Stone Soup - Pawtucket, RI - May 15 2010

[Patti]

Hey in case you didn't get something for your mom yet, or even if you did....

Tickets for Ellis Paul at Stone Soup Saturday May 15th are available from PAYPAL at soup.org

Come on down to the soup...

[PotatoPicker]

With Adam Ezra opening ! Hoping to make the show.....

[monicar]

Can't wait!!!!



Monica R.

[PotatoPicker]

Should be a great show - I think Mags and I will be going.

And there might be a surprise visitor there as well...

[PotatoPicker]

A great show last night (well did you expect me to say anything else ?). I went with Maggie and a friend of ours from my folk group. It was nice to see Susan and Bonnie and Patty and a couple of other folks I am forgetting…. The usual suspects 

Adam Ezra and his bare feet opened. My friend Sally is in love with his dimples……

You Paint Me
Taking Off Today
She’s Just A Girl (we had listened to that song as we pulled up to the venue last night – I was playing a couple of my favorite cuts from his CD to Sally so she could get a taste for his music, and had ended with this one, since it is my favorite from the new CD)
Hallelujah (great cover of the Cohen song)
Basement Song


After a short break, Ellis came on, and Adam joined him for the entire set. Ellis and his throat did quite well – from my perspective the quality was there and he was hitting his high notes well, though he did sound a little vocally tired in a couple of spots.

Maria’s Beautiful Mess
Lights of Vegas
Rose Tattoo
Annalee
Hurricane Angel (slightly spoiled by a protest chant from a couple in the audience – Adam was right – I have no problem with sentiment – but it really ruined a beautiful moment)
Dragonfly
Take All The Sky
Alice’s Champagne Palace
Heaven’s Wherever You Are
World Ain’t Slowing Down
Blacktop Train

Encore – Jukebox On My Grave

For a very limited amount of practice, Adam did a great job filling in around the edges, a couple of solos, and some nice harmonies. “Heaven’s Wherever You Are” was a treat – I don’t recall ever hearing that live before. I still think Lights of Vegas is much better on the CD than live (sorry) – but “Rose Tattoo” and “Jukebox On My Grave” were (and always are) much better live. “Hurricane Angel” I am still convinced is one of the greatest songs of the last few years, and to hear it live from Ellis is always wonderful.

[Richard + Jela]

Thanks for the report Jeff - always good to read about the shows.

What on earth is there to protest about in 'Hurricane Angel' ???? Like you I think that it is one of the strongest songs EP has ever written.

Pleased also to read that he's got his voice back - must be so scary for a singer to lose their voice.

Jela

[PotatoPicker]

A couple of people felt it important to yell out (in unison) that "George W Bush" ought to pay. Anyone who listens to the song understands that the lack of real response by "Mr. President" is one of the concerns being raised by the song.

Adam Ezra's comment after the song was on point. All they succeeded in doing was to annoy a group of people who already largely felt as they did and take away an exquisite artistic moment in the show.

[monicar]

It was a great show and I thought Ellis sounded fine!

Agree that GW Bush thing was sorta weird and definitely threw a wrench into the song. Adam's response was perfect!

Loved Adam playing with Ellis and I thought they sounded great singing together!

Can't wait for July!

Monica R.

[paddyinthepub]

Whenever the "Mr. President" line is sung live the name George W. Bush comes screaming to the forefront of the whole sorted mess that was the Hurricane Katrina disaster and aftermath. But then the song's overall vibe and majestic tones quickly washes the name away. It's interesting to hear of this sort of heckle. I have to say that on one hand it's kind of refreshing to know that Ellis' music reaches people in this way. Just too bad it had to be shouted in a way that distracts both the artists on stage and the audience enjoying the beautiful nature of the song. I'd be careful heckling Ellis these days. He's carrying spray onstage!

[monicar]

Too funny, Paddy. I'll have to remember the spray as I've been known to heckle but not in a GW sort of way.

Hurricane Angel reminds me of David Crosby's song "Guinevere (sp?)."

I have seen Croz quiet the crowd many times for this song, saying "this is a song that needs to be LISTENED to." That's how I feel about Hurrican Angel.

[Patti]

Pleased also to read that he's got his voice back - must be so scary for a singer to lose their voice.

Ellis was telling me that was a little scary.. He also made mention that besides just singing his heart out it has to do with the range of the songs and that he may have to write songs in a different way if he wants to still be doing this at 60. I told him I thought there will always be people willing to listen.

[Patti]

Paddy too funny about the spray... he did have it propped right on the keyboard.


Okay.. a few videos from Adam's set are on my youtube


http://www.youtube.com/results?search_q ... +soup&aq=f

search adam ezra stone soup... I have a few more to post but won't get to it later

Also I have this song of Adam's from last fall at Passim..
Burn Brightly probably my favorite song so far !l

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-B4H3M0edE

[paddyinthepub]

Watched some recent concert performance youtubes to hear for myself how Ellis' singing voice bounced back from the scare. He sounded good but like an athlete coming back from an injury seems not yet 100 %

BB King comes to mind and how he says his voice doesn't open up til late in day right around showtime and only after treating the instrument to a few shots of the hard stuff. Wonder if that would help Ellis? Surely, she's worth the whiskey!?!?! Karen might have to quit her day job and become the human teleprompter if the treatment works too well!

[KarenZ]

So.....the hecklers disagreed with the Mr. President line? Or agreed so much that they wanted to specify the name of the president?

Thanks for the reports y'all and the videos too - although I haven't watched them yet.

No new song that Paddy heard in Kennett Square, PA last weekend?

KarenZ

[paddyinthepub]

Sounds to me like the heckler wanted Ellis and everyone else to know that he not only got the sentiment of the Preisdent line but he wanted to blurt it out much like an over eager student in grade school might do when the teacher asks a "who knows the name of the person that?" kind of question. It's kind of cool, and of course, not at the same time.

Hadn't thought about it, but yeah, the new songs usually get played at all the shows once Ellis has christened them in concert. It's a powerful song and maybe Ellis is saving it for when his voice is back to normal.

On that note, and with BB King again in mind, I just cracked myself up (again) imagining Forest Brooks (the late great comedian) introducing our hero to the stage. In his uniquely hialrious drunken guy speak:

Ladies and Gentlemen, please give a warm welcome to:

Ellush Paul

[Patti]

He did the new song at sound check, not during the show.

I think the set list had him staying to songs Adam knew well enough to accompany.

I did tell Ellis I had wished he did one song solo, Waking Up To Me.. he said "ya, me and Adam could have done that" we both kind of laughed at how that would go over as they gazed into each others eyes

[Patti]

OH.. PS

Adam was playing the piano in the hall earlier in the night and I'm pretty sure he said it was something "they" were working on together !!

[monicar]

Working on something together ... That makes me !!!!!

Paddy, I'm not sure I've ever revealed this before. My husband refers to Ellis as Popeye because he of the way he sometimes pronounces things in songs ...... like speed of trays, etc. Your Forest Brooks reference made me think that.

For the record, my husband is a very nice guy. I think I have a tendency to make him sound like an a-hole sometimes.

[Patti]

Marc Chagall has my all time favorite "what did he say" line..

My husband thought he was saying " you make me wanna bleeeeeeedd"

instead of "you make me wanna believe"

That is why it is so handy to have lyrics with the CD or at least available on line at the artis website.

Okay my other favorite is.. Take all the sky "like a mop in my hand, sweeeeep" instead of like a moth in my hand, sweeeeet"

[monicar]

Ahahahahahaha ... You make me want to bleed !

We have to get Tim and Kevin together!

[KarenZ]

You gals are cracking me up. We need to start a mis-quoted lines thread. That could be really funny.

KarenZ

[monicar]

That's not a bad idea!!!!

I remember a friend of mine mentioning hearing Jimmy LaFave on the radio. She said it was the song about Lorraine. I went over the Jimmy catalogue in my mind and said there wasn't any song about Lorraine that I knew of. Turned out to be Cafe IN THE RAIN!

[PotatoPicker]

Agree heartily on the mis-quoted song line topic I have way too many of them. Some I studiously wrote down in my notes and learned to play that way back in the day before the internet....

And you are all cracking me up here.

No new songs during the show unfortunately - I was looking.....

As for pronunciation.. you take a Frenchman out of Aroostook County, send him to college in Boston, and then have him live the last few years in Virginia - it's amazing any of us can understand him

[bonuela]

it was a great show. (duh!) my take on the "hecklers" is that they were enjoying the music and having fun. it seemed misplaced because it was at a very poignant point in the song, but i don't think it was meant to be disruptive.

a few highlights for me were:

heaven's wherever you are.
i never really thought about what the song meant until ellis mentioned a friend with depression. it is about seeing the positives in life. even when it is not ALL positive, there is always something good. i love having an a-ha moment with a familiar song.

anna lee.
this is a favorite of mine anyway, but this version was extra special. i was in the front row, (again, duh!) and ellis and adam came out into the audience. ellis has a brand new GORGEOUS guitar. it is so new it doesn't have a strap, so adam gave up his. ellis stood on one side of patti and adam rested his foot on the chair between us on the other side of her. after a few near misses, i removed the capo from the end of adam's guitar. folk singer lapdances are all fun and games until someone loses an eye.

i thought it was a bit forward, even for me, to remove the capo, but i just felt like that scene in the movie airplane where the nun is playing guitar and keeps knocking out the little girl's IV. i could picture it either breaking my nose, or getting caught up in my hair. either one would have been more distracting to the audience then me grabbing that sucker.



blacktop train.
again in the audience. this was just so rocking. they were close enough to hear the stomping of adam's feet and the wail of his unamplified harmonica. things that people in the back might have missed.

i do have a message for ellis though. if you are going to need vocal help from the audience, you are going to have to write songs with notes that normal human beings can reach, not just super talented folk ingers.

[PotatoPicker]

Great point about "Heaven's Wherever You Are" - I had forgotten to relate that in the write-up. That was an a-ha moment for me as well - a new dimension to a song that I really liked.

Loved that beautiful new guitar. Maggie says I can have one just like if I can find someone to give it to me for free like Ellis....

[Patti]

yes, very kind of Adam to give up his guitar strap.. but wasn't everbody suppose to be taking a layer of something off !!

I started recording the song a couple of seconds into it.. The link is below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4QboLctVB4 Annalee


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mUFvKc1gZk BlackTop Train

they were standing so close its like you could just reach out and touch their toes or remove a capo or something ..

[bonuela]

they were standing so close its like you could just reach out and touch their toes or remove a capo or something ..

that capo removal was self defense and i returned it after the show.

[mm]

Hi guys.....in regards to the shouting out, I remembered when I read this that I was in the audience where this was done once before on the same song, same shout out, in Fall River this past winter. Must have been the same folks who are fans and feel strongly about their opinion. I wonder how Ellis felt about it.