Re: Boston show

[JP Jacob <jpjacob>]

Thanks to all who came to the Boston show for support of the
Photographic Resource Center. It was a great evening for me, and Patti,
Lenny, and Oliver were also very happy. Before they left, much later
Monday night, Patti said that the band will be doing a limited tour this
fall that will include Boston, followed by a full scale tour next year.
Something to look forward to!

I haven't compared this with Mitch's note, so sorry for redundancy, but
here is the complete setlist:

1. Footnotes to Howl
2. Piss Factory
3. Wing
4. Georgia O'keefe
5. Dancing Barefoot
6. Grateful
7. Southern Cross
8. Ghost Dance
9. Psalm 23 Revisited
10. Cry for the Living (Oliver)
11. Jackson Pollock
12. Love of the Common People (Lenny)
13. So Lonesome I Could Cry
14. Last Call
15. Y
16. PHtP
17. Because the Night (encore)

What was wonderful for me about the set, since this event was put
together in conjunction with our exhibition at the PRC, was the thread
that Patti wove throughout the show with pieces by and about the
important artists in her life: Ginsberg (to whom the exhibition was
dedicated), Burroughs, O'Keefe, Pollock, and Mapplethorpe.

It's something that hasn't received too much attention, but the two new
drawings in the exhibit are the first new drawings that Patti has shown
since the 1970s (anyway, so she tells me). They're expansions of
sketches and notes that she made at Ginsberg's deathbed (she was
carrying the original sketches in her pocket while reading the Footnotes
from Howl to us), and the performance seemed to me to come right out of
the passion and the love that went into those drawings. That was the
starting point.

Other notes. It was Jackson carrying the guitars, and Jesse was helping
to sell books out front. I'm pretty sure that the song Last Call, which
they performed live for the first time, is about the Heaven's Gate mass
suicide, and Jackson Pollock was entirely improvised. Pretty much all
they had was an idea to do something relating to Pollock that let Lenny
and Oliver jam for a while on their National guitars.

As I'd expected (and hoped), the show was similar conceptually to the
MoMA show last winter. But, while I've always been impressed by the
electricity between Lenny and Patti, I was really surprised and
impressed to see how much the musical relationship between Lenny and
Oliver has grown since then. At Monday night's performance, there were
moments between Lenny and Oliver that were truly wonderful. So now the
electricity is moving between three people, which made the show even
more exciting and unpredictable and charming for me.

I had expected Patti and all to go back to their hotel after the show.
Instead, at around 11pm we wound up at a nearby Japanese restaraunt,
where Oliver sang Ebony & Ivory on the karyoke machine (he scored 7 out
of 100). The other karyoke singers recognized the band (one of them had
seen the Irving Plaza show), and were grateful for Lenny's and Oliver's
applause and boos for songs well or poorly performed. Back at the PRC at
about 1am, we had a stroll though the exhibition, after which we packed
up the guitars, sent them off, and closed down the gallery. Very, very
happily.

There's one other thing. I had a real introduction, but Patti asked me
not to read it. What I'd wanted to talk about is how impressed I have
been by Patti, Lenny, and Oliver's ongoing support of organizations and
individuals, taking positions in relation to small causes as readily as
to issues of global importance. I mean, it's probably not too hard for a
celebrity to support one or two important causes. But I think that it's
exhausting and to some extent precarious for an artist these days to
support many causes, especially the small, unproven ones (for example,
it's easy to do a benefit for MoMA, but the Photographic Resource
Center? An artists space with a staff of 3?).

I remember that the Seegers, Mike and Pete, could always be counted to
show up in support of local causes in the Hudson River valley area where
my grandfather lived, and where I spent a lot of time during high
school. I was always so impressed that they could function
simultaneously on local and international levels that way. I don't feel
that many artists today have that sense of commitment, and to see it in
Patti, Lenny, and Oliver makes me proud to support them. Their
commitment to the values that we share enables me to be *not* just a
consumer of their products, but, to some extent, a part of the its
creation. That kind of sharing is absent from most other
entertainer/artist/audience/venue relationships that I experience. And I
think that's what makes shows like Monday night's so wonderful and
renewing for us as supporters of Patti's artwork.

That's enough for now.

John
--
jpjacob
Photographic Resource Center at Boston University
http://web.bu.edu/PRC