| Harper Ave. rychard's rants, raves + reviews |
| "Recovering Valentine" review: jude @ largo - february 20, 2002 (los angeles, ca) (this review was originally posted to the judediscuss fan list on february 21, 2002) Hey people! So last night was a pretty awesome Jude show at Largo...the final night of his Wednesday night run in February. (He said he'll be back in March, which is cool, but seriously, I'm tapping out my financial resources on all these shows!) Onto the review: Jude came out to introduce Gus, who opened the show. He toured with Jude a few years ago, and even performed "Gay Cowboy" with Jude and the guys from Train on their tour together. (No such performance at this show though, unfortunately.) Gus was pretty good...at one point, after playing two songs solo with his guitar, he said that he wanted to bring out his band, and then proceeded to press play on a boom-box. It was a funny little moment. Then Gus came out a short while after his set to introduce Jude to the Largo stage. Here is the setlist for the show, which was just Jude and his guitars and keyboard: 01. George - you know, I was never really a big fan of this song, but somehow I really dig it now. He's also changed the last line of the song from "1999, it's almost time," to "1999, it's always time." 02. I'm Sorry Now - I'm not a big fan of Jude with band, but this is one song that I think needs the band...not that I don't love it acoustic, but I just think it needs more. 03. Charlie Says - Great performance of this song 04. Daisy A Day - a cover song originally written by Mac Davis, according to Jude. I searched online and couldn't find it by him, but did find it recorded by a fella name Jud Strunk. Anyway...he was tuning his guitar before breaking out into this song for a good four or five minutes, and told us that this is what it was like growing up in his house, and how his father would constantly be tuning his guitar which had strings that were never replaced. He then said that his father used to sing this song to them as kids as their "goodnight" song. It's a lovely song, with a very very very sad ending, which apparently spooked Jude as a child. 05. Indian Lover - This has to be my favorite song to hear live...he always sings it with such passion...it's truly incredible. 06. You Mama You - How he gets each and every one of those words out in just over two minutes is amazingly scary. 07. Valentine Poetry, part one: He told the story of how his younger brother had called 1-800-FLOWERS the day before Valentine's Day to get flowers sent to his girlfriend, but they couldn't do it for him, so he went down a level to 1-900-FLOWERS, who's gurantee was that if they didn't deliever the flowers on V-Day, they'd call the girlfriend and read her poetry. So V-Day came and went, and neither the flowers nor the poetry appeared to the girlfriend. So Jude's brother asked him to write a poem for the girlfriend, but Jude said he was having a "dry spell," and then proceeded to throw pens out into the audience, giving us the assignment of writing poetry for his brother's girlfriend. (more on this later in the show...) 08. Everything's All Right - the audience went into the "ba ba ba" part without any guidance by him, and it was pure magic. After this song, he took off his guitar and moved over to the keyboard. 09. The Asshole Song - he does this funny thing after singing the line "so people they trust me but sometimes they're wrong." He gives this weird glance to the audience...I can't describe it here, but it's funny...trust me...lol 10. King Of Yesterday - so beautifully simple at the keyboard...much better than either of the album versions. 11. On The Dance Floor - again with the technical effects, this time instead of disco lights, the people in the back added an echo effect to Jude's voice in the chorus, which gave it a funky disco flavor. 12. Sarah Goodnight - one of the new songs...very pretty...he interjected what may either be new lyrics to the song in the middle of it, or else it was a piece of a brand new song (possibly titled "beautiful loser," no connection to Brad and Suzy) After this, Jude left the keyboard and pulled on his electric guitar. 13. Rick James - I really don't like the electric guitar on any of these songs. It gives them an "empty" feeling. 14. Valentine Poetry, part two - at this point, again while tuning his guitar, he asked the audience want they had so far in terms of poetry. one couple claimed their pen didn't work. another guy offered Jude a poem he worked on. it was really very well-written. Jude read it in a Boston-accent as if he were the Flower-shop owner calling his brother's girlfriend. 15. Prophet - still with the electric guitar. this song REALLY loses it's passion with the electric guitar in my opinion. 16. Out Of LA - this is really the only song I can really dig with the electric. Jude (thankfully) takes off the electric and straps on the acoustic again. He wishes happy birthday to someone in the audience ("29...again.") then breaks into: 17. Red Room 18. Love Love Love (is all you should be thinking of) - another one of the new songs...basically he takes a lot of the extra "outro's" he adds to "Out Of LA" and pastes them together in one song. It's pretty rad though! 19. Valentine Poetry, part three - finally, he asks again for audience's poetry. three or so people give him napkin and receipt musings, and Jude sits at the keyboard and sets them to music. this shows the true genius of this guy...these words that he had less than 15 seconds to read became beautiful melody's. Back at the acoustic guitar: 20. Paper Towel - a nice surprise...though I'm still yearning for the one 430 N. Harper Ave track that I haven't heard live: "More Than I Wanted." In fact, I do belive that's the only song I haven't heard live now since he performed "Battered Broken" last month. 21. Gay Cowboy - at last, there was no "I'm taking this to Nashville," or "Dallas told me I needed a bridge so I wrote this" fabricated story, and he went directly into the bridge, which was great! One of the downfalls of seeing Jude a lot is that you hear the many many many different "stories" behind the songs, which always contradict each other. Untrustworthy narrator, indeed. 22. I Know - He closed his set with this song. Then he came back out for the encore. He said that while he was outside briefly, a couple walked past him and said: "Jude, you're so good, but we're so old..." and then they left. I can sympathize...Wednesday night shows are not the most convenient as far as having work early the next morning... Encore: 23. Your Eyes - another new song...one of my favorites, next to "dancing around." 24. I Do - could people PLEASE stop requesting this song...lol...I'm soooo over it! He left the stage for good after this. other points of interest: * apparently after last wednesday's show, he made a "surprise" appearance at Largo the next day (Valentine's Day) to perform for David Garza. * Cuba was noticeably left off the setlist...could it have been due to the shirt-and-tied men in the audience?? hmmm.. * nothing else I can think of. all in all...two thumbs up |