. I can’t imagine what the person on the other end of the call was thinking, but the audience got a big kick out of Collins’ antics.
“Are there any old people here tonight . . . apart from us?,” Collins, 56, asked. “We’re going to do some old songs tonight and I mean old. Some of us even had hair when these were written.”
Genesis would follow a pattern of bunching its older tunes together, almost forming a musical suite. The first of these groupings included “In the Cage” (from 1974), “The Cinema Show” (’73) “Duke’s Travels” (’80) and “Afterglow” (’77).
That was another surprising aspect of Sunday night’s concert: The Genesis fans at the sold-out Civic Center cheered just as loudly for the more obscure works as they did for the well-known hits. I underestimated the dedication of the true Genesis fans, who obviously were on the bandwagon long before the group became staples on radio and MTV.
Before heading to Hartford – and with set list in hand – I listened to a few of the songs with unfamiliar titles and I’ll admit I didn’t really care for the songs. They hadn’t aged very well and had me dreading those parts of the concert.
Fortunately, they were handled by the Genesis of today and not 30 years ago. By playing just parts of the tunes in a medley, the band – Collins, Mike Rutherford (guitar/bass) and Tony Banks (keyboards), augmented by longtime sidemen Daryl Stuermer (guitar/bass) and Chester Thompson (drums) – didn’t draw the songs out, which helped keep the show flowing nicely.
One of these unknown (to me) songs, “I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe),” turned into my favorite portion of the concert. During the song, the video screen behind the stage showed images of Genesis members from the early days and, just as Collins was on stage banging the tambourine with his head, knees, elbows and feet, an old clip ran of him doing the same maneuvers (albeit with long hair and a full beard).
Other highlights were “Domino,” one of the few non-hit songs from Genesis’ 1986 multimillion selling album “Invisible Touch,” and a so-called “Drum Duet” between Collins and Thompson that was amusing, even to this drum-solo hater.
The concert, which lasted nearly three hours, concluded with “Tonight Tonight Tonight” leading into the band’s only No. 1 single, “Invisible Touch.”
The two-song encore started with one of Genesis’ last hit songs, 1991’s “I Can’t Dance,” and finished with another Gabriel-era tune, “Carpet Crawlers” from the 1974 record “The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.”
If you couldn’t get tickets for Sunday night’s concert – or if you couldn’t bear the thought of missing the Yankees-Red Sox or Patriots-Chargers games – Genesis will be at Madison Square Garden in New York on Sept. 25 and at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., on Sept. 27. Tickets for both shows are available through all Ticketmaster outlets or by phone at 368-1000 (Bridgeport) and 624-0033 (New Haven).
The set list
Behind the Lines-Duke’s End/Turn It On Again/No Son of Mine/Land of Confusion/In the Cage-The Cinema Show-Duke’s Travels-Afterglow/Hold On My Heart/Home By the Sea-Second Home By the Sea/Follow You Follow Me/Firth of Fifth-I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)/Mama/Ripples/Throwing It All Away/Domino/Los Endos/Tonight Tonight Tonight/Invisible Touch
Encore: I Can’t Dance/The Carpet Crawlers
Posted by Sean on 5:48 AM | Comments (0)
