| Harper Ave. rychard's rants, raves + reviews |
| "stopping momentum" jude show review: december 10th, 2002 Tuesday night, again. Thankfully, Buffy was a rerun and my mom was generous enough to record 24 for me, so I didn�t miss out on my television addiction. My friend Danielle and I arrived at Largo just after eight o�clock, after being turned away earlier in the evening from the CBS studio recording of The Late Show with Craig Kilborn featuring Alanis Morissette (stupid traffic!) I was surprised to see that the club was as crowded as it was that early in the evening. As it turned out, a lot of the people that were there were fans of Gus, who was Jude�s opener. So Danielle and I make our way to the back of the club (since I apparently am no longer welcome to make dinner reservations) and try to make ourselves comfortable. Of course that came to an end after we were �kindly� informed by the doorman that we couldn�t kneel down and rest for even a moment. (Gee, can you tell I�m no longer the biggest fan of Largo...?) Anywho... Gus came up on stage around nine o�clock and was introduced by Jude. Jude told a quick story about how when he came to LA, he didn�t know what to call himself as an artist. And he had a friend who told him to just go by Jude. �It�s short, four letters, doesn�t get any better than that.� Then Jude said that that was proved wrong when he met Gus. (Who incidently goes by Gus Black on his new CD). Anyway, Gus proceeded to play songs from his new CD �Uncivilized Love.� He also played a tune from �Word Of Mouth Parade,� but I forget which one. As usual, he put on a pretty good show, and I was inclined to buy a copy of his CD after the show. (Good stuff!) After Gus left the stage, a few of his fans left, and Danielle and I �snuck� on over to an empty table and enjoyed the rest of the show sitting down. Shortly after that, Jude came back on stage and was introduced by Flannigan (Largo�s Irish owner). Jude went into �I�m Sorry Now,� but forgot the words or something a few lines into it, so he stopped playing and asked to be intro-ed again. This time, my favorite person in the world, the doorman PJ, came up to introduce him with: �Hey people, forget about what you just heard, here�s Jude.� Jude came back out and went into �I�m Sorry Now� again, but it got screwed up once more. Over the PA system, Flannigan asked the audience �Aren�t you glad you paid ten bucks now folks?� For his third introduction, Gus came out and intro-ed Jude in a big rock star fashion. This time Jude came out and opened with a new song, �Save Me� (presumably). Of course, it could be an old song, too. As it turns out, a lot of songs I think are new are really old songs, and I�m none the wiser. Anyway, �Save Me� was a pretty rad song. (Yes, I am trying to bring back the use of the word �rad.� Check back in six months and see if it did any good :-) �Save Me� blended right into �You Mama You,� which was then followed by �I�m Sorry Now,� which AGAIN featured the same mistake. This time Jude just played along, changed a few lyrics into describing the problem he was having with the song, and finished it out without a hitch. Third time�s a charm, I guess. �Cuba� came next, followed by �Your Eyes.� There was no bridge included with �Your Eyes,� which as I�ve expressed before, I am 100% happy with that. But that�s just my humble opinion. After �Your Eyes,� Jude put down the acoustic guitar and sat at the piano to knock out a beautiful version of �King Of Yesterday� and an entertaining rendition of �The Asshole Song.� After �The Asshole Song,� Jude went into �On The Dance Floor,� and intro-ed it by saying �If ever a show needed a pick-me-up...I think I have the song for it.� He sang the song in a very �robotic-eighties-male-singer� kind of style, and had the echo effect going strong for �show me your love!� He even had the audience sing the �show me your love� part and then teased us over the fact that our voiced didn�t echo like his. After that, Jude went into a semi-serious version of �Megaladon,� (Jude�s shark song) which is funny, because just today, I was at the video store and saw on the new release DVD shelf none other than: �Shark Attack 3: Megalodon.� The Jude geek in my picked it up and rented it. I checked the credits though and there�s no Jude listed anywhere. Oh well. At this point in the show, Jude stood back up and strapped on the acoustic again. He mentioned how usually in a show, an artist tried to build momentum, but in this particular show he was showing us how to stop momentum. Self-mocking Jude is always an entertaining thing to behold. Jude went into �Rick James,� which was followed by the song �Money� that was being talked about a couple weeks ago. Very cool song. I�m glad he played it this week and that it didnt� disappear into obscurity like some of the other �new� songs he�s been playing. (�Sarah Goodnight,� where are you? �Lover Please,� are you there?) Followed by �Money� was �All I Wanna Do.� Another new song (this one is for sure new...he said so at the Troubadour show not to long ago.) �I Know� came next. Interesting side-note to that song...lately he�s been singing the �tell me what you really feel� verse and not the �back away then from the edge� verse, which is the opposite of how the studio version of the song is. But again, that�s probably just the geek in me being...well, geeky. �Everything�s All Right� came next. No �ba ba ba�s� from the audience, which was kind of nice for a change...it put the focus back on the song, which uf any of the songs from �King Of Yesterday� deserved attention, it was definitely this one. After that, Jude took another moment to talk to the audience. He wished Ginger a happy belated birthday, and then another group at a table yelled out that it was Laura�s birthday too...Laura being a lady at their table. Jude then started changing the lyrics to the �Slippery Slope� song to birthday wish lyrics for Laura. Very neat. I love how spontaneous Jude can be with his lyrics. It�s just amazing. After Laura�s song, he apologized to Ginger for not playing her something, so he asked her if there was anything she wanted to hear, and she requested �The C Song.� He then played that for her. (�The C Song� is A.K.A. �Isn�t It Over Anyway.�) After Ginger�s request, Jude became a salesman. He mentioned how he recently came in contact with a box of old merchandise of his, and how he was going to offer the t-shirts, which normally went for $20, for not $10, but for $5. This elicited a large cheer from the crowd. He also mentioned that included in the box was a paper with notes about the shirts, mentioning colors, and how some of them had stains. A woman in the front asked �What kind of stains?� which got the crowd laughing. Nothing better than a room full of people with gutter minds. Truly. I love it!!! Jude then went into another sort of new song. I say �sort of� because part of the song was played over a year ago as an kind of ending to �Isn�t It Over Anyway.� (Or �The C Song.� Or whatever.) Anyway, the song, which I�ve dubbed �Light (Shine Down On Me)� required the audiences participation. Our part was this: Jude: Light... Audience: Bum bum bum Jude: Shine down on me Audience: Bum bum bum Only the second �bum bum bum� part was slightly different than the first, and Jude had to stop several times to �correct� us. He went into a story about his old music teacher, and how he, himself, could never be a music teacher. Finally, the audience sang that part right (or at least to Jude�s approval) and he sang the rest of the song. Pretty great song. Goes right up near the top of my list of favorite new Jude songs. (We need a new CD.) After �Light (Shine Down On Me)� Jude left the stage. The audience cheered on, and Jude came back out for an encore that consisted of �I Do� (oh yay) and �Out Of LA� which featured a cool addition to the outro. You can hear it in this week�s Mp3s. After the show, Jude came to the back of the bar with the box of shirts and had Ginger take over selling them. I happened to snag a very cool �dark blue with light blue Jude logo on the front� small sized t-shirt. (Thanks Ginger!) The rest of the shirts were white with black writing, orange with white writing, and baby-t�s, who�s coloring I forgot. There were also lots of blue stickers of Jude�s. A lot of people seemed to be buying shirts! Big props to Ginger for handling that by herself :-) After I got my shirt, Jude came over and thanked me for coming to the show. I thanked him for putting on a good show, and then told him that I wanted to ask him something. He stepped in closer and I momentarily forgot my question, but quickly regained the use of my brain, thankfully. I asked for his title to the song that I referred to as �Slippery Slope.� He confirmed that the title to the song was actually �Madonna,� and that it was an old song that was written a long time ago. I told him how much I loved that song and kind of hinted that he should play it at the next show he does. He thanked me and then went over to talk to some other fans. And I, like the dork that I am, forgot once again to introduce him to my friend Danielle, who was standing there right between us at one point. I�m the worse when it comes to that. When I talk to Jude I become 100% selfish. I suck. Danielle should kick my ass. Totally. Anyway, that was the show. His energy level for the show seemed to be down a bit, and he even mentioned after the show that he wasn�t exactly a big fan of it, but I thought it was pretty great. The new songs didn�t hurt :-) So for those of you who like keeping track...here�s the set list for the show. 01 - Interlude 1 - False Beginnings 02 - Save Me 03 - You Mama You 04 - Cuba 05 - Your Eyes 06 - King Of Yesterday 07 - The Asshole Song 08 - On The Dance Floor 09 - Megaladon 10 - Interlude II - Momentum 11 - Rick James 12 - Money 13 - All I Wanna Do 14 - I Know 15 - Everything�s All Right 16 - Interlude III - Birthday 17 - The C Song 18 - Interlude IV - A Natural Salesman 19 - Interlude V - The Music Teacher 20 - Light (Shine Down On Me) 21 - Encore - I Do 22 - Encore - Out Of LA |