Tonight, was Kasim Sulton's third return appearance, in two years, at Cleveland's Beachland Ballroom. And a welcome one at that. His show started later then the 9pm set time, and a few people wondered if there was something amiss, as Sulton never seems to start a show late. But once he came onstage there were no signs of any problems, except not one, but two, guitar strings breaking during his set. Something that he took in stride each time without hardly missing a beat.

Kasim started the show with a brief humorous introduction that segwayed into his usual opening number, "Don't Hold Me Back." He then proceeded into the catchy "Sometimes Love is a Dangerous Thing." His voice this evening was strong with very few moments of faltering, that really only occurred during a cover song of Todd Rundgren's that, according to some fans, Kasim performs much better then Todd live. His entire set tonight was catchy and upbeat, with only about two slow songs throughout. It, and Kasim, kept everyone in good spirits throughout the night.

There is one other thing besides good music that you will get when you attend a show of Kasim's -- good funny stories! He tells tales of his many years in the music biz, that even include his whoas of being dissed by Paul McCartney, and tonight, John Davidson of all people. That actually was something he joked about as well tonight, that it occurred to him most of his stories are about his being dissed. He really had everyone roaring with laughter almost the whole night, and some of his jokes even included his guitar sideman, Doug Kennedy. Doug accompanied Kasim on almost all of tonight's set, and is a very welcome addition to this great acoustic based show (Kasim also performs on piano).

Kasim only has a handful of shows left for the remainder of the year, but if you can attend a show that is in your area, you wont be disappointed. Go!!

This was Kasim’s third appearance at The Beachland Ballroom (not his fourth as he thought!) and was by far his most amusing! The best quote I heard all night was that apparently some women in the restroom were saying that the show was so good that it was well worth holding off not peeing until after Kasim had finished his set!! What better recommendation of a gig is there than that?!!

As I’d been told that the doors opened at 8.00, I arrived a couple of minutes after only to discover that most people were already in there! Apparently the doors had actually opened at 7.00. On the last couple of occasions they had had to add extra chairs in the room so tonight they had already removed a couple of tables and had about six rows of extra chairs added. As it was Kasim’s only Ohio gig, people had travelled from some long distances to see him tonight - Columbus, Chicago, Philadelphia, Chicago and Idaho were just the places that I heard mentioned!

Although it was a fair sized crowd (more than he’s had previously at these few gigs), unfortunately six separate people complained to me throughout the evening about how badly the show was promoted. Others said that Kasim should be playing inside of Cleveland proper (the Beachland Ballroom is about 12 miles east of Cleveland in a Croatian immigrant area) and, that if the gig had been properly promoted, that he could easily be selling out some places in The Flats (the main music club area). It was just fascinating for me to hear the tales of when Utopia sold out 20,000 venues several nights on the same week and how people queued overnight to get their tickets!

Kasim walked on stage unannounced at about 9.15 and launched into his amazing Don’t Hold Me Back / Sometimes Love Is A Dangerous Thing opener. Kasim’s voice tonight was really strong (he sounded a lot better than at The Bitter End last weekend), although the sound (but not the strength) was noticeably different when he moved across to the keyboards.

Kasim next enthused about the delights of the I80 (a very long road that goes from the New York area to near Cleveland) as he had flown in from Los Angeles yesterday afternoon, driven home for a couple of hours sleep, left again at midnight and reached Cleveland at about 8.30 this morning! Doug Kennedy then walked onto the stage and Kasim actually allowed him time to sit down and put his guitar on before they started playing Back On The Street. This Utopia song received a massive round of applause afterwards (this tour Kasim is omitting the gunshot sounds though). Kasim broke a string (on his black guitar) during the song but I doubt that anyone noticed as he covered the notes perfectly. He then joked that as he is “a big rock star” he was now going to have to throw the guitar away! Kasim also noted how quiet the crowd were and that it was such a contrast to his last gig which was in New York as there the fans of the next group arrive halfway through his set and they don’t care about hearing his music so they just chat loudly!

To much applause Kasim then spoke about having "finally" released his CD Quid Pro Quo and he said that 75 - 80% of the sales of the CD were in Ohio! (Even more reason IMO that Kasim should be playing more gigs out here.) He then proceeded to sing Sacrifice (that song ALWAYS receives a massive round of applause) and The One Sure Thing from his CD. During the last chorus of The One Sure Thing Kasim broke another string on his guitar (one of his acoustic guitars this time) and there was an audible “ping” as it broke! Kasim said that this was the first time that this had happened to him and asked if there were any guitar players in the audience before he introduced “my new guitar tech Chris”!

After Before She Was Gone, Kasim went straight in Libertine. Doug Kennedy plays some great guitar in that song but Kasim introduced him as Doug Howard! When Doug started to correct him, Kasim joked that it was HIS show and that nobody else on stage was allowed to speak! He said that he went through ten years of Utopia and that anybody else but Todd Rundgren spoke on stage they got “the stink eye” which he demonstrated! As Todd had played Cleveland with Hall and Oates this summer, Kasim then spoke about how well Todd performs on stage when he’s amongst a group of his peers (and compared it to his solo shows).

After There Goes My Inspiration, Kasim played I’m Looking At You as we were missing Paul McCartney’s concert in Cleveland tonight (and saving ourselves $150 a ticket!)! Next Kasim moved across to his piano and played Love Alone after his John Davidson “dissing” him story. Kasim remarked that most of his stories are about people (Paul McCartney, John Davidson, Todd) dissing him!

After Heaven Help The Child, Set Me Free and Remember, Kasim moved back to the centre of the stage. Kasim said that this was his farewell tour (there were a few worried faces in the audience at this point). He then said that from now on he would only be playing farewell tours as it was the best way to get people to gigs! At Zig’s when Kasim first played Goodbye, it was only him playing on his “1929 Regal Tenor Guitar” (that somehow saw the First World War!) and it sounded great but now that Doug Kennedy plays on the song too, it really does make it sound fuller - far more than I expected.

Goodbye was supposed to be Kasim’s last song but the crowd kept clapping and cheering so Kasim returned to his stool to sing another song. However, Doug Kennedy had already walked backstage so Kasim joked about who was acting like the rock star between them - "I couldn’t possibly play any more, Kasim was terrible, he broke so many strings"! Poor Doug really got some ribbing from Kasim at this point as Kasim explained that they were driving directly to Pittsburgh after the show but that he wouldn’t be taking Doug as he is the worst passenger! He reckoned that he talked non-stop and kept clutching the inside of the car whenever Kasim overtook something on the road! Kasim then joked that Doug was available and was looking for a nice young man! He was actually so convincing that after the show one girl asked me if it was true or not!

Kasim reached for his black guitar but noticed that Chris had put a B string where the G string (that caused a few titters in the audience) should be so instead he went back to his acoustic guitar and asked us to sing along on the next song before he started Puff The Magic Dragon! He then sang One World (which lots of people did sing along to but there was surprisingly very little clapping in it). Afterwards there WAS loads of clapping and applause as Kasim left the stage because it was such a great show!

Roll on Pittsburgh on Sunday….!

A word about the photos
All the onstage photos currently on this page are VERY dark - the lighting at The Beachland Ballroom leaves a lot to be desired and I don't like to use flash at the shows, plus I was sitting a fair way back. Consequently most of the pictures are dark (I can only apologize for that) but there were several people taking photos up at the front so hopefully these will make their way onto the Internet.

Click here for some great photos by Jennifer Salyer of this gig

Back to Kasim's promotional appearances to promote Quid Pro Quo