Last spring, when Arlo was in St. Louis, the show sold out months in advance and I was left without tickets. He returned in June and did a little 3 tune free gig to celebrate the end of a transcontinental physically challenged bicycle race on the arch grounds. Obviously hearing the 3 tunes just made me want to hear more since it’s been 10 years or so since I’ve seen a real show. Saturday afternoon I gave the Montalvo people a call and asked if they had any tickets left. They told me I could have all I wanted and asked if I was really coming all the way out there just to see Arlo. I told her I would take 2 tickets and asked if they had anything else worth seeing out there. Sunday morning my 8 year old daughter (Sarah) and I flew to San Francisco. After a quick lunch in the city, we drove south about 45 scenic miles down to Saratoga. The venue was on the grounds of Villa Montalvo. There was a mansion with a sloping lawn surrounded by tall trees. The stage was at the bottom of the hill with ‘festival’ seating on the lawn. I pulled a couple blankets out of my pack and we made ourselves comfortable about 100 yards from the stage. The audience was a very middle aged prosperous Silicon Valley crowd. They munched on grapes and sushi while waiting for show time. The crowd and the venue seemed to be very respectable by Blunderite standards. When the show started at 4 pm under a cloudless blue sky, I knew instantly, even from my distant vantage point, that the world’s best dressed folk singer was wearing the same shirt he wore a month earlier in St. Louis. It was a blue green Aloha shirt worn with black jeans and sunglasses. The audience was very polite and attentive if somewhat less than enthusiastic. This was the first performance I saw with Abe and Sarah Lee. I really enjoyed their harmonies. Arlo seemed to be in a happy mood. He was completely relaxed and told lots of stories. Here are a few.
1. Turning Woody into a postage stamp
2. Traveling to Japan with Judy Collins in 1967
3. Sgt. Peppers being released the day they recorded Alices
4. Being left out when his friends were arrested in the event that inspired Ring Around the Rosie Rag
(my 8 year old laughed at that one)
5. How a guy in Chicago bought him a beer so he would listen to a song. Arlo said it was the best beer
ever drank, and then went into City of New Orleans,
6. How he did an impression of Bob Dylan to plug his last Warner Bros. LP
7. How he once bought a baby redwood in California and planted it in Massachusetts in hopes that one day it would be easier to learn the words to the song. In 500 years it could be sung “from the redwood forests, to the redwood forests.”
He did lots of other stories, but that’s not what I’ve come here to talk about. I’ve come here to talk about the set list and here it is:
1. Chilling of the Evening
2. Ring Around a Rosy Rag
3. St. James Infirmary (really enjoyed Arlo’s guitar picking on this one)
4. Reuben James
5. Orphan Girl (Sarah Lee)
6. When a Soldier Makes It Home
7. Keys to the Highway
8. Mooses Come Walking
9. City of New Orleans (best I’ve ever heard of this one, thanks to the harmonies of Abe and Sarah)
10. Never Alone (Sarah Lee)
11. This Land is Your Land
12. Good Night Irene
I really hoped that Arlo might come back out and sing one with Judy Collins but it didn’t happen. She did a set that included her well known songs and a few Irish tunes. Judy told some stories too, including her definition of “Irish Alzheimer’s”......forgetting everything but the grudges. It was an evening of great music in a beautiful setting. I plan to make it to another Arlo show soon in hopes of finally getting to see a second set.

wow, quite a blundertrip, dave..and great reporting. thanks!!

Nice report! You are living out my dream of getting to travel to a very far away state to see an Arlo show! Glad you had a nice time!

There was one little detail I failed to mention in my little write up of the show in Saratoga. The fact is, I traveled to California to see Arlo on a weekend I could have stayed home in St. Louis and seen Bob Dylan. The coincidental timing of those shows brought back to my mind a story I heard Arlo tell on a summer night back in 1981 during his show at Club Casino in Hampton Beach, New Hampshire. This was during the era when Bob was going through his very religious phase. A lot of Bob’s most devoted fans, myself included, were beginning to notice that his new found faith was taking a terrible toll on his very considerable song writing abilities. Arlo mentioned that he had recently been booked for a show, down in Boston I think, on the very same night that Bob Dylan was appearing in town. Arlo had expected his little venue to be empty since all the local folkies would no doubt be at the Dylan show. It turned out that Arlo played to a sold out house. Arlo said that when he went out on stage and saw the big crowd, he asked them why they would come to see Arlo Guthrie when they could be across town seeing Bob Dylan. Arlo said someone in the audience shouted, “cause we wanna hear all the GOOD Bob Dylan songs!” Arlo used that story as a lead in to a Dylan song. I think it was “Don’t Think Twice.” The mention of Dylan evoked a few boos from the audience, which really bothered me at the time.
It’s been almost 20 years, but here’s what else I remember of that show. The Club Casino was and might still be a huge noisy barroom in a resort town on the beach. You could sit at the bar or at tables. There was usually plenty of room to hang out at the stage front, which is where I was with a Molson in hand that night. I saw Tom Rush and Leon Redbone there that summer. Harry Chapin’s name was on the marquee at the time of his death. Arlo did the usual audience favorites like Comin into Los Angeles, Motor Cycle Song and City of New Orleans. I heard “Victor Jara” for the first time and that one really stuck in my mind. The highlight of the evening was when he sang “Massachusetts.” That tune had been getting a lot of radio play in Boston that summer and there was a movement underway to make it the official state song of Massachusetts. Arlo and Shenandoah sang some baroque sounding tune acapella, which I think was the current state song. He did Amazing Grace with the story of it never being too late to turn your ship around. The last encore was “I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You.” He talked about his kids that night and I remember wondering what it would be like having a guy like Arlo for a dad. Sorry, I have no vague foggy notion whatsoever of what he was wearing that night.
My recollection of these events 20 years ago is a pretty good example of what Arlo is talking about when he says that as you age, you may lose your short term memory, but your long term memory improves.

Great Story! Arlo remembers stuff that happened in the 60's but cannot remember what happened 2 or 4 yrs. ago. I've heard Arlo tell the story of him selling out over DYLAN.

The odd thing is they both seem to do shows on July 22. When we went to see Arlo in Clifftop, WV is was July 22, 1990. We also saw another show of his on July 22(I forget which one it was). A DYLAN show we went to was on July 22. Arlo is doing a gig in Hampton, VA which we are going to & guess what the date is? July 22! Talk about an Arlo Bob connection & coincidence! I do like Dylans religious stuff too & Arlos too!

dave in st lou...Great stuff! It's amazing what a night out, can do to rejuvenate those brain cells...I love that Dylan story myself.
Everybody likes Bobby Dylan songs. They just sound better when Arlo sings em.....

Be cool/Rb