Laurie Anderson, Terry Riley, & John Zorn at the Chapel, May 17, 2019

the Chapel presents Laurie Anderson, Terry Riley, and John Zorn
777 Valencia Street, San Francisco, CA 94110-1734 USA
Early Show, 7:00 PM, Friday, May 17, 2019

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[~7:05 PM lights down; ~7:07 PM announcements, band out]

1. [7:09 PM] (untitled improvisation #1)
2. [7:33 PM] (untitled improvisation #2)
3. [7:50 PM] (untitled improvisation #3)
   [set ends 7:54 PM; bows and applause, then all off; the crowd hoots and hollers for more, and the performers return to bow again, but deliver no encore]

• Laurie Anderson: violin, electronics;
• Terry Riley: piano, keyboards, electronics, melodica;
• John Zorn: alto saxophone.

I was really surprised by the turnout for tonight's show: by the time the doors opened at 6 PM, there were about hundred folks waiting, and most of them were a bit older than me. I guess the kids these days are out doing other things with their time.

When I arrived at ~5:15, I was 8th in line. As they began letting people in, I realized that I'd somehow lost my ticket between getting on BART (as I checked it when I sat down on the train) and getting up to go into the venue. Time for a major freak-out! After being caught trying to weasel in without it (figured it was worth a try), I had to go out to the box office, get a reprint, and then wedge back through the remaining line. I'm sure it cost me my first choice dead center standing spot in the balcony, but I was happy enough to get a rail spot off to the side instead, directly above the SBD (which is downstairs, on the floor). Heck, at that point I was happy to have gotten in!

There were fewer tables/chairs inside the venue than I've ever seen before, and it was relatively crowded by the time the show started. I wasn't paying enough attention to notice whether it was overly packed, but the house certainly looked pretty full. SOLD OUT! as they said on the website.

I don't think there was any seating at all downstairs tonight, and half the balcony was set aside as ADA seating. I thought it was kind of lame to make the ADA folks walk upstairs, but maybe there's an elevator somewhere? Seems to me that it wouldn't have been unreasonable to set up 20 or 50 chairs in the very front and then have SRO GA behind that.

The sound was good upstairs, and the crowd was very respectful of the music … I didn't notice any talking at all.

Terry was set up on Stage Rt, with a grand piano, a Nord keyboard, a melodica, and some additional electronics controlled by an ipad or similar tablet. Zorn was dead center. Stood up and sat on a barstool, but didn't move around much at all except to enter/leave. Laurie stood at Stage Left and played violin behind a music stand that probably held an ipad or other electronic controller that she occasionally used to tweak the sound coming out of her instrument. I expected her to have a keyboard, but it didn't look like there was one there.

Musically, the event was definitely a sort of spontaneous free/experimental jazz kind of thing. To me, nothing at all seemed to have been composed or rehearsed, though I could see them cueing each other now and then (like a head nodding “you take it from here”, or “Go on man! Go!”). It was mostly very atonal and “out' … or perhaps just too harmonically difficult for me to follow? Not especially predictable or groovy. Terry was easily the progenitor of the most melodic riffs being spun out into the room. All three did a good job of listening to one another, and I didn't really notice anything that seemed like stepping on someone else's toes. If anything, they were too polite, offering only tentative or hesitant responses to whoever happened to be “soloing” at any given moment. And everyone played something interesting at one or more points, but as I said above, overally, it was hard to predict where any moment was going to go next. More Terry would have been fine with me!

Knowing that they would be clearing the house for the late show, I was mildly annoyed that the show didn't start on time as promised … and even more so when then they stopped early without an encore. What's that line from Johnny Rotten? “Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?”

It probably would have been smarter to pay double and see both sets (well, smarter but expensive!); I think the extra listening time would have given me a better feeling for whether or not the trio worked as a group. As it was though, I was glad to get out early enough to find dinner (Hell's Ramen, yum!), and have more time to hang out with friends from the show.

Andrew Gilbert mentions this gig in an article posted at SFCV, and Joshua Kosman plugged it from his soapbox with the SF Chronicle. Maybe they'll follow up with something besides the pre-show fluffing? Giacomo Fiore posted a review a few days after the gig.

Big thanks to Ting for the photo gallery!

Whoa! This section is incomplete for now, sorry!

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2019 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2019 event list! ☸ On to the next event!