Lost Songs of Lennon and McCartney
Marc Copley, Graham Parker, and Kate Pierson
Ram's Head Tavern
Annapolis, MD
May 20, 2003
I love the The Lost Songs of Lennon &
McCartney CD with Bill Janovitz, Graham
Parker, and Kate Pierson. I love the B-52's. I love Kate Pierson and
admire her long-standing animal rights activism. And we had a front row
table for this show so I was incredibly excited.
Then I heard the news that Bill Janovitz would not be performing in
Annapolis. Since he does lead vocals on six of the seventeen songs on the
Lost Songs release, I wondered how they were going to cover his absence and
if they would be able to pull this show off.
Finding parking in Annapolis can be a huge challenge during the day but is
usually not an issue after 5 pm. But we arrived to find that the ticket
issuing machine at the parking garage nearest the Ram's Head was not
working. Predictably, the garage staff didn't have a clue as to what to do
and weren't doing anything useful but just sat watching people drive up to
the gate and then, when the gate wouldn't open, to try to back out of the
driveway as additional people were trying to enter. We wound up parking at
the other nearby garage - the one closest to Annapolis' open air drug
market. And yes, folks, this being the USA, Annapolis does have a serious
open-air drug market! Just three blocks from the State Capital!!!
We arrived at the Ram's Head just before the 8:30 pm showtime. We needn't
have hurried. No one else had. The crowd was small (less than 100 people),
and older, I would guess no one under forty, and, and not too many under
fifty, and arrived late. About half of the audience arrived after 8:30.
The show started late, and the main act didn't take the stage until around
9:45 pm. This is way too late for a suburban venue where lots of commuters
have to get up really, really early. No to mention those of us getting up
at 6 am trying to win a trip to Liverpool on a radio contest.
Bree Sharp was the opening act. Apparently she has worked with Graham
Parker in the past. She is a singer/songwriter. Her voice was strident,
and frequently she was out of tune. There were obvious mistakes in her
playing and she was playing her own compositions!!!!! She reminded me of
Alanis Morrisette but EVEN MORE ANNOYING!!!!! Amazingly, she performed a
beautiful version of Bob Dylan's Don't Think Twice, It's Alright near the
end of her set. Even more amazing, she went over fairly well with the older
crowd. I was amazed at how many people purchased her CD during the
intermission.
We had a front row table and I was literally at Graham Parker's feet. I
could reach out and touch him. The Ram's Head is a small venue with a tiny
stage so I was less than three feet from Kate Pierson as well. Parker
looked and sounded good for someone who is probably at least as old as I am!
He has very short hair.
Kate Pierson is just adorable. Petite. Long blonde hair. Perky and cute.
She was wearing a gold cap tilted sideways on her head. Everybody could not
get away with it, but it looked stylish on her.
They had a young back up band: a ridiculously attired (purple wig, feather
boa, big clunky boots) woman - Julie Panda Jones - on keyboards, a drummer
with a huge Afro (think Noel Redding's in the sixties), and a big black guy
with an enormous Mr. Clean earring on bass. To cover for the missing Bill
Janovitz, Marc Copley, who I think has been part of the tour band, took over
all of the lead vocals done by Janovitz on the record. Copley was wearing
unusually stripped pants which was the topic of much of the stage banter
during the evening.
Judging from the audience reaction, the big draw for this show was Graham
Parker. He certainly got the most enthusiastic response from the crowd when
introduced and when he mentioned a previous appearance at the Ram's Head he
drew a round of applause from people who must have been there.
This is not a show that would please everybody but I thoroughly enjoyed it.
The live performances have a substantially harder edge than the recordings.
The band sometimes threatened to overpower the vocals, and the sound was
sometimes rough. There were some obvious gaffes during the show. But the
songs and the performances were great. This may have been due to the
absence of Bill Janovitz.
Marc Copley did a truly outstanding and remarkable job covering for
Janovitz. He has an interesting voice and his vocal on Woman was simply
stunning. Not only did he completely blow away the recorded version by
Janovitz, he blew away the Peter and Gordon version. He perfomed the song
with real feeling. He gave it heart and soul. He got lost during the
instrumental break but quickly recovered. It ws an exciting performance,
the high point of the eventing. He performed another stunning heartfelt
vocal performance on World Without Love.
Come And Get It drew the biggest response from the crowd during the evening.
The band performance of Catscall was truly outstanding. It gave them an
opportunity to demonstrate their considerable talents as musicians.
Nobody I Know had a particularly pretty and delicate instrumental
arrangement. The guitar work on the performance was lovely.
Graham Parker played a recording of the Tommy Quickly version of Tip Of My
Tongue before playing the song. The reggae flavor of Parker's version
worked better live than it does on the record.
Love Of The Loved featured an extended vocal fadeout with Kate Pierson
singing in a way that pleasantly reminded me of Love Shack.
Marc Copley's slide guitar work on I'll Be On My Way was outstanding.
The audience responded warmly to the show. But the applause died out before
the band returned for the encore. Which they generously performed anyway.
After the show Copley, Parker, and Pierson all came out into the club to
sign autographs and chat. I had a fairly long conversation with Pierson. I
had worn my Rock Against Fur sweatshirt from a benefit show for PETA that
the B-52's had hosted in New York in the eighties. She did not notice the
sweatshirt but perked up when I mentioned that I ran an animal shelter and
had worked with Ingrid Newkirk, founder of People For The Ethical Treatment
Of Animals (PETA). She asked if we had a lot of land at the shelter and
what kind of animals we had. She mentioned talking to Dan Matthews of PETA
about the incident in Texas where the game warden brutally killed a
crocodile by dragging it through the street behind a pickup truck. And she
told me how much she admired Ingrid Newkirk. I told her about how I was a
volunteer at PETA when the organization's office was in the living room of
Newkirk's apartment in Takoma Park, MD. Now it is a multi-million dollar
organization with hundreds of staff people and hundreds of thousands of
members.
Copley seemed touched when I told him I thought his live performance of
Woman was better than the Peter and Gordon version. I bought Copley's
Limited Lifetime Guarantee CD which I quite like. Limited Lifetime
Guarantee has a sort of generic sound - it could be almost any non-rap
performer you might hear on VH-1 - but the songs are better written and more
interesting than the generic garbage being done by most "current"
performers.
I'm guessing the setlist is the same every night on this tour:
From A Window - Graham Parker
I'm In Love - Kate Pierson
I'll Keep You Satisfied - Graham Parker
Bad To Me - Graham Parker
That Means A Lot - Kate Pierson
It's For You - Mark Copley
One And One Is Two - Graham Parker
Goodbye - Marc Copley
Nobody I Know - Kate Pierson
Hello Little Girl - Marc Copley
Tip Of My Tongue - Graham Parker
Woman - Mark Copley
Come And Get It - Graham Parker
World Without Love - Mark Copley
Love Of The Loved - Kate Pierson
Catscall - the band (including Marc Copley but without Julie Panda Jones)
Step Inside Love - Kate Pierson
I'll Be On My Way - Marc Copley, Kate Pierson, and Graham Parker