(no subject)

[winterbadger]

If I didn't love Al Stewart already, I would have to after reading this interview. What a sense of proportion? What a wonderful ability to laugh at himself and the world. I love the story about the poached egg. :-)

Comments

[cmlc.livejournal.com]

Thanks a lot - great interview.

Of all the concerts I've ever been to over 40-odd years I'd have to say that the Al Stewart one was the best. Not because the music was fantastic, though actually in musical terms alone it'd be the equal of any concert I've been at; but because in addition to that he really is the most charming man you can ever encounter, as you say, modest, witty, funny, self-deprecating, and the most entrancing and gifted raconteur. Every song was wonderful, but the songs were punctuated with rambling shaggy dog stories which would go on for five to ten minutes, and each one would have the audience in fits of laughter or grinning fit to burst, and really, he hardly needed to bother with the music, he could just stand there and chat to you for four hours and he'd hold everyone in the audience totally spellbound. A fabulous man.

Somewhere I have a dozen or so albums of his tucked away...

[cmlc.livejournal.com]

Update: eek, he's playing the Queen's Hall next month! I must go! I'll buy a ticket tomorrow if there are any left.

Thanks!

[winterbadger]

Glad you enjoyed it! He sounds a lovely man.

I went to rock concerts when I was a kid (even saw the Kinks one time), and I ended up wondering why I was spending as much or more to to hear well and be barely able to see a band as it would cost to buy their latest album, which I would be able to hear much better on the stereo at home.

Then, in my dotage :-) I got turned onto folk music (which is to say, I realised that the "other" artists I'd liked all my life were part of a genre I'd never explored) and started going to club concerts by people like Kate Rusby, Dougie MacLean, Old Blind Dogs, John Gorka, Richard Shindell, Dar Williams, and Lucy Kaplansky. And realised that the reason to go to a concert is not just to see the music performed live but more than that, to see the performer and get a sense of who they are, what they're like, and how they handle interacting with their fans in a fairly intimate setting.

I would love to see Stewart; he sounds like he's similar in some ways to Dar Williams, who keeps up a steady stream of commentary on herself, her music, her peers, her friends and family, the world around her when she's not playing. It's almost always charming, sometimes hysterical (like when she distracts herself from the piece she's about to play), and almost always worth more than the price of admission. I'm trying to remember which group it is that I've seen where they would pass around the responsibility for talking in between songs (tuning time), and while most of the group were very chatty, one of them was totally tongue-tied. I think it may have been Cantrip. :-)

*jumps up and down with excitement*

[winterbadger]

Thank you for prompting me to go check his schedule! He's going to be HERE in ALEXANDRIA in August!!!!!! :-)

Since I'll be here in the States for a while yet :-( I might as well make the most of it!

Yay!!!

[winterbadger]

And, oh man, Poco and Firefall are going to be playing there too. I wouldn't pay to see them at this point, but they were two of the bands I saw in concert when I was a kid. I remember the Firefall concert, as it was the first time I went somewhere in public where people were smoking grass, and someoen was passing a bottle of bourbon around...

[cmlc.livejournal.com]

Lovely :-)

But absolutely! Music should come from people, not machines.

Re: *jumps up and down with excitement*

[cmlc.livejournal.com]

Excellent!

Six exclamation marks, that's real excitement for you :-)