As I mentioned in my last post, my eyes had pretty much recovered by eight or nine o'clock last night and there seemed to be no reason not to wander down to Pogue Fado and see what Gloryhound was up to. The start time was given as ten, which in my experience generally means eleven, so I left the house at ten-ish. Took a while to find a place to park, in fact I ended up in the parking garage across from Tribeca because I didn't feel like scouting all over town. The car next to mine was an adorable vintage VW Beetle, mostly cream coloured with black side panels, and I really wished my brother was along to tell me what year it was. I'm guessing seventies somewhere.

I got to Pogue Fado just after ten-thirty and discovered that in this case, ten o'clock actually meant ten-thirty, so I may have missed something. The area near the bar and in front of the stage was pretty crowded (there was a bachelorette party going on and possibly also a birthday pub crawl) but I found a booth about halfway back and then realized I could not only sort of see the stage, but also the TV up on the wall, and I almost never watch TV when I'm trying to listen to a band but forgive me, I don't have cable and somehow missed the Canada Day games so I hadn't seen a CFL game yet this season. It was Alouettes vs Blue Bombers on TSN, and things were looking bad for the Als, but I digress.

I've been to Pogue Fado exactly once, for lunch (I had curried chicken and peas on the theory that it sounded terrible but also like authentic Irish pub food, and was correct on both counts. Stick to the club sandwich) so I had no idea what the place would sound like. I was really pleasantly surprised at how good it was--all the instruments seemed to be at complementary levels and the vocals were nice and clear, nobody was getting swallowed up at all. It turns out the band (well, Adam) was looking after the sound from the stage. Impressive.



Set List
Set #1

Listen To Her Heart (Tom Petty)

Before You Fall

Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 (Bob Dylan)

Dark and Shade

Casey Jones (Grateful Dead)

Downtown (Neil Young)

Flee the Scene

The Shape I'm In (The Band)

See You Round

Cinnamon Girl (Neil Young)

Roadhouse Blues (The Doors)

Break

To my relief the inter-set recorded music was not a collection of jigs and reels. Or Stan Rogers (it's not that I don't love Stan, but spend enough time in Nova Scotia and you start to need a break.) The mix was a little on the psycho side--I haven't heard Kool and the Gang in about a thousand years and every time I hear "Celebration" I flash back to this one episode of CHiPs that still makes me laugh and cringe twenty-five years later. (Erik Estrada in sequins. It doesn't get much better than that.)

I understand Thursday was supposed to be the quiet night, so given the way it started out I'll be interested to see what happens over the rest of the weekend. I understand it can get pretty drunk out--it might be an idea to cultivate some of the "staff" guys who were bigger than Mitzi and would make a fine barrier between someone sloshing beer and a lot of electrical gear...

Just a thought.

Set #2

Crazy Little Thing Called Love (Queen, Adam vocals and guitar)

Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues (Bob Dylan, Adam and Evan vocals)

To Be Young (Ryan Adams)

About A Girl (Nirvana)

Just Like A Rolling Stone (Bob Dylan, and there seemed to be a great deal of enthusiasm up front)

Pinch My Face

Walk This Way (Aerosmith, and I've never heard them play this one before but they certainly have the guitar part down!)

Who Do You Love (Ronnie Hawkins arrangement)

You Gotta Learn

Backdoor Man (The Doors)

Meet Me In the Morning (Bob Dylan)

License To Kill (Bob Dylan)

The Weight

Break

During the break the Alouettes managed to make the game interesting, but still lost. Also, any women's washroom that dark has got to be hiding something.

Set #3

What's To Come

King Harvest (The Band)

What's Left

Bang A Gong (T-Rex)

Sweet Home Chicago (Muddy Waters)

Crossroads (Robert Johnson)

You Ain't Goin' Nowhere (Bob Dylan)

Not Born To Follow (The Byrds)

Adam's "Waiting for the sun to shine" original, which considering the monsoon conditions was apt

Bad Moon Rising (Creedence Clearwater Revival, another I haven't heard them play before, and between CCR and the CFL I sort of missed my dad)

Friend Of the Devil (Grateful Dead)

Revolution Blues

All things considered it was a good first night in the new venue. I hope to be out again with some ex-pat New Brunswickers tonight (and, um, possibly tomorrow) but we promise not to pester anybody about how the recording is going. Really. Look for writeups on Monday, most likely.