It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was kind of like watching your Mercedes roll off of a cliff......with your mother-in-law inside.
I think we decided on the ride home that "mixed emotions" best described the experience.
Where to begin?
It was great meeting Kylie and sis, Joe is always a blast and John, as I think Kevin said is always a "wild card".
The fest itself was really good, some really talented artists and good food as well. The weather could not have been any better.
But the show........
First let me say I would rather go to an OTR concert more than about anything else available. I think my wife and I went round and round for a couple of weeks about whether to attend a wedding of a close friend or go to a concert last year.
This had to be the shortest show I have seen. I doubt if OTR was on stage an hour. The set list Kylie posted was incorrect (your "break" didn't cost you as many songs as you thought, they just didn't play them).
The set list actually went like this:
All I Need
Anything At All
I Radio Heaven
Jesus in New Orleans
Green Clouded Swallowtail
Little Blue River/In the Garden
Fever (not My Love is a Fever as I thought from looking at the list - but the old classic)
Lucy
Jack's Valentine
Miles
Latter Days
--
Give Me Strength
They totally skipped The World Can Wait, The Seahorse and there was one other song on the set list that was supposed to be after GMS but now I can't remember what it was. So they cut an already short set by 3 songs. Things were running late so I'm sure it was a time thing but disappointing never the less.
So it was a short set, way too many people were more interested in guzzling beer, swapping pick-up lines and goofing around to enjoy the show real well. The sound was about as could be expected in an alley behind a bar. If you got up close the sound was terrible, if you were back far enough to get a fairly decent mix, there was too much else going on around you.
All I Need was great.
Anything At All was pretty good
I Radio Heaven was probably the best song of the night- Jack did some really fine guitar work on this one
Jesus in N.O. was just OK
Green Clouded Swallowtail isn't one of my favorites and was just fair.
Little Blue River/In the Garden lacked the usual power I see in it.
Fever had really bad sound. I would have liked to hear Karin do it in a better venue, could have been incredible but seemed to limp along.
Lucy had a little bit of a different arrangement, I didn't even recognize it until Karin started to sing.
Jack's V was really bad, I couldn't hear/understand Linford hardly at all
Miles seemed slower than usual - I think I have been spoiled by Jesse's version.
Latter Days was incredible, one of the best I've heard
GMS with Karin alone on keys was excellent! We moved up close to the stage to be very close to Karin.
Linford did a lot of guitar playing, more than I have ever seen.
I wish all the other listees would have stopped by to introduce themselves. I saw a couple of people looking at us when we were all together like they were thinking "oh it's the listees" or possibly "who's that bunch of goofs acting like long lost friends", not sure which. I did see Jana up close to the stage at the end of the night.
We went back and helped out selling some CDs, I think it was more of an afterthought than anything else. They only brought out FFR and GDBD. Pretty lackluster sales from what I am accustomed to doing. But it appeared as if they knew that it wouldn't be much of a sales night.
It seemed that most of the crowd wasn't there for OTR and since it was pretty much a free concert with beer close at hand I can understand that. about halfway through the show people started trickling away till there were very few folks at the end. After Karin sang GMS (and we were waiting for another song cuz we saw it on the set list) there was about 5 seconds of applause and people scattered like the plague was coming.
So all in all, it was one of my least favorite shows, but if you asked where I would rather be, I'd say nowhere.
M