Midnight North at the Guild Theatre, April 2, 2022

the Guild Theatre presents Midnight North, with opener, Wolf Jett
the Guild Theatre
949 El Camino Real, Menlo Park, CA 94025 USA
8:00 PM, Saturday, April 2, 2022

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Promo art for tonight's gig

[8:05 PM] {lights down, performers out}

1. [8:07 PM] Start Over
2. [8:13 PM] (Why You Wanna) Drag Me Down
3. [8:19 PM] Broken
   {WF swaps to resonator guitar}
4. [8:23 PM] Don't You Worry
   {Chris Jones playing hand shaker percussion to accompany Will's resonator solo on the next tune}
5. [8:27 PM] Mean Ol' River
   {WF swaps back to guitar}
6. [8:38 PM] ? (unidentified)
   {WF swaps to resonator guitar again}
7. [8:44 PM] One Sweet Day
   [8:49 PM] {set ends}

Wolf Jett

• Will Fourt: guitar, resonator guitar, harmony vox;
• Chris Jones: Vega hollow body guitar, shaker, lead vox;
• Jeff Kissell: contrabass, harmony vox;
• Jon Payne: drums, harmony vox.

Tour poster

[9:28 PM] {lights down, band out; CO: electric contrabass; GL: Gibson SG; EP: g}

1. [9:29 PM] We're Not Alone (GL)
   {GL swaps to blond ES-335; CO swaps to bass}
2. [9:37 PM] Playing a Poor Hand Well (EP)
3. [9:43 PM] Back to California (GL)
4. [9:49 PM] Give Away the Ghost (EP)
5. [9:56 PM] Handle With Care (GL)
6. [10:01 PM] The Right Time (EP)
   {NG picks up the banjo; CO swaps back to contrabass}
7. [10:06 PM] Wild Card (NG/GL/EP)
   {NG back to drums; GL back to the Gibson SG; CO back to bass}
8. [10:14 PM] Do I Look Worried (EP)
   {NG back to banjo; GL & EP both swap to acoustic guitar; CO swaps to mandolin}
9. [10:21 PM] Coyote (EP)
   {EP introduces next song as an original by Nathan}
10. [10:25 PM] Silent Lonely Drifter (NG/GL/EP)
    {Back to electric guitars!; NG back to drums; GL on ES-335; CO on bass}
11. [10:30 PM] Good Days (EP)
12. [10:34 PM] Earthquakes (GL)
13. [10:42 PM] Don't Let Me Down (GL)
    {NG: “You guys nailed that 200 part harmony”}
14. [10:49 PM] The Sailor & the Sea (GL)
    [10:54 PM] {set ends}
     
    Encore
    [10:56 PM] {GL: “Apparently we don't have quite as hard a curfew as we thought”}
15. [10:57 PM] Scarlet Begonias (GL) »
16. [11:04 PM] Work to Do (EP)
    [11:09 PM] {show ends}

Midnight North

• Nathan Graham: drums, banjo, lead and harmony vox;;
• TJ Kanczuzewski: keyboards, harmony vox
• Grahame Lesh: Gibson SG guitar, Gibson ES-335 guitar, acoustic guitar, lead and harmony vox;
• Connor O'Sullivan: bass, electric contrabass, mandolin;
• Elliott Peck: acoustic guitar, guitar, lead and harmony vox.

Tonight was my first visit to the Guild, and overall, the venue is quite nice! I didn't walk around upstairs at all, and I only hung out in the spot where I wanted to be: FOB, on the tier up from the pit. It seems VERY small: given that the pit and tier space seemed about as big as the old Yoshi's on Claremont, I'd estimate capacity under 400, but newspaper promo pieces say 500+, so there must be a larger upstairs space that I didn't get to.

There were certainly plenty of idiots there tonight, but I wouldn't say that's different from many other clubs. Ting (and a bunch of other people around me) tried shushing folks now and then, but that didn't really work very well: the typical Jane or Joe is not going out to that sort of venue to listen to the music … it's a place to get drunk and hang out with your buds, right!?

If the PA was louder it would do a better job drowning out the talkers, but I bet the house is operating under a city noise ordinance that doesn't really allow that. On the other hand, despite my complaining, there were a few times when the place was pin-drop quiet.

Wolf Jett got a warm reception from the crowd, and I enjoyed their opening set. Unfortunately, a lot of the time it was hard to make out the lead vocals – I'm guessing they didn't get much set up time to work things out with the sound guy. Anyways, they were fun! Go see 'em!

What with the closure of Terrapin Crossroads last year, our opportunities for seeing Midnight North have been somewhat diminished. I was glad that we could line things up right on our social calendar to catch this show. Compared to last year, a few of the tunes seem to have evolved differently, though part of that could be attributed to the funky synthesizer work added by TJ to Earthquakes and The Sailor & the Sea. Another reason for changes might have been time management, as they dropped a pair of songs from the planned set, and The Sailor & the Sea seemed to have been truncated in order to fit in an encore before the (supposed) 11 PM curfew.

Big thanks to Ting for the photo gallery!

Whoa! This section is incomplete for now, sorry!

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