Concert Review: Arlo Guthrie
Apr. 11th, 2008 01:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hrjNo date-filter post this time because my blind date was still laid up with the flu I ended up going with Plan B, i.e., ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
thread_walker. And, may I say, I had as much fun as you can have on a date without it actually being a date date. We took off straight from work and ended up at Naan & Curry on Telegraph for dinner (mmm lamby goodness) and then had over an hour until concert time so -- since she'd never really seen the Berkeley campus before, we did an ecclectic tour of my favorite spots: cool statuary, elegant buildings, wooded paths across creeks, the basement of the Life Sciences building where they have the T-Rex skeleton.
The Guthrie concert was superb. It was the perfect mix of old favorites (he did all the ones I was really hoping to hear), new songs, and assorted works by friends and family (including a couple of his father's song's, familiar and not). For all of his rather laid-back folksy performing style, I was struck by how technically impressive his musicianship is. (A typical example was a ragtime piece performed on the guitar.) The only technical flaw, in my opinion -- and it may be just a matter of personal taste, was that the handful of pieces done with the electric guitar had a guitar/voice balance so slanted towards the former that you could barely understand the lyrics even if you knew what they were supposed to be. (This wouldn't be a flaw in a rock performance, of course, but for a folk singer, I expect more intelligibility.) The audience sang along enthusiastically on the appropriate items: the refrain of Alice's Restaurant, the chorus of This Land is Your Land, and a very short and poignant peace song brought out as an encore.
This being Berkeley, it was a very loyal and sympathetic audience: laughing at all the in-jokes and '60s references, as well as being appreciative of how much of the old material was still politically and socially relevant. During the intermission,thread_walker and I amused ourselves by leaning over the railing of the mezzanine lobby and determining (on superficial evidence) who and what various of the attendees were. The aging hippie who I decided had become a successful stockbroker. The Guy Dragged Along By His Date who was attempting to show he had a sensitive side. The angsty 20-something who thought it might be a good event for picking up chicks. The wiry community activist who wore her white hair in a long ponytail. The middle-aged couple who were reliving their transgressive youth by dragging their jr-high-age sons to the concert in hopes of making some emotional connection (and because the kids had to write a paper for school about some artistic performance). I should reiterate that, other than the physical descriptions, these characteristics were all purely inventions of our imagination. Did I mention what a fun date thread_walker is?
thread_walker. And, may I say, I had as much fun as you can have on a date without it actually being a date date. We took off straight from work and ended up at Naan & Curry on Telegraph for dinner (mmm lamby goodness) and then had over an hour until concert time so -- since she'd never really seen the Berkeley campus before, we did an ecclectic tour of my favorite spots: cool statuary, elegant buildings, wooded paths across creeks, the basement of the Life Sciences building where they have the T-Rex skeleton.The Guthrie concert was superb. It was the perfect mix of old favorites (he did all the ones I was really hoping to hear), new songs, and assorted works by friends and family (including a couple of his father's song's, familiar and not). For all of his rather laid-back folksy performing style, I was struck by how technically impressive his musicianship is. (A typical example was a ragtime piece performed on the guitar.) The only technical flaw, in my opinion -- and it may be just a matter of personal taste, was that the handful of pieces done with the electric guitar had a guitar/voice balance so slanted towards the former that you could barely understand the lyrics even if you knew what they were supposed to be. (This wouldn't be a flaw in a rock performance, of course, but for a folk singer, I expect more intelligibility.) The audience sang along enthusiastically on the appropriate items: the refrain of Alice's Restaurant, the chorus of This Land is Your Land, and a very short and poignant peace song brought out as an encore.
This being Berkeley, it was a very loyal and sympathetic audience: laughing at all the in-jokes and '60s references, as well as being appreciative of how much of the old material was still politically and socially relevant. During the intermission,
thread_walker and I amused ourselves by leaning over the railing of the mezzanine lobby and determining (on superficial evidence) who and what various of the attendees were. The aging hippie who I decided had become a successful stockbroker. The Guy Dragged Along By His Date who was attempting to show he had a sensitive side. The angsty 20-something who thought it might be a good event for picking up chicks. The wiry community activist who wore her white hair in a long ponytail. The middle-aged couple who were reliving their transgressive youth by dragging their jr-high-age sons to the concert in hopes of making some emotional connection (and because the kids had to write a paper for school about some artistic performance). I should reiterate that, other than the physical descriptions, these characteristics were all purely inventions of our imagination. Did I mention what a fun date thread_walker is?
