jon@unx.sas.com (Jon Allen) (06/21/91)
Peter Holsapple & Chris Stamey played the Cat's Cradle in Chapel Hill, NC
this past Sunday night. Opening were the Shams, with Will Rigby on drums.
I don't know. I've got mixed feelings about this show. I only caught the
last 5 songs by the Shams, and while it seemed like they were trying to do a
neat poppy girl group thing (3 females, 2 of them on bass and acoustic gtr., +
Rigby) with occasionally adventurous harmonies, they were painfully off-pitch
a number of times. Maybe it was just bad monitors...
Chris and Peter played acoustic guitars, with
Dave Schramm on steel and electric guitar,
Ilene Markell on a cheesy Silvertone bass that sounded great, and
Alan Bezozi on drums. (These musicians appear on _Mavericks_)
It seems like these two singer/songwriters (some people question the singer
part, but I like both their voices, and they were in good form this time)
are moving away from the wonderful push-the-limits pop songs exemplified by
the first two dB's records and Stamey's _It's a Wonderful Life_ and toward
more solid, subtle, well-crafted, and to me, less exciting, work. Maybe I'm
stuck in the past. Anyway, here's the playlist:
Lord ("...an Everly Brothers song that wasn't Top 40, but it's in ours." -CS)
-this was wonderful, and fit in with the other material perfectly
Geometry
Here Without You
Haven't Got the Right (to Treat Me Wrong)
Loser -the only dB's song all night, just pretty good, with PH whistling
the melody in place of whatever that whistling sound on the record was
??? -I forgot
Lover's Rock
She Was The One
Company of Light -an unreleased Stamey song that he always plays live
Taken
Close Your Eyes
Angels
I Want to Break Your Heart
Child In You
encore:
Don't Miss Your Water (Till the Well Runs Dry) -I think that's the title;
this is another live Stamey staple, written by ??William Bell??
Part of my problem with this show was that Holsapple was so sullen the whole
time; he almost seemed to be just slogging through. Everybody has bad days,
I've just never seen him have one before. Chris Stamey, on the other hand,
was in good spirits, but he never picked up that Fender Jaguar sitting just
off the stage like I kept waiting for him to do. I usually appreciate acoustic
music, subtlety, etc., but I wish that he would release an album of electric
guitar experiments to supplement his other (still wonderful) stuff.
I would still recommend this show over staying home with the TV (or going out
and seeing Micheal Bolton, unless you plan to assassinate him), and I would
REALLY appreciate someone else's views on either this tour or the record.
--
Jon Allen jon@unx.sas.com
SAS Institute, Inc. or: ...!uunet!unx.sas.com!jon