Gig Diary: Gearing Up for the Fallowe’en Spectacular

At length, knocked together a final set-list for tomorrow night’s gig. Two sets, two-and-a-half-hours, mostly covers, all performed with acoustic guitar and voice.

(Apologies for tiny pic: my image-hosting service are dicks about filesize.)

Intro Music
“Colossus,” performed by the Afro-Celt Sound System

SET I

You Couldn’t Have Come At A Better Time (Luka Bloom)
Lovers In A Dangerous Time (Bruce Cockburn)
These Days (Jackson Browne, who wrote it for Nico)
There She Goes (The La’s)
I Wish I Were In Love Again (Rodgers & Hart)
High & Dry (Radiohead)
Bloodletting (The Vampire Song) (Concrete Blonde)
Spoonful (Willie Dixon wrote it for Howlin’ Wolf)
She Caught The Katy (Taj Mahal)
Purple Jesus (one of mine)
Tracks Of My Tears (Smokey Robinson)
God Bless’ The Child (Billie Holiday)
Angel Of Harlem (U2)
Cinnamon Girl (Neil Young)
Lullaby Of London (The Pogues)
Ring Of Fire (June Carter wrote it for Johnny Cash)

Interstitial Music (ten-minute break)
“Hipalong Hop,” performed by Luke Vibert & BJ Cole
into “The Egg And I,” from the Cowboy Bebop soundtrack

SET II

Sweet Thing (Van Morrison)—may segue into This Is The Sea
Suspicious Minds (Elvis Presley)
This Time (INXS)
Downtown (Petula Clark)
Night & Day (Cole Porter)
Behind Blue Eyes (The Who)
Werewolves Of London (Warren Zevon)
After The Axe Has Fallen (another one of mine)
Every Little Kiss (Bruce Hornsby & the Range)
Earn Enough For Us (XTC)
Let It All Hang Out (The Hombres)
John Barleycorn (traditional) with an option for Dylan’s Tangled Up In Blue
Autumn Leaves (English version written by Johnny Mercer)
Maybe Monday (‘til Tuesday)
Peace, Love, & Understanding (Nick Lowe for Elvis Costello)
Walking The Long Miles Home (Richard Thompson)

Outro Music
“Yo Pumpkin Head,” Cowboy Bebop, into “Whirl-Y Reel,” Afro Celts

The greatest challenge to constructing a set list, for me, is trying to make sense of the multifarious nature of it: of putting together these different musics I so love in a way that’s not just a dog’s breakfast, but in a coherent—even a narrative—fashion. Of maintaining a flow, a build—ebbing and rising, each time to greater peaks. This one’s not perfect, but I think it’s not bad.

I realize, by the way, that providing and specifying the recorded music for my into, set break, and outro reveals a certain . . . neurotic desire to control the proceedings. Please note, however, that I am getting better: for my first Rochester gig, in early September, I actually wrote out my between-songs patter—which I then was left to speak to an empty house, if I was going to speak it at all.

If that happens again tomorrow night, I’ll at least be able to listen to some music I enjoy.

Notes on the songs and the performance over the coming days, after it all goes down.