Chris Smither at Mather Redwood Grove, July 23, 2019

UC Botanical Garden presents Chris Smither
Mather Redwood Grove, UC Botanical Garden
200 Centennial Drive, Berkeley, CA 94720-5046 USA
5:30 PM, Tuesday, July 23, 2019

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

[5:32 PM announcements from Christine Manou, Smither takes his chair]

1. [5:36 PM] Open Up
2. [5:39 PM] Make Room for Me
3. [5:42 PM] Don't Call Me Stranger
4. [5:47 PM] Time Stands Still
5. [5:51 PM] Nobody Home
   [5:59 PM; Chris talks about songwriting]
6. [5:59 PM] Down to the Sound
7. [6:02 PM] Train Home
   [6:06 PM; Chris talks about learning from the original blues guys]
8. [6:07 PM] What It Might Have Been
   [6:12 PM; Chris talks about sturdy songs, Bob Dylan & Chuck Berry]
9. [6:13 PM] Maybelline
10. [6:16 PM] Everything on Top
11. [6:20 PM] The Blame's on Me
12. [6:23 PM] Get a Better One
    [6:26 PM; Chris tells a joke about Two Dogs and a Cat at the Pearly Gates]
13. [6:27 PM] By the Numbers
    [6:32 PM; Chris talks about hearing Dylan in '66]
14. [6:32 PM] Visions of Johanna
    [6:37 PM; Chris talks about learning songs from the street vendors while growing up in New Orleans]
15. [6:38 PM] No Love Today
16. [6:45 PM] Change Your Mind
17. [6:49 PM] Sittin' on Top of the World
18. [6:53 PM] Leave the Light On
    [set ends 6:58 PM]
    
    Finale
19. [6:59 PM] Statesboro Blues
    [7:02 PM; final words from Christine Manou]
    [show ends 7:03 PM]

• Chris Smither: acoustic guitar, vox;

Another fine afternoon concert in the Redwood grove. It's quite curious to me that whereas last week's Ramsey & Broemel show had an audience that seemed to be about 80% families with small kids, today's show was about 80% grey hairs. Guess that says something about the acoustic blues demographic, eh?

As you might guess, the absence of little ones made for a significantly quieter ambience. All the better for listening to the masterful playing of Chris Smither.

I was kind of surprised that he omitted Love You Like a Man from his setlist, but I can understand if he's bored of it, or simply playing the rotation on a large repertoire. Seems like he played about half the latest album, Call Me Lucky, released Spring 2018. I would have bought it after the show, but as I passed the merch table, it looked like they were all gone already, and only a single copy of an earlier album was left. Good for Chris, bad for me!

All four of the cover tunes were significantly rearranged from the originals – perhaps a testament to Chris's notion of picking sturdy songs that are amenable to being reworked. Fun to hear something familiar, and then interesting to realize that it's not swinging the way you expect it to go. Good stuff!

Today's photo gallery comes from ol' squinty!

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!