the Fall Risk
2013-08-17
Sweetwater Music Hall
19 Corte Madera Ave, Mill Valley, CA
8:00 PM, Saturday, August 17, 2013

[10:11 PM band onstage, 10:15 PM go!]

1. Ode
2. Cross My Heart
3. Amsterdam
4. Cry Baby Cry #
5. Dead Flowers
6. Back to You
7. You've Got to Hide Your Love Away $
8. Wendy Ann
   [add Jason Crosby]
9. LeClaire
10. Angeline
11. Jessie
    [Jason off]
12. Cry
13. Hollow #
14. HBWA
15. Misfits
16. Lemonade #
17. I Want You/She's So Heavy
    [set ends 12:29 AM]
    
    Encore (w/Jason Crosby)
18. Deep Elem Blues
19. Squeezebox
    [12:49 AM show ends]

• Mark Abbott: drums;
• Rich Goldstein: guitars, slide guitar;
• Sammy Johnston: organ, harmonica, accordion, harmony vox;
• Jeff Pehrson: electro-acoustic guitar, lead and harmony vox;
• Phil Savell: guitars, $ lead and harmony vox;
• Mike Sugar: bass, harmony vox;
• Matt Twain: keyboards, # lead and harmony vox.

• Jason Crosby: violin.

Tonight's CD Release Party was quite the festive affair. And while the gig was announced as a sell out (with lots of folks turned away at the door, according to the folks manning the front desk), I thought there was more space than usual up in front of the stage. The friends and family members must have been hanging out in back or out on the patio instead of squeezing down in front with the rest of the rail rats. A nice surprise!

After a grooving set from Rattlesnakes in the Garden (formerly the Josh McIntosh 3) to open the proceedings, the Fall Risk proceeded to blast their way through a solid chunk of music. It seemed to me that tonight's choices leaned a little heavier on Jeff's lead vocals than a typical gig, especially as neither Sammy nor Mike Sugar took any leads, but then, Phil surprised us all with a growling version of the great Beatles' tune You've Got to Hide Your Love Away.

Jason Crosby's sit in wasn't too much of a surprise, as we'd heard earlier in the week that he'd played on the album. His fiddle and Sammy's accordion made for a great combo on the cajun-flavored Angeline.

The set closer, I Want You/She's So Heavy, was another rave up, jumping schizophrenically between the tormented blues of I Want You and the bombast of She's So Heavy.

A small crew of videographers were present to document the evening, and Bob Cogswell and Jon Hart were on hand to record multitrack; presumably the audio will show up on the Live Music Archive one of these days!