I arrived at The Tin Angel about ten minutes after the doors opened (twenty minutes before the show was scheduled to begin) and was disappointed to discover that there were only about three people in there! Thankfully more people arrived later but, again, considering that this was listed on the posters as a “CD Release Show” I expected far more people there due to more promotion - I couldn’t even see any posters on South Street this time! Thankfully Kasim fans tend to be loud (or excitable!) so we still made quite a din! One of the funniest sights of the evening was seeing Felicia come from backstage soon after she arrived, sniffing her jumper! We KNEW she’d just been hugged by Kasim!
The opening act, Patty Blee, was a pleasant enough opening act but her music had way too much of a country feel to it for my tastes but I know several people bought her CD there.
Kasim came on stage at about 8.30 and immediately complained that it was too bright! Someone joked that it was because of his brilliant white shirt that he was wearing so Kasim said that it was his lab coat and he’d just come from the pharmacy! The bright lights did help a lot for taking photos but consequently Kasim closed his eyes a lot during his singing - I’d noticed at Zig’s on Friday that he kept his eyes open during almost all of Before She Was Gone!
Doug Kennedy joined Kasim on stage for Back On The Street (with Kasim starting it before Doug was even on stage again!) - the way the two of them play that song is just amazing to watch, both their hands are just a blur! Kasim next said about having just released his new CD Quid Pro Quo and joked that it was full of Britney Spears covers! He also said that Before She Was Gone was written by Britney Spears before they played it!
Next Kasim switched to his acoustic guitar and they played my favourite, The One Sure Thing. Kasim told his story that it was originally written for the Glen Burtnik Xmas show and that he thinks that some of the chords sound Christmassy - it’s frightening how close we nearly got to not having The One Sure Thing in its current format!
Kasim switched back to his guitar and they played a great version of Sacrifice before telling us about the “album and a half” album, Utopia. Kasim and Doug then played There Goes My Inspiration from the album.
Kasim then switched to his keyboards and chatted a bit with some members of the audience. Somebody asked to hear one song and Kasim said that he would get to it later, that he had a set list but that other things in his “chaotic” life changes from second to second…just then the stage light went out for a second or two! Kasim also joked that the part he liked about playing Set Me Free on his keyboards was that he could play down the scales. Unfortunately there was an abortive start to the song as Kasim couldn’t find the right button to turn for the piano and strings as he didn’t have his glasses on! When he did find it, they played the song wonderfully (with Doug playing guitar). Kasim really does bash those keys when he plays that song though!
After a story about a drinking binge, Kasim explained that he wrote the song Love Alone when he was still living at his parents’ house and that the opening words (When she calls my name, nobody says it quite the same) were from when his mother used to call him out from his studio at their house! (He plays the keys far softer in that song.) He then went straight into a faultless performance of Heaven Help The Child.
Kasim next went back to the centre of the stage and he and Doug played This Must Be Love from Kasim’s first album, Kasim - I just love the way they play part of it going up the neck of their guitars!
Next Kasim thanked us for coming to see him tonight rather than paying the $300 to see The Rolling Stones (who were also playing in Philadelphia tonight) and played a great version of Brown Sugar! Kasim actually broke a string during the song but the way he compensated for it didn’t make it at all apparent! After Kasim had tuned another guitar, he and Doug gave an amazing performance of Libertine! Doug’s guitar work on that song in particular was just incredible - I even dragged my eyes away from Kasim at one point to watch him play!
After that it was straight into One World (with the line “from Berlin to San Francisco, from New York to Philadelphia”) and almost everyone joined in the two-one handclap part! I expected that next would have the “encore” but instead Kasim got his 1929 tenor guitar to play! He said that the guitar must have seen a lot of “shit” in the 72 years that it’s been around and then cited things like World War I and World War II (I’m not sure if Kasim’s history is a little hazy or whether US has different dates than UK for World War I as it does World War II but an eleven year difference???). Whatever the history they next played one of Kasim’s favourite songs (he said) Goodbye. Although I really enjoyed the version at Zig’s with just Kasim playing it, having Doug playing guitar on it too, made it sound just brilliant!
After a longish intro Kasim launched into his amazing crowd-grabbing Don’t Hold Me Back and then straight into Sometimes Love Is A Dangerous Thing. Kasim’s voice was just brilliant tonight…possibly even better than it was on Friday!
With a quick look at his watch (there was nobody following so he could have played all night which really would have pleased this audience and especially me!), Doug left the stage and Kasim moved across to the keyboards again. Kasim said that he was a big Harry Nilsson fan as he thinks that he was one of the greatest song writers of the last century and reckoned that lots of people stole some of his early music, that you could hear his influence on Billy Joel and Elton John songs. Kasim then went on to point out that there really are only 12 notes so it’s inevitable that parts of songs will be copied. Kasim then played an absolutely faultless performance of his own favourite Harry Nilsson song, Remember (which is also on Quid Pro Quo) - it was just beautiful to hear, especially as Kasim’s voice was particularly strong tonight!
At the end Kasim said a quick, “Thank you everyone - goodnight” and left the stage which was very dramatic!
A brilliant end to a fantastic show!
Click here for some great photos by Frank Ciapanna of this gig
Video Clips
These are 15 second video clips which will take about 5 minutes each to download on a normal modem.
Kasim singing Brown Sugar by The Rolling Stones
Kasim singing Remember
Back to Kasim's promotional appearances to promote Quid Pro Quo