Hello all, I just purchased a ticket to see Gordon Lightfoot. He will be performing at a local theater that has a capacity of about 2000 patrons. This got me wondering. What was your favotite small venue performance? I was fortunate enough, many years ago, to see Johnny Cash at concert with an intimate gathering of about 1200 fans. This was a show I will never forget. Does anyone have a similar experience?
RickM
Posts: 52 | Location: St. Paul, MN (via Toronto, Ont.) | Registered: July 28, 2006
almost anyone who comes through..Birchmere, Alexandria, VA...
But memorable performances there: John Hiatt solo, Marc Cohn (ok, so he's a piano player), Guy Clark, Greg Brown, Mary Chapin Carpenter before she was big, and a host of others.
Posts: 186 | Location: Alexandria, VA | Registered: April 23, 2007
Son House, a small club in Oceanside, north of San Diego, summer 1969. He played a beat up National, and songs that could raise the dead. Death Letter Blues, John the revelator.....oh, my. I've seem 'em all (missed the Beatles at Candlestick 'cause we had no idea it would be thei last concert ever): Hendrix, Claton, Beck, Page, and on and on, and Son House didn't play the blues. He WAS the blues. I will never forget that night. Second place: Cream's first night in the USA, August 22 1967, Fillmore. We kept looking for the other band members. Couldn't just be three people. Wow.
Greg Brown at the Left Bank in Blue Hill, ME. Snowy night, maybe 80-100 folks at the tables; 2 1/2-3 hours of the brilliant Mr. Brown at his warmest, rawest, funniest. When he's singing, you don't want him to stop, when he's monologuing, you don't want him to stop that either.
Don't know if this anecdote will translate, but Brown, whose song-writing has fearlessly addressed his downs as well as his ups, said that he had just run into a friend who had purchased Greg's new album, and Greg asked him what he thought. The friend's response: "Hey man, I'm sorry."
Posts: 835 | Location: North Wilkesboro, NC | Registered: December 10, 2002
Richard Thompson in 1985 at the now defunct Old Del Mar Cafe in the North County of San Diego. Just him and his Lowden. When I requested a song that he didn't want to play, he called me a twit. It was very exciting.
As a kid, I saw Joe Diorio play in his living room. He was a friend of my dad's. Even though he was three feet away and I could see that the guitar was strung, it looked like he was playing a guitar without strings; just a very fluid technique.
Posts: 170 | Location: Encinitas, CA | Registered: December 20, 2006
Michael Hedges, three months before he died at Saphire in Orlando. Seats about 80 people. One of the most amazing shows I have ever seen besides Hendrix in Honolulu at the HIC.
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