GBS at the Nokia NYC
9/19/08
Feelin' Groovy
This show was not in my original plan, groovy or not. My foot was killing me and I could not imagine an evening of standing in the GA section. It took me a long time to decide that I'd be willing to give up proximity for comfort. I guess that means I am officially over the hill. So be it. Reality bites, but it's all we've got! As Alan would say, "Let It Go." And at some point in the week after the presale tix were available, I ordered my sole ticket in the Mezzanine.

I thought I'd have to go solo that night, but fate dictated otherwise. A very generous Marcie sent me some tix that she could not use. I asked a couple from my Thursday night choir if they wanted to go. The two of them jumped at the chance, taking off the full day of work, riding the train up to NYC and intending to "do" a bit of the city before the show. They were GBS virgins. Little did they know what was in store.

A week before the show, I was in touch with Nancy from Collingswood, who mentioned she was also going to the show. Since she works in Center City Philly, we decided I would pick her up from work at 4 PM, figuring that would give us plenty of time to get to NYC by 7 PM when the doors opened. Little did we know how wrong we were! The drive up the NJ Turnpike was quite uneventful to my surprise and I thought we'd even make it early, but no dice. We were off the Turnpike by 5:45. However, it took us 90 minutes to get through the approach to the Lincoln Tunnel and we arrived in Times Square after 7:30 PM!

They were checking handbags outside, but the guy took one look at my cane and apparently decided I was not a threat, so he didn't look! I didn't have any contraband anyway, so it would not have mattered. The tix said "no recorders" and I took that to mean video or audio recorders. I did have my camera, though.  Nevertheless, I didn't take it out until others had take photos inside the venue. It didn't seem that they were accosted about it, so I took out my lovely, trusty, zoomy Canon Powershot. I knew I'd need the zoom feature tonight for sure. I'd gotten some hints on low-light shooting and wanted to try it out a bit before the show. Black screen was what I saw no matter what I did. Nothing was showing up in the viewfinder. I changed batteries, turned it off and on again, tried various settings. Nothing worked. No camera. So far away. *sniff* Ah well, I'd better be a good observer tonight instead. So it's going to be a different review for me.
59th Street Bridge Song

"Slow down, you move too fast.
You got to make the morning last!
Just kickin' down the cobblestones
Lookin' for fun & feeling groovy!"       (by Simon & Garfunkel)
As I walked through the venue to my seat, I saw Dave, (who saw me first) and chatted for a minute. Then Michele from Long Island said 'Hi!" and I realized I'd know a lot of folks here tonight, but they'd be up front. A very small twinge of regret passed thru my mind before reality took over and I was grateful to have a seat to sit down in. Vic and I had seen Runrig at the Noika a few years ago and I knew I'd have a good seat no matter where in the mezzanine I was. And so I was feelin' groovy again.
My friends Jack & Sally had arrived before me and came over to say hello. They had gotten into the city too late to do much of anything except have dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe as the train they got on was a "Local," stopping at all stops. The woman next to me asked if I had seen them before. I smiled and just replied "Yes." She didn't need to know it was my 58th time! She was originally from Portland, Oregon and was now living in NYC. Her brother had interested her in GBS in college. Brother's got good taste!

In no time, the lights dimmed, the stage was bathed in eerie blue lights and the dark strains of Banks of Newfoundland boomed out from the speakers. Alan was out first, greeted by a roar from the crowd. The others rapidly followed and as drum beat signalled the perfect opening song for a GBS show, Love Me Tonight, the show began lit up by all the colors of the rainbow. Sean was all dressed up in a gray suit jacket, and Bob also had the almost ever-present suit jacket on. Alan was in a nice black shirt, Murray in a button-down choice of his own and Kriss looked to be dressed up a bit too from what I could see. The Fortunate Tour is fashionable too, apparently! I only know all this because of the little video screens provided to us mezzaniners.
A-Rod in the house?
Britt collected all the instruments after Love Me Tonight and they lauched right into Process Man. Kris is quite the man on percussion back there. Really adds to the song! Bob seemed to be singing a higher harmony that I'm used to but ti all sounded as wonderful as four men's voices in harmony could sound. The lighting changed from the rainbow tones of the first song to bright luminescent white back lighting on a fairly dark stage. Amazingly true to the meaning of the song about chemical workers. Whenever they sang "there's thunder all around me," the back lights would flash like lightning. Awesome!
"Of course, this has nothing at all to do with a song about drinking and death,"  Sean went on. "They are two of my favorite things to do," he paused, "...and eat pizza." With that, we all knew Paddy Murphy was next. It was not a wild version, but it was spirited and Sean sang it well. And "as long as the pizza was passed around, every man was feeling gay."

Alan, "our fountain of affection" went right into When I'm Up after that and Bob had a really strong fiddle from the get-go. You could hear his instruments very well tonight. Murray's bass has been overwhelming for the past couple shows I saw, but not tonight. You could barely hear it. There's gotta be a middle ground somewhere!
Lukey's intro was obvious to me from the chords Alan was playing but he launched into banter usually reserved for other songs, about how the stars are aligning in NYC and this could be the greatest Friday of your life ... Then someone in the crowd yelled "I love you Alan" and he was full of mischief.

"Oh I love you! And not the wholesome kind. The dirty kind! We're totally making out after the show," Alan smiled.

"He's serious!" Sean explained, "I know!" And that phrase became the repeated one throughout the night whenever Alan would make some claim. Sean said it was such a serious voice, it was hilarious!

Lukey was fun to watch and they all looked like they were having fun. Everyone was all over the stage, dancing and having a good time.
There were plenty of people in the General Admission section and our section was about 2/3 full. I'd consider it a sell-out even though technically, there were seats. Most people would rather stand and dance at a GBS show and there was barely room to do that on the floor. I'd wager there were twice as many as had attended the Runrig show.
After Process Man, Sean spoke a little about their day. He claimed he'd spent all the money he'd earned the last two weeks on tour and said he was glad to see us here tonight. He told us that he and Alan had eaten dinner earlier at Lombardi's. In fact, Sean claimed they'd eaten three pizzas between the two of them! He claimed he could still feel them. He also listed other stuff he had chomped on all day. I wonder if he needed a bigger jacket? LOL!