Well, I'm looking forward to seeing Arlo and Co. at the Garde Arts Center in New London tomorrow. There was an article in the local paper about it today, which is always nice, but the reporter made a couple mistakes. For one thing, he called Abe "Ben" (must have had him confused with James Taylor's son), and he called Sarah Lee "Sara Lee" without an "H", like the cupcake lady. This reporter sometimes doubles as the restaurant critic, so I figured he must have had food on his mind. I sent him an email to set him straight. Haven't heard back from him yet....

Intresting Judy. If this reporter is the restuarant critic, and he has Sara Lee cakes on his mind, I can't wait to hear his revue of "Alice's Restuarant" after the show?

everytime i hear "sarah lee" i always think of the cakes and wonder if jackie had cravings..

Good thing Jackie wasn't craving pickles when she was born.

I was at last night's concert at the Garde Arts Center and it was awsome. As always, Arlo was funny, friendly, entertaining. The whole ensemble put on a great show. BTW, that restaurant reviewer/critic wrote a fabulous review. His format was a "thank you" note to Arlo the last paragraph of which read:
"Maybe that's why you continue to drawyour fans and earn new ones like myself. If everyone had embraced the ideals of the '60s the way you have - through music and family and charity - maybe it would all have worked after all.
Thanks..."

very nice, andrea. sounds like you a great time...cool!

Well, the show last night was great! The audience was very psyched and vocal--a few annoyingly so, but they simmered down eventually....sort of. The first set was pretty typical:

*Chilling of the Evening
*My Front Pages
*Slow Boat
*Introduction/Fence Post Blues
*St. James Infirmary
*Reuben James
*In A Young Girl's Mind (the audience loved
Sarah Lee)
*DC 9'er (loved Johnny, too)
*Coming Into LA (They especially loved this! It was that kind of crowd.)

Intermission

It was the second set that was really crazy. Arlo walked out with Dan and Abe, and I said to my friend Peg, "He's gonna do Alice." "How do you know?", she asked. "I know!", I said. And of course he did, but he warned everybody that he hadn't done it in a while, and might not remember it, but with the weird crowd that was there last night, he felt he had to do it. Maybe it was also because of the big picture of him in the paper, with the heading "Still In the Restaurant Business". He proceeded into the song, and, true to his word, got lost in the 8x10 color glossy pictures. I started to come out of my usual "Alice"-induced stupor at that point. He found his way back to the song again, until he finished with the scene in court and should have talked about his draft physical, but he got lost again. Big time! He sat there, playing away on the guitar, trying to remember what came next. People were yelling out stuff to him (including me), trying to be of help, but he was still lost. "I know what it's about generally", he said. "I knew we shouldn't have started this song." He kept rambling along, wondering where he was supposed to be. "It's gonna be 20 minutes either way," he said. Abe was doubled over laughing. I was doubled over laughing. Arlo started laughing that silly giggle of his. The audience was loving it. Sarah came to the side of the stage. She didn't know the words, either. "How come I know MY Dad's songs?", Arlo asked her. After about 10 minutes of rambling, Sarah came up with something that jarred his memory (Tim Sears told me afterwards that it was really He that told Sarah what came next), and Arlo finally got back to the building on Whitehall Street; but he skipped most of the part about the shrink, even though I was yelling it out to him. He eventually made it to the story about Chip Carter and the Nixon Record Library, and we all sang loud for him twice (the second time "with feeling") and had a great time. The place erupted when he finished and everyone gave him a standing ovation!

The rest of the second set was a little more normal:

*When a Soldier Makes It Home
*Patriot's Dream (made me cry)
*All Over the World
*Hey, There's Nothing Left to Say--or whatever the name of that song is that Abe sings--the crowd loved it
*Doors of Heaven
*He started to play All Over the World all over again, but caught himself
*Hawaiian instrumental
*This Land Is Your Land

They took their bows to another standing ovation, and came back for an encore:

*City of New Orleans
*Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream
*Prologue
*Good Night, Irene

All in all, a great show, and everyone had a good time. Arlo came out to sign autographs later, and I was able to introduce him to a few of my friends who'd never met him, so they were very happy.

Cheryl, he was wearing black as usual, but his socks were either light beige or gray--it was hard to tell even though I sat next to him in the hotel bar after the show and made a point of looking at them so I could report in to you. The lights must have been bad in there.

And that's the scoop!

<center><FONT COLOR="#000080">--- Edited 1 times, lastly by Judy on Oct 21, 2001 ---</FONT></center>

sounds like a great night, judy! thanks for the details...you had me laughing, too.

You should have been there, Deb!

i wish i had been, judy! but, you know me...i probably would have been in the ladies room and missed the whole thing. LOL

Thanks for the nice setlist! Hopefully he will learn ALICES by time for the Keswick LOL!

This was my first Arlo concert and it was great. I loved all the songs he played. I can't wait until Sarah Lee's album comes out in 3 weeks. Hopefully Arlo will be back in New London real soon.

Hey, Cheryl, you'll be interested in what the reporter (whose name is Rick Koster, by the way) said about Arlo's appearance: "And Arlo, you look good. Oh, I know, your hair comes off like Rapunzel if she ran out of Grecian Formula, but it's YOU. It's part of the package--like your storytelling between songs: the tender affection in your voice when you prefaced your father's 'The Sinking of the Reuben James' with that story about him being immortalized on a stamp." He went on, talking about how wonderful it is that Arlo has kids that want to share things with him, like watching the movie Woodstock, and how he made the whole audience of maybe 1000 people feel like family.

All this from a reporter who had dreaded going to the concert!

Thanks for sharing what the reporter said. Hopefully Arlo got a new convert!

Thanks for your setlist and show report, Judy. It's the next best thing to actually being there. I remember taking my friends, who just like Rick, also dreaded going, reluctant and skeptical of what I was dragging them into, to Arlo/Shenandoah concerts back in the 70's. After the concerts.... not one disappointment. Every single one of them exclaimed "That was the BEST concert I've ever been to!"
They'd say that as well after a Harry Chapin concert. I sure miss that guy.