Karen,
I'm so glad you brought this up. It rings a familiar bell, and falls under the category of "be careful what you wish for" as it relates to asking your favorite singer songwriters to perform on of their old songs, in essence, on demand, that's to say via an audience request during any given concert.
There's no harm in asking, of course. It's just that if the song has been off an artist's setlist for a while, well, you just never know what you're gonna get. You might get a spot on version of the song. You might get a "give it the old college try" version, and with a little help from his friends the lost lyrics can be provided by fans up front that know the songs line by line.
I like it when they try, but sometimes, it's better when they don't. I'll give you a recent case in point, where I wished we (the audience) hadn't requested a particular (and GREAT) song in concert. It was at last week's John Gorka show (the early one) at Tin Angel in Philly. Between songs, when the audince has a chance to shout requests, someone a few tables behind me suggested "Where the Bottles Break." Ooooh, I thought, haven't heard that one in concert in years, that'd be great. Sensing that John may not have heard that request over all the "others" being shouted out, I decided to take it upon myself to make sure John knew that at least a few of us wanted to hear an old favorite. So I bellowed out:
Where the Bottles Break
It caught John's attention and he immediately replied that he would try it, that he had been working on it again, lately. I was all set for a stirring rendition of this most powerful of John Gorka songs.
Yikes!!!
John's Martin guitar (the one I think he would ordinarily play this song on) was not available (he had told the audience an airline had damaged it) and so John set about trying to position two (2) capos on the neck of his guitar(in different places) to get his guitar to the right place for the song. Trouble was, it must have been in the wrong place. Rather than stopping to get it right, John seemed to go with the floow of where the guitar was tuned. The result was a rather "unfamiliar" version of this John Gorka gem.
I'm trying to be kind, here.
