One World
Firstly a massive thank you must go to Dave Killary for all he did in arranging this great gig!
Carley's Venue Bar & Grille was located in the main street of Westerly which is on the Rhode Island / Connecticut borders so was a very central location. Unsurprisingly I counted at least 65 people in the venue ten minutes before Kasim went on stage and people kept arriving! The tables were well laid out so again everybody could clearly see Kasim but, once again, the venue was dark (as are my photos!). When we arrived there was 70s disco music playing (complete with disco lights!) but just before 10.00 a call was issued over the PA that someone was required to turn off the disco music as they were having problems with it!
Kasim and Doug Kennedy arrived through the main entrance at about 10.00pm and quickly set up their remaining guitars. Kasim again started with my favourite The One Sure Thing before singing Jason Faulkner’s great Afraid Himself To Be.
Doug Kennedy’s guitar playing made a great contribution to the show. Kasim chose the tracks that best suited having two guitars (for example Before She Was Gone) but unfortunately Doug was sitting even more in the dark than Kasim was so I couldn’t take any shots of him!
A welcome new addition to the set list was Back On The Street! Kasim said that although it was only a few basic cords, he found it hard to play! He also did a great impersonation of the gun shot part of the song!
Kasim managed to nail Todd Rundgren’s Cliché perfectly (even better than most times that I’ve heard Todd sing it!) and his new Beatles song for this tour was I’m Looking Through You which really suited Kasim and Doug’s guitar playing.
Again Kasim sang John Lennon’s Across The Universe (his voice is perfect for that song) and his finale was the great One World with most people in the venue joining in with the handclaps! Other than a problem with the sound at one point and Kasim breaking a guitar string, it was a much smoother, slicker performance than last night - if last night was 8 out of 10, tonight was 12!
Roll on Pittsburgh on Tuesday……!
Kasim looked great (although a bit like he'd just come from a wedding) wearing a starched white shirt with French cuffs with a black suit and black shoes. He did a pretty good job of holding the room's attention for over an hour, mixing some new songs into a set that consisted mostly of old, familiar favorites. Off the top of my head, some of the songs he did were Set Me Free--preceded by a well-told narrative of its genesis, Alone, There Goes My Inspiration, Back on the Street--which he seemed to be particularly keen to do, Cliché, Libertine, One World, and a couple of Beatles tunes, I'm Looking Through You and Across the Universe.
During a brief tuning session between songs he stumbled into a couple of bars of "Singring", and said something to the effect that he'd like to work on that one for another show.
Get out and see him if he comes to your town. It'll be an evening well spent.
Video Clips
These are 15 second video clips which will take about 5 minutes to download on a normal modem. Unfortunately these clips are VERY dark but you can still hear how great Kasim sounded!
Kasim singing Set Me Free
Kasim playing and singing Alone
Kasim's great version of Cliché
Back to The Kasim Sulton Have Guitar, Will Travel Tour