Dulli Noted : Summers Kiss
Posted on November 18, 2003 at 10:39 am | No Comments
Attention Twilight Singers / Greg Dulli / Afghan Whigs fans: I just stumbled upon the most excellent Summer’s Kiss website, where Twilight bassist John Ford is keeping a diary of the current tour. His comments on Sunday’s show…
“Tonight we played Boston, which is always a fun time. The crowd was great, but they could have made more noise. Sometimes in between songs I felt like I was in a library. I understand though, all y’all are waiting for some Dulli story and don’t want to interrupt, so on that level, you are very polite. This is rock n’roll though, so make some noise. Still, even though I blew a speaker during the set, I had a great time.”
There’s also a forum for show reviews and bootlegs trading… can’t wait to dive into some live show swapping.
From one of the forum posts, here’s the setlist from Sunday’s show at TT the Bears, and some comments from a fan named whighat65…
Decatur Street
That Bird Sings
Teenage Wristband
Twilite Kid
Domani
Esta Noche
A Love Supreme
Please Don�t Stay
Love
Annie Mae
Papillon
Martin Eden
King Only
Black is the Color/ Time of the SeasonBlack Love
The Killer
Stevie Nicks66
FadedBesides that, they played �If I Were Going�, with the crowd doing the brunt of the singing, as well as �Crime Scene Pt. 1�. They did the requisite Prince snippets, abit of Zep�s �Ramble On�, the Layla coda as the ending of the Stevie Nick covers. Also, as Mathias vamped on electric piano, Greg stated �we have a Ray Manzerik groove goin� on� and did the opening to the Doors �The End�.
They started off ferociously w Decatur / That Bird Sings. Bird was great, featuring the gtr sex between Greg & Jon. The bar was set very high w/ that 1-2 punch, and Greg seemed bewildered that the crowd was seemingly indifferent. He made some apparant goofs on the crowd, broke into �Hava Nageela�. He put on a big pout to some girl w/ an attitude, latter singing to her in Twilite Kid to �hold him, hold him� and to her date, �hold her, hold her�, then stating for us all to�hold one another, we�re gonna have an orgy here tonight�. �Annie Mae� was almost metallic, close to stomping the funk out of it, but not quite. The start of the 2nd encore had one or two songs I didn�t know, there was alot of �Shake it� in it. He also quipped twice to �Shake it like a Polaroid picture�.
He was kind enough not to bring up any mention of the local sports teams, other then a reference to �Jimmy from Charlestown, you owe me $500 on the Marlins�.
Last thing he said as he left the stage was �See you all in a couple of months�!
Thanks for the words, whighat65. Hope it’s cool that I quoted ya. That song you didn’t recognize (“shake it like a polaroid picture”) was the Outkast’s “Hey Ya”, by the way.
Thank You, Greg Dulli
Posted on November 17, 2003 at 10:28 am | No Comments
So my brain is still buzzing from the Twilight Singers show last night… I’m still on some sort of Greg Dulli-induced high, and it’s erasing the memory of anything I did before it. I mean, I know I did other stuff over the weekend, but right now I just can’t seem to recall what. It’s all about Dulli and the rock he and his band whipped out last night. Mid-November and he gives us the show of the year.
At last, the Afghan Whigs gig I never got to see, and it was better than I ever thought it would be. I’d missed them too many times… up in Vermont there weren’t many (read: any) chances to see ’em, and they sadly disappeared before I moved to Boston. After last night, I feel like something that was missing has been finally found. Reading and hearing for so many years what a performer Dulli is, how great the Whigs were live, Amie telling me about the times she’d seen them … and how this time was even better. She was ready to hop on the Fung Wah just to see them play again tonight in NYC, and she’d be on her way if that show wasn’t already sold out.
I mean, what a performance. I’ve never heard a sound so huge inside TTs before. The guys he’s got on the road with him are so right on, they helped him exceed any expectations I had for the night. The Twilight Singers songs were fleshed out, more rockin’, brighter, fuller, and more powerful than the new album. A few Afghan songs made surprising, intoxicating appearances, either in full or in part. Covers and mini-medleys worked their way in, reinterpretations or straightforward versions of a wide variety of stuff. Prince (Dulli spoke of seeing the movie “Purple Rain” in 1984, then broke into that song), Outkast (They actually covered “Hey Ya”, which transformed itself into the Whigs “66” from “1965”), Derek & the Dominos (They perfectly played the whole piano outro from “Layla”), Marvin Gaye (“I only wish I could sing like Marvin”, Dulli said.), John Coltrane (covering “A Love Supreme”). After some very touching words, he dedicated “Martin Eden” (the first song from “Blackberry Belle”) to Elliott Smith, whom he called a friend (“When I heard the news, I didn’t think of his music, or his life… I thought about his last, lonely five minutes… “), and dedicated another song to departed director Ted Demme. He spoke of Steve McQueen, The Darkness (Dulli sez : “My favorite new band…”), Apollonia, and even broke into a spontaneous mockery of Jim Morrison. He was all over the map… emotional, dirty, empathetic, and irreverant all at once.
He said they’d be back “in a couple months”. Wherever it is, and it will no doubt be in a bigger club, it’s gonna sell out again. Every person in the place will be back, and so will every single friend they can drag. Amie just called me to ask where our new Twilight Singers disc is … she can’t stop thinking about last night either, and is loading her car’s cd changer with “Blackberry Belle” and four Whigs albums. It’s gonna be a Dulli kind of day, for the both of us …