[ATTENDED: January 14, 2023] Teddy Thompson
This was my eleventh time seeing Richard Thompson. For a while we had been seeing him pretty regularly and then his habits changed.
I had been seeing him every chance I could, but I took a little time off from his tours, hoping that he would perhaps come back with an electric tour. Sadly for me, he did in fact come around with an electric trio tour in 2018, but it coincided with a hike that we were scheduled to go on, so I had to miss it.
Back in 2020, he introduced a new component to his show, his new partner Zara Philips has been singing with him on many songs (often Richard & Linda Thompson songs, but sometimes adding backing vocals to Richard’s songs.
For a while it felt like Richard was playing the same basic songs at all of his shows, although as I look at his setlists I see that he always mixes in a few new songs every tour. Indeed, in 2020, he threw in a whole bunch of songs that I hadn’t heard him play before.
I was super excited that he opened with Gethsemane, an older song (I can’t believe that album is 20 years old!) that I like a lot. He sounded great and his guitar playing was, of course, outstanding.
During the pandemic, Richard released some online albums. He played If I could Live My Life again from Bloody Noses (which he had played back in 2020, just before the shutdown).
He jokes about the age of the audience and said he would play a song from a Fairport Convention album. He described the origins of Genesis Hall, and that it was a protest song, which I didn’t know. He had played it before but not for more than seven or so years, so it was good to hear it again.
Richard recently played a few nights of all request shows in New York City, which I’d love to attend (al though I suspect people probably just request all the popular songs anyhow). But I wonder if it makes him want to mix up his setlists at all. Whatever the case it was great to hear him plat “Turning of the Tide” a song that I love and haven’t heard him play live for a long long time.
Then he played “Beeswing.” I don’t think there’s been a show where he hasn’t played the song and yet this time it really hit me how beautiful it was. And I was marveling about how Richard Thompson, creator of the song was merely thirty or forty feet away from us playing this song and how amazing it was to be so close to someone so creative. I had a real moment. (I’m going to assume it came from talking about how wild it must have been for my young kids to go to concerts and see their favorite bands up close like that, something I never got to do as a a little kid). (more…)
