lou, lou, lou @ carolina theatre, durham: transcendent...in moments

* leather angel opera rock *

my setlist notes

(i don't usually keep track, but red wanted me to bring home a full report of everything that happened....) longtime fans will see that i didn't know the names of many of the recent songs, some of which i liked/seemed to work better than others, and most of which featured lou's typical goofy/sincere lyric combinations. one stood out: "the power of the heart," which hasn't been released yet. (nice love song incl. the lyrics "i would marry you again".) also didn't realize that he and laurie did finally make it official.

to try to describe the black leather t-shirt that 66-yr. old lou wore wouldn't really do it justice, though i'm sure you can imagine...or you can just check out this shot of it two days later in Knoxville (w/ the "silver shovel" guitar):

(by TennesseeJed)

"sweet jane" was fun, but never quite took off. however, by the third song i was hooked: thrilled to hear "i'm set free" w/ a great lou solo (though the accordion caused a conflicting fascination/repulsion, as though elvis costello were performing the song with full band on "Austin City Limits".) "i'm sticking w/ you" was a complete surprise, b/c of course i haven't seen that juno movie to know that it must now be "current". the poe stuff was alright, interesting & i'm sure a fun & challenging exercise to set to music. "guardian angel" was probably my other favorite recent one, the lyric from poe sung in lou's voice seemed "absolutely lou". biggest complaint was that the whole thing was waaaaaay short, and of course they only played one encore ("perfect day"): fun to hear but not particularly...transcendent.

the backside of my notes sums up the evening pretty well:

"fancy pants (to my left) didn't like the show.
bob & shirley (to my right) loved it.
i just grokked. "