Jonathan came to the 930 Club in Washington DC last night in fine form. He seemed happy and he looked good in his green shirt, and even Tommy was smiling off and on. There were some interesting new features to the show--- some good and some bad. Tommy had his drum set about 1-2 inches from the edge of the stage, and Jonathan was set up further back. At the beginning and several times during the set, Tommy would play a drum which doubled as his seat, called "Cajon", which I had not seen before. He played it by hand at about his knee level, and it gave a great sound. Unfortunately, the drums being in the foreground led to some diminution of Jonathan's voice in some cases, but not often. The drum seat was hollow and had a microphone behind it. So Tommy is really getting more visibility in the world of Jonathan shows now. Jonathan had to tell the 930 folks to shut off the A/C which is standard for most of the shows he does.
Also unfortunate was the lighting in the show. The whole time, there was backlighting of Jonathan, which led to blinding of the audience and to see Jonathan's face, I had to shade my eyes often or just see a silhouette. The lighting man was over-zealous, I thought, although Peter thinks that Jonathan himself asked for the backlighting so he could see the audience or to discourage photography. I was certainly discouraged by it. I would be curious if other Jonathan fans had noticed him being backlit like that in other shows, which would be a disappointing trend, for those of us who like to stand up front, especially. During the song "The Lilies of the Field", the light man showed some lilies behind Jonathan's head and people started to giggle a bit, so Jonathan turned around and saw it, then interrupted the song to ask the light man to please not show any pictures behind him like that. He just wanted straight, normal lighting. Maybe the light man was smoking something unusual last night!
I believe that Jonathan did 2-3 new songs last night, including "Boston in Wintertime", a song about a house of prostitution in Spanish, and an song he and Tommy worked on the night before, which includes the phrase, "Pretty is pretty for sure, but it isn't everything". All three songs were great, I thought. He did two encores, during which he did the brand new song about being pretty, and the second encore included "Nishi" and "Walter Johnson", a capella.
Here is a set list for those who like to know:
"The World is Showing Its Hand"
drum duet with rhythm sticks and cowbell by Jonathan
"Che Mondo Viviamo"
"Springtime in New York"
"Lesbian Bar" with cowbell
a French song-- about stars that shine like that (?)
"19 in Naples"
"Pablo Picasso"
"Give Paris One More Chance"
"Her Mystery Not of High Heels..."
"Boston in Wintertime"
"Egyptian Reggae"
"Let Her Go Into the Darkness"
drum duet
"Cosi Veloce"
"Lilies of the Field"
"Vincent Van Gogh"
house of prostitution song
"He Gave Us the Wine to Taste"
"My Baby Love, Love, Loves Me Now"
1st encore: song about pretty is pretty for sure, but isn't everything"
2nd encore: Nishi and Walter Johnson
----overall, a pretty good show, not the best, but not the worst either.
-- Sarah
Pictures from this show
No comments:
Post a Comment