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» 2002 Tour - Atlanta «
Aug 13, 2002 - Atlanta, GA @ Variety Playhouse
I feel like a kid at Christmas. This man and his band have always had this effect on me. I get just giddy anticipating the day of the concert. On the way to the show, friends and I are singing the songs, loud, making dogs within 3 miles bay. There is a sensation in the pit of my stomach welling up - not nausea but something like my heart, foreign object that it is. We get there and I feel alive in a way I don’t experience nearly often enough. It is two hours or so that refuel me. I leave walking on cloud nine... I made a list of the 32 songs he played with notes and electric/ acoustic or 12 string on them. I wrote this list on my arm - unfortunately, I started to sweat on that arm. So I transcribed the list onto bar napkins. I was lucky that I only was lacking songs 6-9, but now I can’t find the all bar napkin! I got the e-amil of a guy taking pictures hoping I could get copies, but that address is on a missing coctail blotter! If you are reading this, sir, please contact me! I’ve recalled what I could, but screw it! It was just too great to break it down into a list anyway! Here’s what I recall (the names are bastardidized, as I always seem to be changing them into something new and awful): Hightime; Alex Chilton; Wating For Somebody, Love Untold, Mr. Rabbit, Best Thing that Never Happended; First Glimmer changed some words “she moved away to Duluth, Saw her in a supermarket with a little baby boy...”; Jumpin’ Jack Flash; No Expectations; a song about Sylvia Plath who Paul says has little in common with Keith Richards; a sad song about a woman named Emily Woods (does anyone know the story behind that?); 2 Days till Tomorrow; Black Eyed Susan; Let the Bad Times Roll; Eyes Like Sparks; I Can’t Wait; Wonderful Lie - he threw out a bunch of kazoos and stuff but never asked us to use them; May be the Ones; Skyway; Things; Aching to Be; Another Girl Another Planet; Here Comes a Regular; Waitress in the Sky; In Between Love & Like ; Valentine; Kickin’ the Stall; I Will Dare; If Only You Were Lonely; Left of the Dial; Never Mind
I know I am leaving out some, so write me, you can have my address and
come give me a solid ass kicking!
Now I’ll gush on and on like the fan that I am. I like the stop and start and half finished bits. I didn’t like when he forgot lyrics and just flubbed along, but I did enjoy it when he improvised, which was more often. It’s like Stereo/ Mono. There is an immediacy on the new recording - all the rough edges and junk left in rather than edited down to a clean, shiny product. Both last night’s performance and the recording make me feel closer. It’s like looking in an artist’s sketch book and seeing the genesis of ideas. Sometimes this is a much stronger experience than seeing the finished works in a gallery that have often been tediously overworked. One is remote - one is intimate. He played my favorites - Things, If Only You were Lonely, Black Eyed Susan, I Will Dare. But it was on Here Comes a Regular that I got that back of the neck freaky feeling. Every time I’ve heard that one played, I feel like something is arcing overhead. Not any paranormal phenomenon, but just something in my little head. The wardrobe was the orange PJs (he bought in Washington) with the purple cravat. Dapper, but fun. I especially liked it as I have had many lazy times when I wear my PJs out at night so I don’t have to change when I get home - I simply close my eyes and land on the mattress. He seemed happy and relaxed. Enjoying playing older music with the new and not so irritated with the expectations of the crowd to play Replacement’s material. I read an interview that when The Replacements first met Alex Chilton, they couldn’t understand why he was reluctant to play Big Star stuff when there were so many people who wanted to hear it. He was wanting to play the Memphis pop, he was wanting to play the stuff he listened to when he was a kid learning about rock and roll. Mr. Paul has gone through the same thing. He likes playing the stuff he is known for, but he really gets off on playing the music he was inducted into rock and roll with - the Rolling Stones. At a certain point in the show, he let a large group of folks from the audience up on the stage. The gathered around him on his sofa and they had Uncle Pauley's Story Hour. They all looked a bit mesmerized, but they got more at ease and sang along as the songs went on. The best moment, though, was when Paul was losing a song (I am pretty sure it was Left of the Dial), and a man with a sweaty mullet gave him the next line. Mullet man saved the day. I now see him as this superhero flying over the city and spitting away from the wind big wads of chew... A friend wanted to talk to him after the show. Ballsy girl that she is, she broke in front of a long line of folks waiting to say hey and have him sign things. She sat down and chatted with him for a while. He enjoyed the talk. She found that while he doesn’t remember those of us he knew from the Replacements time, he is getting a sense of how many lives he has touched. While it is something that please him, he finds the responsibility of it a bit daunting. There is this thing I’ve noticed at concerts before. Even with different scaled shows, there is always a contingency of insiders - a congregation of diehard fans who gravitate toward one another with a fan’s sixth sense. They have different faces at every show. With Paul Westerberg, there seem to more of these true believers than casual listeners. They are everywhere, mouths singing along, trading stories, traveling ridiculous distances. It’s similar to the Grateful Dead followers, but there isn’t the stench of BO mingling with patchouli and inscence! Neither is there a sense of an overbearing lifestyle. They are old enough to know better than to be fans. I am old enough to know better. We are educated people from different places in life who have better things to do than to be all dopey about some rock and roll.. But there we are.
Donna in Birmingham Set List included: High Time, Mr. Rabbit, Alex Chilton, First Glimmer, Black-Eyed Susan, Things, Love Untold, It’s a Wonderful Lie, Psychopharmacology, Lush and Green / Lookin’ Out Forever, Two Days ‘til Tomorrow, Between Love and Like, Kickin’ the Stall, Eyes Like Sparks, We May Be the Ones, Let the Bad Times Roll, Valentine, Achin to Be / Another Girl Another Planet, Here Comes a Regular, Can’t Hardly Wait, Skyway, Crackle and Drag, Jumpin’ Jack Flash, Waitress in the Sky, If Only You Were Lonely, Left of the Dial, Swingin’ Party, Nevermind. The first 3 songs listed above were the first 3 played, and Nevermind was the one and only encore, but the rest I can’t remember the order, plus I am probably leaving out a couple more. He came on right at 8:30. He appeared to play the acoustic guitars through a Fender Super amp and a small Gibson amp, electric guitars were through an old Marshall 100 wa! tt amp and a Marshall slant 4x12 cabinet facing the audience at an angle, away from Paul. My wife and I sat on the balcony to the left of the lighting crew. There were a lot of people there, maybe 800-1000, much more than the Bob Mould show in March where there were only about 200-300. Paul said something about Keith Richards at the beginning. He was wearing a red jacket over what looked from a distance like red / orange pajamas. Alex Chilton included the obligatory GNR reference. He nailed Skyway just fine, but started First Glimmer with the second verse, stopped and started over again. The audience and Paul were in good spirits and there was a lot of laughter at the mistakes. He asked if anyone remembered Emily Wood before playing Lush & Green, and ended the song with a snippet of Lookin’ Out Forever. At the end of Love Untold, he continued singing something about “she moved to Duluth, saw her at supermarket with her baby boy, she pretended she didn’t know me”. During Can’t Hardly Wait, he stopped and commented that he always used to play it like this, and played a short riff. Then he said , “But Bob would be playing this” and he played the same riff in a different key. He then continued the song and screwed it up as well! Left of the Dial was also butchered but great to hear nonetheless. He got mad at someone in the audience toward the end and slammed the mic stand on the stage, took off his guitar, jumped into the audience and grabbed this guy. He must have said something to him, but we couldn’t tell what was going on. Later Paul invited people onto the stage, including the guy he “attacked” earlier. After the show, about half the audience queued up in front of the bus waiting to meet Paul. We were near the end of the line, but I did end up meeting him after about an hour and a half. I didn’t really know what to say to him, but I commented that earlier that day I had sold all my Led Zeppelin CD’s to cover the tickets and t-shirts. He kind of looked at me funny, chuckled and sheepishly asked “was it worth it?”. I said yeah. I put images of his merchandise on a website, www.cobbhome.org if anyone is interesting in seeing what they have. Enjoy the upcoming shows – I highly recommend that you go and support him. It was a great show, one of the most enjoyable ones I’ve ever seen! Though I never write reviews of shows that I attend, last night was too unique to not share some of the action with everyone. Paul came onto the darkened stage around 8:25PM waving his cigar in the air, in defiance of the Variety Playhouse's no smoking policy. He dropped the cigar to the floor and launched into "High Time." My friends and I were amazed at how nice his vintage Tele sounds. He switched guitars constantly throughout the show, and I must admit to being quite impressed with his arsenal of axes. Anyway, song highlights of the show for me were: "Waiting For Somebody" on 12 string acoustic, "Skyway," "Here Comes A Regular," "Can't Hardly Wait," "Things," "Crackle And Drag," well, hell, about the whole damn show!!! With regard to the "unique" occurrences I referenced earlier, here goes: About 75 minutes into the show, shortly after Paul played "Jumpin' Jack Flash," he picked up the slide and a really old Gibson and started playing an intro when an audience member/overall dumbass yelled "HEY KEITH!!!" Paul took it as an insult, and I'm not sure as to the point of the guy yelling it, but Paul slammed down his mic and mic stand in one loud crash and came running over to the side of the stage, apparently ready to kick the guy's teeth in. The roadie/guitar tech restrained him and Paul paced around the stage momentarily as the roadies tried to reassemble the stage. After doing so, Paul took back to playing, now sitting in his chair at the back of the stage. This is when he played "Crackle and Drag," introducing it as 'a song about Sylvia Plath, who never met Keith Richards.' After that, he invited a fan onto the stage to sit in the chair as Paul took to the couch to play a few more. Before he sat, though, he half jokingly said into the mic that 'anyone else who wants to join us up here can,' and quickly, before Variety Playhouse security could stop the swarm, 14 people we on and around Paul and the couch. Security stopped any more fans from hopping up, but Paul played a set, sitting on the couch, surrounded by fans, taking requests from them, and it was quite cool. My only complaint about this is that at least half of the people on stage seemed to not know any of the words, but perhaps it was just shock that they were on stage with Paul. Upon his last song, he said 'I'll play one more and then we can call it a career.' As the show ended and people were led off stage, Paul came back out on electric guitar and played an awesome version of "Never Mind." At it's conclusion, Paul took the beautiful black vintage Strat and broke it over his amp. He ran off stage and the show was over. I always hate to see guitars, especially nice ones, broken, but to the same extent, it was very dramatic and a very memorable moment and effective closer to the show. The highlight of the night had not yet occurred for me, however, as my friends and I left thru the side Fire Exit instead of heading out the front with most of the rest of the crowd. We saw Paul's bus parked right there and walked up to it as the security guard told us Paul would be out in a minute and would be happy to meet all of us!!!!! There were maybe 8 people in front of us as Paul stepped into the stairwell of the bus, sat down with his sweet smelling Cuban cigar and greeted us one by one. When my chance came, I got to sit next to him for a moment, say a few words, have him sign my ticket stub and got a handshake. In our brief conversation, Paul had a couple really cool things to say that really meant a lot. He is a truly nice individual who really cares about his fans and it showed. A true highlight. Anyway... That is my poor summation of the amazing evening spent at the Variety Playhouse. I hope someone can post a setlist and/or photos, and I truly hope a tape surfaces! Paul Westerberg is one my heroes and last night was truly special. I will never forget it.
Matt Holling
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