AMERICAN THEATRE-- HAMPTON, VA JULY 22, 2000
SET LIST & SHOW REPORT:

We wanted to get up at 7 am but I wound up over sleeping 7 got up at 7:30 am & then cereal for breakfast, plus a check of both of Arlos websites & his newsgroup & AOL message boards plus my e-mail. Then to get dressed & off to Hampton. First stop for Gas at Pilot in Hopewell, VA. No we are on I-295 headed towards I-64 & then get onto I-64 Norfolk. Arlo will later go this way after going thru PA & I-495 & 95. Our traffic was nothing compared to Arlo & Dennis'.

We like to go to the malls down there in Hampton & will sometimes make a special trip down there to go to the malls there & the Value City store there & some of the strip malls. Not enough time for all of that so we go to Coliseum Mall cuz they have a RAINBOW store with plus sizes in it & Montgomery Wards store & altho we have a RAINBOW we don't have a Montgomery Wards store (Richmond, VA area is lacking.) I found & bought a great deal in Wards! A 60's hippie style jean jacket for $10. It's a guys style jean jacket with 60's type flowered ribbon trim on it. & embroidery. Cool! They still have CHI-CHI's down there & we don't so we had lunch there. We asked there how to get to the theatre.

They gave good directions but I made a left turn by mistake instead of a right & we wound up in Fort Monroe. They have lighthouse which was cool & we hope to get a better look at it again another time when we have more time. We were the first ones there. Arlo was a little late for his 4 pm soundcheck due to bad traffic. Up the street comes the bus! It was interesting watching the bus pulling in. It took poor Dennis 3 times of going around the block before he could get it in for there was an alleyway thing next to the theatre for the singers bus. I think the concert workers wondered if he'd get in but I had complete faith in him because he always gets the bus there & always safely too. Nice bus but Arlo picked it based on being enamored with the big bedroom instead of getting one with space for Dennis' stuff. (Hint, Hint.) Uncle Arlo had arrived! They were tired out cuz they had to come from the State College PA show they had the nite before. Rambling Jack Elliot & a few other folksingers who are friends with Arlo came to that one & they were going on & off the bus. Abe somehow accidently walked off with Arlos microphones after that gig & he is now on Arlo's hit list. LOL! But all is well for Arlo for he had extra mikes with him. Abe didn't show up cuz he had a gig with XAVIER that nite. We missed him but Sarah was there. Arlo had on jeans & a browns short sleeve button front shirt with cuffs on the sleeves & epaulettes on the shoulders. We saw him get off & I said HI a few minutes & he asked where Mike was which Mike was in the car with his walkman on playing Bob Dylan & I told him that. I gave Uncle Arlo some homemade diabetic pickles I had made. (Got the recipe off the internet.) I made some for us & being nice & sharing I gave some to him & some to Sue. They were my first ever pickles I had ever made so it was fitting that he be among the first to taste since he & pickles are so intertwined together. Arlo went on to his soundcheck.

The show sold out!!!! Not a ticket was to be had. We met this nice guy name Chris I believe who wanted a ticket really bad but it was sold out. The box office told him to ask folks on the street. He asked us but we had no extras. Dennis said check back closer to the time of the show. We had fun with him. He was 30 & wasn't born in the 60's. It was nice sharing the 60's with a younger person. He'd never seen Arlo by himself only at 2 FURTHUR FEST shows. Later on he received a miracle. Some lady called & turned in her tix cuz her hubby got ill & they couldn't come due to that. So Christ got to go & enjoy the joy of an Arlo show. He got a miracle! Mike went back & forth at various times between hanging out with me & Dennis & whoever & being in the car playing his walkman. I later got out the autoharp & sat by the bus & autoharped some tunes. No I wouldn't make a very good opening act for Arlo as I play pretty rotten. The bus inspired me. While sitting there I figured out how to play THE LION SLEEPS TONITE by ear on autoharp. & I've never played that on autoharp before. But Arlo gives good vibes... Arlo missed hearing me doing my version of ALICES RESTAURANT on the autoharp. My version isn't 18 minutes. Oh well if he hadn't been doing soundcheck. & no I only play, I do not sing or talk the massacree & only play the chorus. I couldn't possibly play for 18 minutes straight. How he does it I'll never know. When the Blunderites started invading the place I stop autoharping in favor of digging the people & enjoying them. Petie & Martha came as well as Sue & her family. It was nice seeing other Blunderites there. Poor Dennis. He was tired from all that driving. (Hey Arlo he needs a raise! & A Bigger bus!) We know Arlo slept on the way up! At one point we went into check out Jessicas table but it wasn't set up yet. A lady at the concert thing said we couldn't go in there till it was set up as the concert place was afraid of stealing even tho they knew we wouldn't steal it was a matter of their policy. So we checked it out later when they opened up the room. Nice time with the Blunderites, Dennis & Jessica till the show started. Somewhere within the day a lady that worked there told us the theatre had been around since 1908. WOW!

Almost show time: The whole front row is full of Arlo's friends & family. Yep, the Blunderites were out. We had seats in the front row & as good coincidence would have it Petie & Martha were right next to us. We were on the far left of the front row. Sue had even better seats front row center. "& We all had fun sittin on the Group W Bench"... 8 PM: time for the show. 8:05 PM: Michael Curry the director of the place comes out to introduce him. Curry has on an Arlo shirt to celebrate the occasion. He introduces the man of the hour: Uncle Arlo! It's show time kids! The beginning of Arlo's first show in VA since Nov. 1998! Arlo is wearing his favorite black suit, a black long sleeve dress shirt, & his socks are either red or purple depending on the colors of the light.

& Now the moment you have all been waiting for:

THE SET LIST!!!! (APPLAUSE)

Hope I got the first part right as I forgot to write the set list down until the 3rd song or so.

CHILLING OF THE EVENING

HOUSE OF THE RISING SON

FREIGHT TRAIN (All interspersed with his trademark humorous & interesting stories.)

ALICES RESTAURANT (YAY! I could hear it a million times & always get something new out of it. Same thing with all his songs. A real crowd pleaser. He seemed touched by the audiences great response to the song when he finished it. For a second there I thought he might almost cry or something.)

RITTENHOUSE SQUARE STORY

RING A ROUND A ROSEY RAG

STORIES: Story about Bob Dylans songs going downstream & you have to catch them. Story of Arlo doing an ad for his POWER OF LOVE album & he imitates Bob Dylan in it. Darkest Hour Story

DARKEST HOUR

TELLS A MOOSES STORY
(He rambled on talking about it. He was quite a trip & practically cracked himself up. He was playing Greensleeves while talking some funny stuff & talking about Mooses. Arlo saw Sarah offstage laughing & made a comment about his own family members laughing at him. He looked right at Sue, pointed at her & said you stop laughing! He got so tickled & almost lost it. He started deciding to do another song instead. He regained control & introduced MOOSES, doing a nice job on it.

Intermission: Why is the mens room line shorter than the ladies room line? He did ALICE. Oh well, I guess they are all like me a member of the I would never ever leave to go to the restroom while he is singing club. I will hold it till intermission if it kills me. Darn, I wish I'd saved the catheter bag from that kidney surgery I had 25 yrs. ago. Oh yeah on second thought it was miserable to wear. Hang out with everyone once we're thru with the bathroom.

Intermissions up & back to the show kids:

Sarah comes out with Arlo. She has on a black skirt & top & is armed with a guitar.

WAKE UP DEAD

Sarahs guitar becomes unplugged. & it goofed up. She fixes it.

ORPHAN GIRL (Sung by Sarah. Arlo accompanies her on guitar.)

ST. JAMES INFIRMARY by ADG

Arlo goes to piano & does a ragtime piece. SAN FRANCISCO BAY BLUES.

SLOW BOAT

Arlo goes back to guitar & tell a Hoyt Axton story.

Sarah does the Hoyt Axton song IN A YOUNG GIRLS MIND.

Arlo talks. Tells the story of going to the Woody Folk fest in Oklahoma. Tell of singing with Pete Seeger. Tells Pete CLEARWATER story.

Sarah sings Pete Seegers SAILING DOWN MY GOLDEN RIVER, accompanied by Arlo.

Arlo tells a Steve Goodman story.

CITY OF NEW ORLEANS.

Arlo aske Sarah to do a song he doesn't know since he did one she didn't know.

Sarah sings a song in G-minor. I don't know the name of it. Arlos plays guitar in accompanyment & learns the song fast.

Arlo tunes his guitar!

Arlo tells the story of going to the Woody Guthrie Stamp show.

THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND (Stops in the middle of the song to tell a story...) Finsishes song.

Show has eneded but we want more, more, more...

ENCORE: GOODNITE IRENE with accompanying story...

ENCORE #2: AMAZING GRACE featuring the John Newton story & a story of Moses in the bible that Arlo sometimes tells with AMAZING GRACE. (A real tearjerker. Time to break out the hankys.) (Sarah suggested they do that song, Arlo said, when he asked her what should they sing for the 2nd encore that they knew).

A perfect show had eneded.

Next up after waiting we get to see our beloved Uncle Arlo as does the other blunderites. & Chris gets to meet him! I'm sure he had a ncie time. Arlo was so sweet to us! I showed him my mono copy of the ALICES RESTUARANT album. He drew a mustache on himself on the front of the record. LOL! I also showed him a WOODSTOCK poster with it annoucing him as one of the acts at WOODSTOCK on it. He suggested putting a mustache on Janis Joplins pic on it & I told him go ahead & do it daring him to do it.He wimped out & wouldn't do it instead putting a mustache on his name he wrote on there. LOL! We had a nice time with him & everyone. All too soon he had to go so he could go on to Boone, NC & they could close up the joint. It was sad saying goodbye to him. Boo-hoo! (Time to break out more hankys again. With Arlo joining in 4 part harmony. LOL!) But we will see him in a month at Ocean City, NJ. I hope to report on that one then. Until then... Happy Blundering!

Edited for spelling errors... LOL!

<center><FONT COLOR="#000080">--- Edited 1 times, lastly by Cheryl Harrell on Jul 24, 2000 ---</FONT></center>

Nice reporting and sounds like it was another great show.

But you promised Bumper a report on Sarah's socks.

I believe she wore panty hose. She had on high heel shoes with 2 buckles. Sorry for the omission--LOL!

cheryl.....enjoyed reading the story of your arlo day. sounds like you saw a great show with some of my fave songs like 'freight train.' i'm curious about a couple of the stories......what was the story associated with 'in my darkest hour' and what was the story of the mooses in the bible told in connection with 'amazin grace'???

I think in the DARKEST HOUR story was he told about DYLAN & also about how he'd gotten that song from a dream he had. Also with AMAZING GRACE it wasn't a story about Mooses but a story about Moses in the Bible.

Also something else I left out of the story... We saw a guy there who looked just like David Crosby of CSNY. Mike told him he looked just like him. He coulda passed for his twin brother. We were going why don't ya sing Marrakesh Express. etc. Just anoth interesting thing that happened at the gig. SOrry for the omissions. It was a busy but fun nite!

Ya know, there ain't nuthin' like a Cheryl Arlo report! Now, I think we should get Arlo to start giving us Cheryl reports too. Wadda ya think?

Well, the bar has been raised. I will try to
do as well on my set list as Bumper and
Cheryl did on each of theirs.