Page 8 of 14

Re: A new Tour "last open Road

Posted: 14 Nov 2014, 00:10
by tobi777
Hi all,

the "BZ" writes rubbish - as usually. :lol:

Setlist was:
The Last Open Road
Long Gone
Where the Blues Come From
Josephine
Easy Rider
'Til the Morning Sun Shines on My Love and Me
Julia
Looking for the Summer
Stony Road
Come So Far, Yet Still So Far to Go
Somewhere Between Highway 61 & 49
Stainsby Girls
The Road To Hell
Encore:
On the Beach
Let's Dance

So no surprises - the same setlist as last time - except in 2012 he added "It's All Gone" to my surprise and delight. :(

The background singers were fairly good - I liked this. At least one innovation. I think back in '93 there were also background singers but this time you could him them much better. They really added some new flavour to the songs.

The band was good as always - but in a kind of "autoplay" mode, they seemed to be a bit tired...
Chris' playing and singing was ok - not bad - just ok.

The overall sound was good - I think a second keyboard player like in the old days would have been better.

It was not a bad concert but I'm a bit p*ssed off because of Chris playing the same setlist all over again. Is it that difficult to play some other of his 300+ songs?

In the end it is disappointing for the die-hard fans because of this boring selection - and also for casual concertgoers who expected some more old songs from his repertoire - as it was supposed to be a "Best Of" tour...

Re: A new Tour "last open Road

Posted: 14 Nov 2014, 08:38
by andrew fischer
tobi777 wrote:Is it that difficult to play some other of his 300+ songs?
Hi Tobias,

I once made an approximate calculation and found out the total number of unique tunes ever written and performed by by Chris is close to 600 (six hundred). So there is twice as much to choose from.
tobi777 wrote:I think back in '93 there were also background singers but this time you could him them much better.
Chris used backing vocals for the whole God's Great Realist tour in 1993 and for some of his 1994 performances as well for the four German festival Gigs in May 2001 and for London Blues Fest last October.

Now they really bring a bit of new sound to the blues tunes, and it is also amazing Chris has told he wrote some songs for these girls. I wonder when and in what format it can be released, but I even do not know girls' names...

Thanks for your report anyway. I think I shall write down mine as well as I listened to the full recordings of the five first performances of this tour.

best regards
Andrey

Re: A new Tour "last open Road

Posted: 14 Nov 2014, 10:12
by hi it'sme
Hi to all,
we saw Chris in Hannover on November 12.
After what we had read about noseebleed and having to go to hospital in Dusseldorf we were happy to see him in excellent form. He imporovised long soli in a very different way compared to the 2012 tour. The sound was mellower, even Kirt Rust had his drums tuned down softer.
Chris appeared to be happy, he danced along to his songs and communicated with the audience, pointing at people, smiling and reacting to their applause.
The band seemed very relaxed and very often exchanged smiles and laughter when one of Chris` soli went exceptionally well.

Chris entered the stage at 8 o'clock sparp and left it at 9.36 - then the two videos of "La Passione" started with the visual announcement: "La Passione - Coming soon", for me a definite sign for a new release.

The background singers really added a souly touch to the songs. I think Chris mentioned in the interview that he had written some new arrangements (for this tour) for them, I am not sure about real songs.

All in all it was a splendid evening to remember despite the short and ever the same setlist.
I really wish that all the other fans could have seen Chris and still can see him in the fit shape he was in at the SwissLifeHall in Hannover.

Good luck to him for the coming concerts!

Re: A new Tour "last open Road

Posted: 14 Nov 2014, 10:21
by andrew fischer
hi it'sme wrote:The background singers really added a souly touch to the songs. I think Chris mentioned in the interview that he had written some new arrangements (for this tour) for them, I am not sure about real songs
Hi, thanks a lot for your feedback!

What you say about special arrangements not the new songs for the backing vocalists sound more real to me. I only could read what was translated from German by other fans. Also the interviewers/journalists who wrote it could trat it wrong. Thanks for clarification.

best regards
Andrey

Re: A new Tour "last open Road

Posted: 14 Nov 2014, 10:39
by ann268
Yep, that he played "wanna be with you" seems to be nonsense, setlist was already on Bleeckerstreet:
http://www.bleecker-street-shop.com/col ... rea-berlin.
Always good to read that journalist really know nothing. :(
Ann

Re: A new Tour "last open Road

Posted: 14 Nov 2014, 11:06
by andrew fischer
It's not the first time I come across such nonsense with set listings. Setlist.fm showed 90's Blues as opener of one of 1993 gigs, when all the setlists for that tour were identical and started with Soft Top film theme and guitar improvisation before Auberge song.

Re: A new Tour "last open Road

Posted: 14 Nov 2014, 11:25
by ann268
Still I miss "the Truth" in these list before playing "Till the morning".
Did he drop it?
Ann

Re: A new Tour "last open Road

Posted: 14 Nov 2014, 12:02
by hi it'sme
Hi Ann,
"The Truth" was part of a very long and interesting intro to "Morning Sun"-. I'm looking forward to my USB-guitar-stick to hear it again.
Greetings to all.

Re: A new Tour "last open Road

Posted: 14 Nov 2014, 12:12
by ann268
Okay, thanks!

Re: A new Tour "last open Road

Posted: 14 Nov 2014, 13:12
by tobi777
Setlist.fm showed 90's Blues as opener of one of 1993 gigs, when all the setlists for that tour were identical and started with Soft Top film theme and guitar improvisation before Auberge song.
At least in Berlin on 6th Mar 1993 Chris unfortunately didn't play "Looking For A Rainbow" - the concert started about half an hour late and maybe this is the reason why he omitted this song.

I also think that the last song was not "Set Me Free" but "Let's Dance".

Any other examples for setlist deviations during that '93 tour - or other tours?

Re: A new Tour "last open Road

Posted: 14 Nov 2014, 13:17
by tobi777
BTW: does anyone know any details about the guitar he played during "On The Beach"? It was a red strat-like guitar (but not a Fender I think) with a matt black pickguard and also a black headstock. The color of the the body was red - looked like fiesta red to me.

Re: A new Tour "last open Road

Posted: 14 Nov 2014, 15:23
by hi it'sme
Hi Tobi777,
in Hannover Chris played "On the Beach" on his famous "Pinky" Fender Strat with the legendary Formentera sticker (the song was written there).
Sorry, I don't know how to post photos on this site but I have some fairly good shots taken during the performance. Perhaps someone can tell me how to do this?

Best regards to all

Re: A new Tour "last open Road

Posted: 14 Nov 2014, 19:58
by tobi777
Hi,

I was very surprised to see him play "On The Beach" (e.g. in Dortmund) on Pinky- because this guitar used to be in Open E Tuning (and still seems to be because he played Stainsby Girls and RTH on it) - but On The Beach has no slide guitar and he used to play it on his blue Stratocaster.

In Berlin he definitely played another guitar I've never seen before.

Re: A new Tour "last open Road

Posted: 17 Nov 2014, 12:28
by andrew fischer
tobi777 wrote:I was very surprised to see him play "On The Beach" (e.g. in Dortmund) on Pinky- because this guitar used to be in Open E Tuning (and still seems to be because he played Stainsby Girls and RTH on it) - but On The Beach has no slide guitar and he used to play it on his blue Stratocaster.
Hi Tobias,

thanks a lot for this amazing report, it surprised me pretty much as well.

In Prague Chris changed Pinky which he used for Road to Hell for another guitar. I could not see in the video for which exactly, but I think it was a battered suburst Strat tuned in straight E that he recently uses to play Josephine, Looking for the Summer and On the Beach.

Chris has been changing the key of playing On the Beach over the years due to deepening of his voice - he tells in details about it in the video from Cologne 2001 (Stony Road DVD bonus). The most amazing change of tune was then in 2001 when Chris played On the Beach in a new version in low E straight, but used Bluey guitar for that as usual (though it was wrapped in black vinyl tape).

Change for Pinky with its open E tuning is something quite unexpected as it is basically used for 'deep' slide style which is absent in OTB, this made the new sound even more fresh and it is good that Chris brings a little experiment to the same old hits set and it is great to see and hear Pinky in more action again, especially for The Road to Hell performance.
tobi777 wrote:In Berlin he definitely played another guitar I've never seen before.
I haven't found a clue to this issue yet, but I hope one day I manage to do that. Hope as well the Blue Strat is still okay, I love its sound no less that Pinky's!
tobi777 wrote:At least in Berlin on 6th Mar 1993 Chris unfortunately didn't play "Looking For A Rainbow" - the concert started about half an hour late and maybe this is the reason why he omitted this song. I also think that the last song was not "Set Me Free" but "Let's Dance".

Any other examples for setlist deviations during that '93 tour - or other tours?
Thanks a lot also for this interesting introspective. I can remember the following deviations in the major tour setlists.

Prior to 1987 Chris varied the sets a lot through every tour, I reckon. The setlist was basically the same through (a leg of the) tour, but deviations were frequent, in both order and the selection of the songs.

For European leg of 1987 world tour Chris started including Auf Immer und Ewig instead of Windy Town, which was played through Australasia/UK part of the tour (in Manchester he played them both but dropped September Blue and Passing Through from the ending). For 1988 concerts Que Sera replaced I Don't Know What It Is in the basically similar set) and Working on It with Driving Home were added for December sets.

No deviations recalled for 1990, 1991 and 1994 tours, for 1993 tour you already mentioned one case, I do not know of any other.

For The Blue Cafe presenting concerts in London Chris used a new version of Daytona to finish the gigs like he did for 1997 sets, but then it was dropped from the main leg sets.

In 2002-2003 tour the set was always the same I think. At the Blue Jukebox presenting concert in Bush Hall in London Chris played Let's Do It which was dropped from the major tour. Also Chris seemed to drop some other songs from the sets for some concerts of that tour, e.g., in Dublin he dropped Slow Dance, Restless Soul and What Kind of Kind of Love Is This.

In 2006 he finished with Moon River only some early gigs in Switzerland and Eastern Europe.

In 2008 he finished with Fool only the 1st gig in Luxembourg, afterwards it was dropped. Also he played only 6 intrumentals instead of inital 9 towards the end of that tour.

2010 and 2012 were always the same I think.

Please correct me if I was wrong with any data.

Thanks again and best regards
Andrey

Re: A new Tour "last open Road

Posted: 17 Nov 2014, 20:51
by tobi777
Hi Andrey,

thanks so much for the elaborate reply! It is always amazing how many details you know. :D

REAgards,
Tobias