Al Stewart Colonial Theater 3/8/09

 

Ahh, once again I return to the Home of the Blob in the cozy Colonial Theater.
Tonight, Al Stewart was playing the entire Time Passages album after playing the
whole Year of the Cat album on Thursday. Well, being that TP is one of my
favorite albums of all time, I couldn't pass this up. I really like Cat too and
was tempted to go to both shows. But my friends decided to pick Thursday night's
show to attend and we decided we'd compare notes with one another on our
respective concerts. I was surprised that Al was only doing entire albums at
these two tour dates. So, not only were we getting whole albums played for the
first time ever by him, we were the ONLY ONES getting them. We were to be a part
of history as well!

Dave Nachmanoff, Al's current lead guitarist, was out promptly at 8:00 with
singer Liz Bligan to perform a 15 minute warm up of three of Dave's tunes:

Let's Eat
Descartes in Amsterdam
Time Before the Fall

Then Liz left the stage as Al strolled on and began his set with Angry Bird from
his new album, Sparks of Ancient Light. For the past ten years or so, I've been
seeing Al as an opening act for others playing a short set with just himself and
guitar. It was nice to see him back as headliner. And, though I miss his full
stage band productions from the 70s & 80s, it was great to see him back with a
versatile guitar player like Dave Nachmanoff to provide a fuller sound and open
up the possibilities of songs that could be played.

"Don't know whose idea it was to play entire albums", said Al. "We discovered
after we agreed to this that there are songs Dave & I have never played
together. We think we've done our homework but please bear with us", he warned.
Then he teased us. "I'm such a spontaneous person that I might come back from
the break and play the whole Zero She Flies album instead. Now I know there are
maybe TEN of you here that wouldn't mind. But the rest of you...probably not....

After Sirens of Titan, he did a little Dylan teaser of Stuck Inside of Mobile
With the Memphis Blues Again. Then he asked the soundman if he could make things
on stage a bit louder. "It sounds like I'm playing a George Formby ukulele up
here. I feel like Herman's Hermits", he joked. Then it was on to Apple Cider
Re-Constitution before he set up the next song, Coldest Winter in Memory, by
talking about the history behind it. It had first been intended for his follow
up album to 1993's Famous Last Words, until the project had been aborted. "But
so many of you found out about it anyway, so I still get requests for it. This
intro is pretty long & tedious so some of you might want to take a bathroom
break. And the song is pretty long too", he laughed. He wrote it about Charles
the XII of Sweden's attempted attack on Russia in 1709. But Charles made the
same mistake that would later be repeated by Napoleon & Hitler---underestimating
the BRUTAL Russian winters! Needless to say the attack was a disaster. Al also
laughed about an NBC mini-series back in the 80s that cast five foot ten
Maximilian Schell as Peter the Great, who had been about six foot seven, and had
the battle between Sweden & Russia occurring in what looked like the summer with
not a snow flake to be seen. Al told us of prefacing the battle story with the
loss of the Dunwich Bells that were carried away in a flood and still heard
beneath the waves, according to legend. The bells had nothing to do with the
rest of my story in the song. But I liked them so much I thought I'd put them in
there too", Al explained.

Then after three more tunes: Last Days of the Century, Constantinople and
Princess Olivia, Al & Dave left the stage for a 20 minute break to prepare for
the second half of the show.

When Al & Dave returned to play the Time Passages album, Al would lovingly set
up each song by telling us of their inspirations as well and include little back
stories.

He remembered that it had been his dream from about 15 years old on to be a
guitar hero. But upon playing the guitar for the very first time, he realized
that it was not going to happen. But one night in Japan during the Time Passages
Tour, Al had gotten to realize his dream. There were three guitarists onstage,
including Al & the great Tim Renwick. And during Valentina Way, Al began to get
inspired to go off and really wail. "We were Molly Hatchet on stage there" Al
documented making electric guitar wails with his mouth. "Then I hit a wrong note
and that was the end of that...But I got to live my dream for 10 seconds
there..."

On Life in Dark Water, Al imagined the "commercial song possibilities" of being
trapped in a submarine underwater for years. Dave suggested maybe Al should've
thrown a girl into the story and Al went one better by imagining a DISCO THEMED
SUBMARINE. Maybe he could have a new career in dance music 40 years too late.

Palace of Versailles was about the French Revolution of 1789 and inspired Al to
talk about French leader Charles de Gaulle, who was chased out of France twice,
during WWII and the student uprising in 1968. His funniest story of the night
concerned de Gaulle's visit to England during WWII. When his wife was asked what
she would most want if she could have anything in the world, her response was "A
penis". A few seconds later everyone realized her English pronunciations were
not the greatest and that she'd meant to say happiness.

Song on the Radio, he told us, was one he'd promised he'd never play again.
Arista Records president Clive Davis had spoken to Al during the recording of TP
and told him he needed a hit song and how to write one. It had to have a certain
amount of beats per minute, a repeated line and a sax solo. Al had almost told
Clive to go write it himself if he was such an expert. Even though Clive turned
out to be right(the song was a modest hit), Al said he didn't like to write
songs according to formulas.

"Now End of the Day, in contrast, is one of the prettiest things I've ever
written. I was originally going to end the album with an instrumental but
decided to put words on the other end of it. It's about the end of a
relationship in the Midwest." But, like had happened on Valentina Way and Man
For All Seasons, Al stopped this one mid-song to re-start. In this case he
accidentally sang "Sometimes she thinks she knows him much too much" instead of
the correct "much too well". Someone told him the correct line and Al
laughed..."I know I know...let's start back where the vocal comes in." Al said
that this was his favorite song on the album. It's mine as well and I enjoyed it
immensely, flub and all.

At the album's conclusion around 10:30, Al & Dave departed the stage but were
back out for a two song encore: Warren Harding & If it Doesn't Come Naturally,
Leave It.

While in line for autographs, I met up with and spoke to several fellow fans,
including one named John who handed me a copy of Al's latest CD, Sparks of
Ancient Light, since he already had a copy(THANKS JOHN!). When it was my turn,
I had Al sign the new CD plus the little Time Passages at Colonial Theater
poster I'd purchased at the souvenir stand. I thanked Al for performing the
whole TP album and he said he was glad to do it even if it all hadn't gone
totally perfectly. We also both recalled the Chestnut Cabaret in Philly, one of
his regular stops back in the 80s. Al said it was one of his favorite places to
play.

Al's setlist:
Set 1:
Angry Bird
Sirens of Titan
Stuck Inside of Mobile(tease)
Apple Cider Re-Constitution
Coldest Winter in Memory
Last Days of the Century
Constantinople
Princess Olivia

Set 2:
Time Passages
Valentina Way
Life in Dark Water
A Man For All Seasons
Almost Lucy
The Palace of Versailles
Timeless Skies
Song on the Radio
End of the Day

Encores:
Warren Harding
If it Doesn't Come Naturally...Leave It