From: Morten.Skjefte To: seance Subject: SF and PA concerts (long) Date: Tuesday, 7 February 1995 12:39PM Return-Path: Date: Tue, 7 Feb 1995 12:39:58 -0800 From: Morten.Skjefte@EBay.Sun.COM (Morten Skjefte) Message-Id: <9502072039.AA27544@thechurch.EBay.Sun.COM> To: seance@thechurch.EBay.Sun.COM Subject: SF and PA concerts (long) X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ It's taken me several days to type this in. It's probably too detailed and all that jazz, but that's just the way it is... It's what I heard, saw & learned, so here we go: I attended last Monday's San Francisco gig with Matthew Green (mrg) from Australia and his girlfriend Monica.... We showed up fairly early and managed to get a front row table. As we were sitting there, some guy were distributing some flyers for a British Church magazine. He put only one on our table, so I asked him if I could have another copy. "Sure" he replied and handed me one. Just as he left, Matthew leans over and says "Steve just walked by." "Where? When?" I asked. "Right behind you, when you were talking to Marty". "Marty? What do you mean I was talking to Marty?" "That was Marty handing out the flyers" Matthew said with a grin. I felt pretty stupid after such a brush with greatness without even recognizing it.... The opening act "Me Jane" was ok, but heck, who pays attention to support bands when you know Steve and Marty are in the house? The Church came on around 9:30pm and opened with the Cockney Rebel song "Ritz". Mmmmmmmmmm...... "Shadow Cabinet", "Tristesse" and "Mistress" were next, all delivered to a tee. Steve seemed his usual aloof self, but Marty seemed to enjoy himself quite a bit... Steve introduced "Providence" with "This one's for my sister...." And what a version they delivered. Marty really took off on this one, with a great solo and some wonderful fill-in licks. Even though he was playing his 12-string Takamime acoustic all through the set, it sounded like he had several different guitars at his disposal. The sounds this man can get with the help of some effects pedals are just amazing... Next came "Will I Start To Bleed?" and "Grind", followed by a short improvised version of "House Of The Rising Sun". "Month Of Sundays" was followed by "Almost With You". I didn't notice whether Marty played the solo on this in San Francisco, but he definetely didn't play it in Palo Alto. Strange, as I don't think it should be too difficult for Marty to adapt Pete's solo. "Don't Look Back" and "My Little Problem" were followed by another cover song, this time "Life's A Gas" from T.Rex's "Electric Warrior". Marc Bolan's songs fits Steve's singing style very well, and I really liked this version. The obligatory "Under The Milky Way" was followed by a very funny, spoken version of Free's "All Right Now". Steve delivered it with obvious disgust for the lyrics, to which Marty replied something like "so how come you know them so well?". "10,000 Miles" was next, and it was nothing short of fantastic. As Dave noted in his Sacramento review, Marty's right hand moves as fast as a hummingbird.... On this song, it was almost impossible to distinguish Marty's hand. I almost expected it to fly off at any time. Steve jammed pretty heavily on his guitar too, and they built the song to a climax, stopped for a tenth of a second and then went straight back into the refrain. The crowd was roaring..... I'm really looking forward to hearing the tape of that song.... "The next song is a Swedish one" said Steve. "It's called "Natten Ar Jattemjuk". I was actually a bit disappointed when I realized it was "The Night Is Very Soft" they had introduced this way....I was really hoping for a Swedish song. :-) On "Hotel Womb" Marty pulled of yet another incredible solo. By this time there was no doubt who the most incredible guitar-player in the world is, and there was no doubt that he was having a great day and a good time too. Amazing..... The last song was "Is This Where You Live?" which I was kind of surprised that they even thought about covering acoustically. It worked very well actually. The encores were "Constant In Opal" and "Reptile". Needless to say, it was over much too fast, even though they played for about 90 mins. Due to a major security glitch (they forgot to guard the door) about 20 people went backstage afterwards. On my way down Steve comes walking back up and when I tried to flag him down, he said "I'll be back, I'm just going to get my guitar". Apparently the tour did not include many (if any) roadies... Down in the dressing room Marty was tying his shoelaces (or something) when someone from the crowd said "Hi Marty, how are you?" "I'm doing pretty good" Marty replied as he slowly looked up and noticed the people at the door, "...except I am going to kill someone in a couple of minutes..." "Do you need any help?" was the quick reply. Who said San Franciscans aren't helpful??? :-) Right afterwards Marty pointed at me (at least it looked like it) and said "You, mate!!!!" I nervously stepped forward and asked if he would mind signing some autographs. "Oh sure, no problem" he said. I fumbled so much with the bag I had that Marty grabbed the bag with me and started shaking it too. I finally managed to get the covers out of the bag. When Marty found out I was Norwegian he smiled and started talking Swedish to me. He talked Swedish the rest of the time. I asked him about new releases from him, but I think he misunderstood, because he said "we don't even have a contract at the moment". He seemed pretty upset about it. Steve interrupted us by asking Marty if he had his guitar. "Yes, it's right here..." Then he pointed at me, telling Steve I spoke Swedish. "That's nice" was Steve's reply.... When Marty was done, I approached Steve and noticed that he also was talking Swedish to somebody. I introduced myself and told him that he had replied to a couple of the letters I sent him. "Great", he said, "why don't you send me another and I'll post you back". I told him there is already one waiting for him when he gets back. I handed Steve the covers with "Narcosis" on top and someone asked me what it was. "His best solo work" I said. "It is" agreed Steve, "and here's my second best" he continued as he pulled out the "Remindlessness" cover. I asked him what his involvement with Fake was, and he said "I'm one third of it". When I asked if Karen was involved, He said "no, no, no, it's not Karen. The other two are just some studio musicians. Just some studio musicians..." I also asked him if he would play on the next Margot Smith album, but truth is I didn't understand what he said and I didn't pursue it further. It sounded like a "no" though, which I dearly hope is incorrect..... There were some idle banter afterwards but not much of interest. Marty did ask me to show some of his solo-albums to one of the other fans who hadn't seen any of his solo albums. And Marty claimed he hadn't heared "Almost Yesterday" yet. I spent most of the train-ride home looking at my signed covers.... :-) The concert in Palo Alto was somewhat a repeat of Monday's concert, at least song-wise. Steve seemed in a lot better mood, and Marty was about the same as in San Francisco. However, the deliveries never matched the SF concert, something I think can be blamed on Marty having some technical difficulties with his effects pedal. His guitar lost volume when he played his soli, and he was checking the speakers several times. This held him back some, and therefore the show never got that extra little spark. Steve played a few bars of "Sound of Silence" which he credited Simon and Garfuck-knuckle. He also asked "How are you all doing tonight" to which the (very exstatic) crowd went nuts, to which Steve replied "It was just a joke." After "A Month Of Sundays" he said "it's all coming back to me now...." They did 2 encores this time, as Marty thriumphantly came back onstage with another effects box saying something like "we'll see what this one can do". They played "Myrrh" and then the Neil Young song "Cortez the Killer". And on this one Marty finally took off and played a version I think Neil Young would have been very proud of. Amazing. It was not easy to get bacstage after the show, but I had brought with me an e-mail from a friend of theirs and with it's help, Paul Webb and I managed to get backstage. There really wasn't a whole lot going on when we got back there. Steve was about to leave for his hotelroom with a couple of ladies and Marty was about to discuss with the club management the amount of money they were going to get. I assume from this that they were getting a cut from the money they brought in. As Steve was walking out, Marty commented to Steve (in Swedish) on his choice of companions for the night. "Sssh..." Steve said, "pointed at me and said "he speaks Swedish!" "I know" Marty replied, "that's why I said it". Marty looked at me and grinned from ear to ear.... Marty also displayed his linguistic (?) abilities by explaining (in spanish) the meaning of the song "Kiss You To Death" to one of the ladies. At the same time as he taught her how to say "I love you" in Swedish. He also said he could speak German and French. Shortly afterwards he was called in to a sideroom to discuss money..... Oh, yeah, and he also mentioned (as Paul wrote) that he has a new girlfriend, Zoe, who's "blunt but nice" :-) It was good to see them again, and especially at the San Francisco concert I was really impressed at how good they were just the 2 of them. I also enjoyed meeting them. Marty was very friendly and outgoing, Steve was reserved but polite. The saddest part though was to realize the fact that these incredible musicians now are reduced to a small bar-act, that have to set up their own gear, hand out flyers and hassle with managemnet about getting paid. There just is no fairness in this business, is there???? -morten