Show!

On Sunday night, Sue and I made our way down to Northampton, MA, to check out the Tony Levin Band live in concert at a place called the Iron Horse. The show started at 7pm, and we got to the town at about 4:15pm or so. It was about a 100 minute drive from Hanover, so not horrible...

Since we were way early, we went to a nice little vegetarian restaurant to eat. Even though I'm not a vegetarian, I enjoy this place, we've eaten there before when we were in town. I had the vegetarian stir fry, which was quite tasty, if a bit more greasy than I'd like. But, it wasn't in a bad way. After eating, we wandered around the town for a bit (it was *quite* a nice day), and Sue went into a store while I enjoyed sitting on a bench on the street. I noticed a guy with a guitar case standing in front of the store asking passers-by for change. I can only assume that he had played enough guitar for the day that he didn't feel the need to perform any more. I'm always willing to throw in some change, if I have any, to street musicians. But, they do have to be playing when I throw my change in.

We got to the Iron Horse around 6pm or so, and it was pretty full on the floor. It was set up for dinner, and most of the tables on the stage level floor were filled. There was a deuce (restaurant talk for a two person table) right at the top of the stairs to the balcony, so that's where we ended up. It was a good location as we could both see the stage, and not have to share our table with other people. Not that we're not social, but I just didn't feel like sharing my space. You could end up with some cool people, or not... I didn't want to run the risk of the second option.

The Tony Levin Band is made up of 5 people. There's Tony Levin himself, who plays bass and a number of other bottom end instruments (the Chapman Stick, and an electric cello), and sings. Jerry Marotta plays drums and sings, Larry Fast is on keys, Jesse Gress on guitar, and Pete Levin (Tony's brother) also on keys. Those of you into odd music trivia may realize that Tony, Jerry, and Larry were three members of Peter Gabriel's touring band from the late 70's into about 1983. Levin still plays with Gabriel, but Marotta and Fast have moved on to other things. Larry Fast has a number of albums out under the name Synergy, which are all instrumental albums done on synthesizers. Cool stuff! I picked up two of those Synergy CD's at the show, as I already have all of Levin's stuff that was on sale.

Sue and I didn't eat, since we had already eaten, but I did get a coke, and Sue got coffee.

The opener was a duo from Australia called "The Kin." At first, I thought they were a bit too "pretty boy" for me, but they could sing well, and their songs were quite good, actually. I'm not running out to buy their CD's, but they were a good warm up, and performed for about 40 minutes. During their set, I saw some members of Levin's band, including Levin himself, moving in and out of the club.

When Levin and Company came out on stage, they first did a barbershop quartet which mimiced Levin's old King Crimson quartet piece from 1984, except this one was all about his own band. Very fun! The first "real" piece was an instrumental song (Pieces of the Sun, I believe), which started out with Levin on the aforementioned electric cello. The low end was deep enough to vibrate my seat!

I should mention that during the opening act, I got a dessert which was a brownie sundae, which was quite excellent!

Levin's set consisted of a mix of newer songs from his latest CD, other music from his recent albums, and covers of songs from bands or musicians that he's been involved with. He played two King Crimson songs (Sleepless and Elephant Talk), Black Dog from Zeppelin (just for fun), Genesis's "Back in N.Y.C.," Larry Fast's/Synergy's "Phobos," and Peter Gabriel's "On The Air," which was fantastic. The band all seemed to be really enjoying themselves, although Marotta seemed perhaps a bit under the weather, although he sang very well on Sleepless, Back in NYC, and On The Air.

Afterwards, the band was freely available to chat, sign anything that was put in front of them, and just be generally pleasant to talk to. Sue got some photos of me with the band members, which I'll get up here at some point. I talked with Larry Fast about being from NJ, which was a bit of "old home" stuff, and with Tony Levin about coming down from Hanover for the show. He wished us a safe drive back, and all was well. I didn't want to take up too much of their time, I could have really geeked it up with music questions, but chose not to, as they had a good drive back to Woodstock, NY, once the meet and greet was done.

All in all, a very good show! I'd recommend any instrumental music lover to go to their show, or if you're interested in progressive rock in general. Even Sue enjoyed it!

NP: Cheap Trick - Goodnight