| Set List:
Don’t Hold Me Back |
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This was Kasim’s third gig of the tour in this area of the country and unfortunately, it was badly promoted so the attendance was very poor again. As soon as I walked in someone (who was a big Utopia fan) moaned to me about that there had been no publicity for this gig and that he doubted that many people would turn up. Sadly he was proved correct as I only counted ten people actually watching the show (although there were two other tables of people eating but they left when they finished their meals).
It was such a shame as it was one of those nights when Kasim’s voice sounded exceptionally good too! Being the professional that he is, he still put on a really great show and, as he knew the names of most if not all of the audience, he switched it to one of those shows where he involved some of the audience members too which Kasim is so good at! The other good thing was that by the end of the show a full 90% of the audience were signed up to Kasim’s mailing list!!
Although from the outside the Sit’n’Bull Pub looked like any pub that you might find in an English village somewhere, inside it was quite large with the widest stage of the tour - about 30 foot wide! The support act was a local guy called John Cate and he was far better than most of the support acts that I’ve seen on this tour. Apparently he usually plays with The John Cate Band so he said that he felt quite lost on the stage (especially one this wide!) and even asked Kasim at one point during his (John’s) set, how he does it every night! (This was another goldfish (no dressing room) venue so Kasim was sitting watching his set at the time.)
Kasim’s opening five songs were the same as always (Don’t Hold Me Back / Afraid Himself To Be / Sometimes Love Is A Dangerous Thing / Set Me Free / Alone) but tonight it seemed to me that he actually tried a few extra bits in a couple of the songs too. For example in Don’t Hold Me Back he played a nice extra twiddly bit (remember I’m no musician!) in the guitar part in the middle of the song. I always like Kasim singing Jason Falkner’s Afraid Himself To Be but tonight as Kasim’s voice was sounding really good and the PA was slightly deeper, it sounded especially wonderful!
Due to the above reason, The One Sure Thing also sounded really good tonight too (even though Kasim mixed up his words at one point!). Ever since I first heard it, that song has been my favourite of all the songs he’s written …..so far! I know it’s not the strongest one on his album but it’s just my personal favourite as I can emphasise with the words and the tune is very pretty. I really enjoy hearing him sing the acoustic version live.
It’s been a few shows now since Kasim played the whole set on his own (without Doug Kennedy). When Kasim plays with him the second half of the set is usually more pure music (less chat) so it was interesting to see that Kasim predominantly continued in this vein tonight too as he sang Cliché, Libertine and This Must Be Love with no breaks or intros. Although there was only the one guitar playing tonight, I thought that it was a good idea that he opted for those songs as they still sounded full but I think that nowadays I would find a one guitar Back On The Street missing something!
Two of those songs (Libertine and This Must Be Love) Kasim hasn’t played for a while so they made a nice change to hear again - I just love the sound in the part of the song when Kasim’s hands work their way up the neck! He also gave that song a very dramatic flourish on the guitar at the end too!
Kasim next said that he was going to play a tune that some people would know and he told Diane that she was to sing whenever he pointed at her! Thankfully she played along well as he built it up that people had come out on that cold dark night not to see Kasim but to see Diane sing - that it was even advertised on his website in that way! I’d guessed that Kasim was going to sing One World at that point but he actually started Old MacDonald Had A Farm which was hilarious, especially as the first time around he sang that he had a “frisk”! He then changed it to a cow so Diane did the moos! Kasim then did sing One World (getting his words mixed up twice!) with Diane and then most of the rest of the audience joining in with the “One worlds”! For the last chorus, Kasim sang the lines “From Berlin to San Francisco, From New York to MAYNARD!” before letting Diane and everyone else sing the chorus twice on our own! Although there weren’t many there tonight we actually made more noise than the crowd last night!
All too soon for me it was time for Across The Universe. This ended up being the most dangerous part of the set as Kasim kicked over his bottle of water and I could see the spilt liquid gradually making its way towards the electrical cables at Kasim's feet! Just as I was about to get up to move them, thankfully it stopped spreading and Kasim's life was saved by gravity!
Roll on Schenectady tomorrow……!
Video Clips
These are 15 second video clips which will take about 5 minutes each to download on a normal modem. These clips are quite dark but will give you an idea of how great Kasim sounded tonight!
Kasim singing Sometimes Love Is A Dangerous Thing
Kasim singing Set Me Free
Kasim singing The One Sure Thing
Back to The Kasim Sulton Have Guitar, Will Travel Tour