I just got back from seeing Richard Thompson. Amazing performance, just as I’d hoped. He played, solo, just him and his acoustic guitar, for nearly two hours, including three encores. Song selections spanned most of his career, which I guess isn’t surprising, since he’s touring to support a best-of collection. He performed, among others, For Shame of Doing Wrong, Shoot Out the Lights, Did She Jump or Was She Pushed, Dimming of the Day, Wall of Death, Beeswing, Dry My Tears and Move On, King of Bohemia, 1952 Vincent Black Lightning, Bathsheba Smiles, Persuasion (which he co-wrote with Tim Finn), and Valerie.
He kept up a great patter with the crowd between songs and even, after mentioning Bloomington-son Hoagy Carmichael, sang a few bars of Stardust. After explaining a controversy in which Kenny G digitally inserted his own solos into an old Louis Armstrong recording, he performed a brutally hilarious tirade against ol’ Kenny. During one encore, as he was performing Wall of Death, he exclaimed “Bob Dylan is 60!” and launched into an interesting tour of Dylan’s career, singing snippets and lines from a variety of Dylan’s songs.
Thompson was witty and even charming and he kept the crowd engaged throughout the show. Many of his songs were note-perfect, which has to be hard to do, even when they’re performed so often. He’s either an excellent showman or very much in love with what he does, because his enthusiasm and joy were evident throughout the show.
I continue to be amazed by people who’ve never even heard of him, let alone listened to his music. You’d think in a college town, people would know his music better. Now, granted, in looking at his U.S. tour schedule for this year, it truly is amazing that he’d play a small market like Bloomington, even with its college population. Most of his shows are in much larger cities. But still, I ask my friends if they know of him and over and again, I hear “no.” I’m about to ready to smack the next person who says so. But in the end, it really is their loss. They’re missing out on one of the finest performers and songwriters alive today.
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