Member Review: John Prine

Member 90210 wrote:

John Prine has a story he likes to tell about the time he thought he had finished recording a new album, only to find that the record producer wanted him to write one more song for the disc.
“I thought, ‘I’ll show him – I’ll write the worst thing he’s ever heard,’” the 62-year-old singer-songwriter remembered during his concert on Saturday night at the Warfield.
The fact that the resulting effort was “Fish and Whistle,” an unbearably catchy country-flavored tune that has since become a true fan favorite, only confirms my longstanding suspicion: Prine simply can’t write a bad song.
Oh, but he sure can pen some great ones, and that’s all that fans heard during the folk-rock star’s 24-song, two-hour set.
Prine’s tunes come in three distinct flavors: funny, sad and sad but funny. It’s hard to think of another singer-songwriter on the planet that handles both heartbreak and humor as convincingly as this former mailman from Maywood, Illinois.

Whenever there is talk about the greatest singer/songwriters in rock history, the usual suspects are always named: Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Brian Wilson, Smokey Robinson, etc. Any such discussion, however, is incomplete without the mention of John Prine.
During his performance, Prine, now almost 62, gave the capacity crowd 23 excellent reasons for why he should be ranked among popular music's all-time great wordsmiths. Kicking off the show with the sing-along favorite "Spanish Pipedream," Prine proceeded to mix humor and sorrow, joy and frustration, as naturally in his songs as they blend in real life. That ability is the No. 1 thing that separates Prine from most other folk-rockers. There's not another guy (or gal) on the planet, with or without a guitar in hand, that can take a listener from being teary-eyed one moment to giggling the next as quickly, and as convincingly, as John Prine.

Play List

1. Spanish Pipedream
2. Bruised Orange (Chain of Sorrow)
3. Souvenirs
4. Far From Me
5. Please Don't Bury Me
6. Fish and Whistle (great story about how he wrote that song)
7. Glory of True Love
8. Crazy as a Loon
9. Angel from Montgomery
10. Long Monday
11. Donald and Lydia
12. Bottomless Lake
13. Mexican Home
14. Dear Abby
15. Sam Stone
16. Bear Creek
17. That's Alright By Me
18. She Is My Everything
19. Ain't Hurtin' Nobody
20. Hello in There
21. Lake Marie
22. People Putting People Down

encore
23. Paradise.

Hopefully I got all the titles right because Bottomless Lake and That's Alright by Me were new to me. We spent about 10 minutes talking backstage and he told a few great stories of days gone by. He jokingly told me “I don’t know why, in my early songs, I always killed off the main character................There goes the sequel.”

Thanks to BackstagePassDirect for comin' thru for me.

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Member Review: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

Sweet Steph sent this to us:

Let me begin by just saying how awesome being backstage was. The show is completely different from back there. I can't thank BPD enough.

Everybody from Tom himself to Mike Campbell to Benmont Tench to the crew were all super friendly. If that wasn't enough, there was the added bonus of meeting rock icon Steve Winwood who was opening the show. Ohmigod!!!

Early on in the gig, Tom uttered words rarely heard at his shows: “You probably don’t know this next one.” The band then launched into the super obscure 1999 Europe-only B side “Sweet William.” The bluesy, organ-heavy number was a clear indication this wasn’t going to be the typical nothing-but-the-hits Petty show he’s done on recent tours. With no new album to support, Petty was free to drag out the gems.

This doesn’t mean he avoided his massive arsenal of hits. The show began with a 1-2-3-4-5 punch of “You Wreck Me,” “Last Dance With Mary Jane,” “I Won’t Back Down,” “Even The Losers” and “Free Fallin’.” Nearly anyone else would save a song like the latter — which is so tailor made for arenas even the beer guys and ushers were singing along — but Petty has such a huge stable of war horses he could bust it out early with no problem. Rarities soon followed, such as the Traveling Wilburys’ “End of the Line,” which featured a few Heartbreakers subbing in for Petty’s absent bandmates and the Full Moon Fever track “A Face in the Crowd.”

The Heartbreakers are one of the greatest backing bands out there. Any song is immeasurably enhanced by their playing, particularly from Mike on guitar and Benmont on keyboards. It’s no wonder they get so much session work when Petty is off the road.

The night wrapped up with the hit parade of “Learning to Fly,” “Don’t Come Around Here No More,” “Refugee” and the inevitable encore of “American Girl.” He’s probably played that song at every concert for over 30 years, but he still does it with intense passion and it still can make an arena full of drunk middle-aged white people jump up and down like nothing short of “Born to Run.”

Petty still insists that the days of long tours are coming to an end. This is a song he's also been playing for quite some time now; we'll see.

Here's the entire set list:

1. “You Wreck Me”
2. “Mary Jane’s Last Dance”
3. “I Won’t Back Down”
4. “Even the Losers”
5. “Free Falling”
6. “Cabin Down Below”
7. “Sweet William”
8. “End of the Line”
9. “Can’t Find My Way Home”
10. “Gimme Some Loving”
11. “Saving Grace”
12. “Face in the Crowd”
13. “Honey Bee”
14. “You Don’t Know How It Feels”
15. “Learning to Fly”
16. “Don’t Come Around Here No More”
17. “Refugee”

Encore:

1. “Runnin’ Down a Dream”
2. “Mystic Eyes”
3. “American Girl”

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