Kasim Sulton Solo Acoustic Tour 2001

Review by Kathy
It was a hot night at the Jersey shore! (Literally! Some 92 degrees. What are we gonna do when Summer gets here???!)

Ray Andersen and Patti Maloney (Blue Van Gogh) opened, and did a great set... as they always do. They actually played until a little after 11pm.. so Kasim didn't take the stage until around 11:20.

Dressed all in black, he picked up a guitar and belted out those first few lines of "Don't Hold Me Back" with such conviction that the entire venue fell silent as they watched and listened to him play and sing. Gorgeous!

He followed it with one of his new songs, "Before She Was Gone," afterwhich he treated us to a bit of stand-up comedy. Describing his idea for a better "Survivor" show, he had the entire crowd cracking up!! He'd like to see two teams get in cars (one team in each car) and hit the Long Island Expressway... just driving back and forth, back and forth between 2 o'clock and 6 o'clock at night... see who survives the longest! (I don't know if you've been on the LIE, but this is NOT something you'd wanna do!!)

In between songs, he shared a little about what Willie is up to. Working for USA Cable Network, he creates all those little bits & pieces of music you hear between commercials. Maybe just a few seconds of music... but that's what he does... so if you're watching USA, listen for Willie!

Another interesting story was how Utopia ended up doing the Beatle-esque "Deface The Music" album... whch he followed with a FANTASTIC version of "Alone."

A special highlight took place right around midnight. Kasim began speaking about how certain people really make a difference in your life... true friends... and he honored Sue Williams (who runs this website) with a beautiful rendition of "Happy Birthday." May 5 was Sue's birthday, so at exactly midnight, Kasim sang HB for her. Incredibly sweet... and so very thoughtful. A more deserving person I couldn't think of. Happy Birthday, Sue!

A few songs later, he shared a GREAT story about his daughter's prom with us!!! Talking about what a big deal the prom is these days. There were 9 couples going together (they even rented a tour bus!) and everyone met at this one family's house. He said it was like something straight out of the Sopranos -- as if he was at Tommy and Carmella's house -- and their daughter was like Meadow! His Sopranos IMPRESSION was hilarious!!

After a few more songs, he told us about doing a recent session with Desmond Child. Desmond, of course, is a very well-known and respected songwriter within the music industry. You might not know his name... but I'm sure you've heard some of his songs. (Cher's "If I Could Turn Back Time," Michael Bolton's "How Can We Be Lovers If We Can't Be Friends," Bon Jovi's "Livin' On A Prayer," etc, etc) and one I didn't know he had written until Kasim mentioned it that night: Ricky Martin's "Livin' La Vida Loca"... which he broke into singing for us!!!!! Sounded pretty good too! (is that a good thing or a bad thing?!! HA!) everyone was getting into it, too! Desmond Child also wrote Joan Jett's "I Hate Myself For Loving You," and the band he was working with at this session is similar to Joan Jett. Bif Naked is their name, and the song they were working on is called "I Love Myself Today." Kasim said he "screamed his guts out for about 3 hours" singing backgrounds on it ... so I guess we'll need to pick up this album when it comes out!

Review by Sue
Well, I was forewarned before I went there that The Saint was rather a basic venue in a rough area and it certainly wasn't the most luxurious venue that I've seen Kasim play in - I actually found it as I was told that it was next door to a well illuminated tattoo parlour!

The first act that played was a trio (I never did hear their name) that were very young and unfortunately sacrificed quality for volume.

At about 10.00, Blue van Gogh took the stage and I was very impressed by them. I'd seen Ray Andersen play with Meat Loaf but I didn't realise that he had such a good voice. His wife, Patti Maloney, was a strong singer too and they sang a good selection of songs that they'd written themselves.

As Kasim said when he first walked on stage it was "nice and intimate". In fact it was a good sized crowd for Kasim's first gig outside of NYC and considering that the Psychedelic Furs were playing at Tradewinds, plus there were other acoustic acts at both the Cool Beans Coffee House and The Java Joint in the area that night As one lady remarked to me, that after seeing Kasim in shows for twenty two years, this was the best seats she'd ever had! After the show she also enthused that it was the best show she'd seen him in during the twenty two years!

After Kasim's strong opening Don't Hold Me Back, he went into Before She Was Gone by introducing it as a song that he'd tried as the third song in the set but it didn't work there, so he'd moved it up to the second song. Tonight he sang it very slightly slower than he has before.

Kasim introduced Jason Falkner's Afraid Himself To Be by explaining that some songs hit a chord in him and that's why as a musician he likes to play some songs by other writers. Kasim sings this song in a lower key and it really suits his voice so well!

The next two songs were nicely linked together as Kasim talked about his time in Utopia (he mentioned that he'd recently seen Willie Wilcox) and said that he'd written Set Me Free for Albert Grossman (the head of their record company) as he wouldn't release Kasim from his recording contract. Tonight Kasim changed part of the song to "Go find yourself some other band" instead of "some other man"! He said that the album Adventures In Utopia (which Set Me Free came from) sold a massive number of copies for Utopia and that he was hoping that they were going to continue that successful format, but that their next release (Deface The Music) was The Beatles parody album. Sales of the album weren't helped by the fact that John Lennon died a month before the release of the album! This then led into Kasim singing Alone from that album which was the first time he's included it in his set on this tour and it was just incredible to hear!

After telling the story of his writing day with Tommy Hambridge with a great new punch-line this time (that I won't spoil!), Kasim sang Sometimes Love Is A Dangerous Thing. As he messed up some of the words in the song he later swapped one line to "This song is gone and so are you"! It's this sort of thing that makes me realise how great he is at these gigs!

I think I'll gloss over the next part of the gig as Kathy has explained it above but, just to say, a BIG "thank you" to Kasim for singing Happy Birthday to me, plus thanks too to the people who arranged it!

I was then quite relieved when Kasim started playing All The Right Reasons. He sang this in a deeper key than he does on The Basement Tapes and than he has at the other two shows. He also changed some of the phrasing and emphasis of some of the lines which was effective. He switched the part after "I think I'll take a holiday" to "Start a boy band, Write some New Wave"!

It was definitely an Utopian evening as Kasim also sang a great version of Libertine for the first time on this tour which went down really well with the enthusiastic crowd!

Next Kasim told us all about him taking his daughter to her High School Prom tonight and expounded on that subject for a while which was really funny, even to someone foreign like me who doesn't really understand the significance of all of that! When Kasim gets into a roll like that, nobody can touch him!

After Just A Little Bit, Kasim gave a faultless performance of Todd Rundgren's It Wouldn't Have Made Any Difference. For this song he switched to a different guitar which was lower in tone, although for most of the song, it's his voice that makes the melody rather than the guitar. Kasim told us that he'd spent the previous day "screaming his guts out" as he was singing background vocals for a track on Desmond Child's new album. He'd written songs such as Bad Medicine, I Hate Myself For Loving You and Ricky Martin's first hit which then lead to a great impromptu excerpt from it before Kasim sang his wonderful version of The Beatles song Across The Universe. Kasim's voice comes over as so rich in that song - I could listen to that all night long!

At one point during the gig, Kasim said that by playing these solo shows he felt that he was doing what he was supposed to be doing and I don't think that there was a person there tonight who would have disagreed with that! Although the venue was less than luxurious, Kasim made the atmosphere incredible and, for me, he made a special day, simply brilliant!

Video Clips
Due to server size restrictions the video clips have been temporarily removed. To view them please either e-mail SueW@KasimInfo.com or visit the Video Of The Week section of the site.

Audio Clip
As the video clip of Alone is not very bright and a few people have already asked me about this track, I've added an audio clip. The file is quite large to download but is well worth the wait!
Alone

Kasim Sulton Solo Acoustic Tour 2001