Review by SueW:
This was a very stressful gig at the beginning due to getting totally lost on the various Parkways in the area! We accidentally hit Jones Beach and then an area of probably the highest density of non-English speaking garage attendants! Thank goodness for UK mobile phones that work in US and friends who can direct you!

Consequently we got to the venue at almost 9.00pm for this 8.00pm start gig! As there had been no support act in NYC and we arrived there just as some people were leaving the building, we were naturally quite worried! Thankfully it turned out that the support act had just finished and these people were just going outside for cigarettes!

Thanks to the generosity of another friend, I had a front row seat right in front of Kasim so within 5 minutes my whole opinion of the evening had changed! It seemed to be a slightly shorter set to me but it was the most light hearted of the tour (so far) with Patty constantly going into the audience!

Sadly for a Friday night it wasn't too well attended. It was maybe only three quarters full (but these tickets were $35 each) and the stage was set so that it didn't rotate (in the half round) so they were only using about three quarters of the venue anyway.

Kasim was wearing a black matching jacket and trouser and a white T-shirt (white really suits him!) plus he was using his black / brown bass again. As soon as Kasim walked on stage he did his "check" into his microphone and thankfully it was louder than at the Irving Plaza. The lighting was excellent as this venue too - they even had lighted patterns on the curtains behind them too at times.

After Love's Got A Line On You, Patty joked that it was just like being in a TV studio and that she would get someone down to answer questions on Scandal trivia! They next sang Hands Tied (Kasim's vocals were excellent and very clear in that tonight!). Patty then went and sat down in the front row of the audience to the right. A lady behind her offered her a drink but she refused as she said that it would mess up her voice "but have you got any crack?"! She then said that she was only joking as all her six children were in the audience tonight. She asked what the next song was (Kasim mouthed "Downtown Train") so she got the band to start it while she sat there and then she went back on stage to sing it!

Next Patty said that it was strange that the soundman was so close (he was right in front of the stage) as usually he is quite far away so she said she could slap him if he messed up. She then decided that the sound in New York was bad so she went over and slapped him (gently)! After that she asked where her six children were (they were near the back) and said that for some of them, it was the first time they had seen her on stage!

After Talk To Me, Patty then thanked Kasim for playing the tour and stressed that if it wasn't for him then the tour wouldn't be going ahead. She said that he used to play with Todd Rundgren and Utopia and someone called out "Liar". Patty told that person to stand up and called him an "asshole" until Kasim intervened over the microphone that Liars was the name of Todd's last tour! She asked him if that was one the one when he had to dress up in "costume" so he said that he was a Catholic priest and then did the sign of the cross a couple of times!

Patty said that they were going to dedicate the next song to Ivan's daughter who was in the audience. Thommy was having some problem with his drums so he asked her to wait so she mentioned about a time that he was supposed to have run naked through a hotel in Atlanta! She also said that that another time he broke an ice machine but that he always blamed Ivan but they knew it was him so someone in the audience called out "Liar" again!

Before they sang The Warrior, Patty got us to practice singing it to just a drumbeat. The first time was dreadful and the second wasn't too much better but the audience really got into the song itself (at least as much as a seated audience can!).

Patty said that she wrote the next song (Wish I Were You) for "Johnnie Mac" and she went up into the audience to say hello to him and their children. She then sang the song standing on someone's chair in the audience!

Patty said that lots of her songs people think are about boy / girl relationships but she often writes them about her love for her children "which is the truest love". She then told us the story that the next song someone had told her was their wedding song but that it wasn't a wedding song. Keith Mac spoke up that he thought that was how she introduced "the other song" before (as he had to switch to an acoustic guitar for that) but she said that it was for I Should Be Laughing. In fact Keith was correct as Patty had used that intro into Sometimes Love Just Ain't Enough in Boston!

They played a long intro into Goodbye To You tonight - Patty really does jump around a lot in that song. She actually has a lot of energy through the whole set At one point she was moving round at the back of the stage and managed to trip her feet and pull Kasim's bass cord out! He immediately noticed that it wasn't coming out of his monitor and checked his bass end and then went over to the amp thing and put it back in!

They then left the stage but soon came back for Sometimes Love Just Ain't Enough, Kasim's vocals were brilliant in that song tonight and I could hear him really clearly. (He sings at a higher pitch than Patty.) During that song the guitar tech was putting Keith's electric guitar on it's stand but each time he got near, it caused some static / rumbling noise! This happened again just at the quiet, dramatic part at the end of the song too which made most of the audience laugh!

Kasim was obviously still having problems with his bass cord as he tried holding it in place by linking it under his amp and then he got the guitar the to just replace the cord. They then finished with "a stomper" - River Deep, Mountain High and Patty sang the middle part sitting on the gate in the audience!

All in all I think it was my favourite gig of the tour so far and Patty did say that they ARE going to make a new album sometime!

[I was later told that the opening act (that I missed) for this gig were called The New Professionals.]

Click here for an amazing collection of photos of this gig!

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