Boston Meetup...sort of

[edrickvb]

Hey all- that was a fabulous show! Patty was in fine form- very inspired. We had great seats - 4th row center left and (thanks to John Higgins for pointing it out) Patty's parents were seated right behind us. I think her sisters were there and a handful of nieces -all very sweet...

Here's the setlist- I'm not totally sure about the names of some of the new songs, particularly the opener:

1 Ruby's Arms/solo piano
2 Wade in the Water
3 No Bad News
4 When It Don't Come Easy
5 Useless Desires
6 Long Ride Home/solo
7 Light It Up/solo
8 Free/solo
9 Kite Song/piano
10 J'irai la voir un jour/solo piano
11 Silver Bell
12 Love Throws a Line
13 Standing
14 Top of the World
15 Patty chat
16 Making Pies
17 Tears of a Clown
18 Getting Ready
19 Icicles Falling
20 Peaceful Valley (MLK song)/solo

Hard to pick a highlight - it was all good. Wade in the Water was very soulful, I love seeing Patty dance. No Bad News has great energy, another outstanding PG tune, a bit reminiscent of Truth #2. Silver Bell was awesome - the new arrangement is very cool - great gutar work (as always) by Doug. Long Ride Home was my wife's favorite, Making Pies also great. Tears of a Clown was well done - Patty does a great job with it, and Getting Ready is a rocker which I can see will be one of my new favorites. Nice to see Patty and the band rock out a bit. Speaking of which, the entire band was so so good. Doug is always tasteful with his guitar licks, and the rhythm section has great energy. How does the drummer get so much sound out of a box? he's amazing. JD on bass is so solid and his moves are a blast - he was great on Tears of a Clown.
The 2nd encore - the new MLK inspired song, is beautiful and Patty poured heart and soul into it - very moving.

Glad I got to meet John H finally, spotted a bunch of other TDtT/Patty.net members - sorry I didn't get a chance to say hello but I was occupied with family. Also brought along the other guitarist from my band - he'd never heard Patty before and we've been playing Making Pies for a couple years, so it was great for him to hear the real deal. He was blown away - we have a new convert! I also ran into one of my clients on the way in - she had never heard Patty before at all, and she was mighty impressed too!

[Arlene]

I sat in Arlene's place next to Melissa, and one row behind Rob!

Nicole- I'm so glad you could use the ticket. My pleasure for you exceeds my jealousy. (Well, not really, but it sounds good )

Arlene

[Nicoleee]

I was sitting on the ground level towards the back towards the left.

Hey this_mess, you live in Boston area? Wish you were at the meetup! Do you ever go to shows at Passim? There is a good one tonight!

[this_mess]

Yep, I do live in the Boston area. I missed the meet-up because I'm shy.

[Nicoleee]

Yep, I do live in the Boston area. I missed the meet-up because I'm shy.

What!? I drove to Albany, a city I'd never been to before to go to a Patty show with people I only knew from the internet! Good thing I did too-- because PattyNet folks are the coolest peeps around!

Watch out, I'm gonna make you meet me for coffee!!

You are sooooooooo coming to the next meetup.

-Nicole

[Mis]

Wow...the weekend went by too fast! Perhaps it was the Nor-easter that hit Boston on Friday night that clouded my thoughts. Oh no wait...it was probably all the beer I drank. Ahem.

At any rate, I met the infamously famous John Higgins first on Friday, who came to meet me at my hotel and walk with me to the venue. It was great to finally meet him in the flesh after only ever talking to him online for nearly a year. So great to finally meet you, John! We stopped at a CVS along the way and bought our identifier for the evening...a large bag of M&Ms.

We met up with the equally infamous Don Henn at the Silvertone, who had been chatting it up with a guy named Skip at the bar all afternoon. As Nicole mentioned, we ended up talking Skip into coming to the show, and I hope we converted him! Don acted as our official Patty fan recruiter and unabashedly walked the room holding our bag of M&Ms in the air, hoping to find other fans. LOL It was great. We found Michael walking around with his own bag of Peanut M&Ms, and quickly brought him into the fold. I really enjoyed getting to know Don, John, and Michael, hopefully converting Skip, and getting to hang with Nicole again, who is just the coolest.

Nicole and I sat together about 15 rows back on the far right. I got spoiled in Albany being in the 3rd row, but I think we dealt ok. The only bummer was that the sound was kind of echo-ey/bouncy off of the side of the hall (not the soundguy's fault! ), but I had a clear view of the stage, so it was fine.

Oh and I should mention, I think Charanga Cakewalk is FAB. They played a shorter set in Boston and it was good, but their Albany set was really on and I am loving their CD.

So the show highlights:

SOOOO surprised to hear Ruby's Arms as an opener, especially with Patty playing it herself. On all of the boots where I've heard her perform this, someone else has played it...so this was GREAT. I was SO happy to get to see it live, played on her own piano, and she sounded wonderful!

Wade In The Water. Again. /a Passes out.

STILL SOOOO loving No Bad News. I think it's my favorite of the new tunes. Although once again she played all of the ones I've heard, and once again I love them all.

Great to hear LRH live! It's one of my favorites EVER, so that was great.

Patty dedicated J'irai to her mother for Mother's Day, and it was incredibly sweet, especially since her mom and dad, and countless other Griffin family members were there. I absolutely adore the version of this on LFML 3, and was SO excited to hear it live. It was a touching and fitting tribute, and made me think of the songs my mom used to sing to me as a little girl.

Um, yeah, the new Silver Bell once again had me in its clutches. Good LORD I hope this new version makes it on to a future album.

I also really loved Icicles. It really touched me on Friday, for some reason. Probably because Patty is amazing, or something.

Patty chatted a lot more at this show than in Albany. At one point a bunch of who you could tell were young girls (who I found out later were most likely Patty's nieces) yelled out "Hi Patty!" all together. At which point Patty said, "Hi there! How was school today?" And some random guy answered, "IT SUCKED!" To which the crowd laughed. And then Patty said something to the effect of, "Yeah, well, if you're in my family it probably DID suck." LOL

It was apparent that she was psyched to be back in Boston and to be playing at the Orpheum. She chatted about the Red Sox, about how she was glad she was playing there instead of schlepping pizzas down the road, etc. She also mentioned (and it was confirmed by others who were there back in the day) that she had been there to see many other performers there when she lived in Boston. How cool was it that she was actually playing that venue then?

After the show, John, Don, Michael, Nicole and I found a little dive bar and had a few more beverages. They all got to witness my taste in jukebox tunes, but more importantly, my air guitar and Ann Wilson-esque vocal stylings along to "Barracuda." LOL Luckily, the evening ended before it got more out of hand than that.

Thanks to all of my short Patty-tour buddies...it was a lot of fun! Can't wait to see some of you in KoP this summer!

~M

[Arlene]

Thanks for the GREAT review Melissa. It was almost like being there.

[girlgoddess]

i also highly enjoyed your review of the show...it made me laugh a lot.

.r.

[garveygirl]

The show was great. I was at the meet-up too late (the tall blonde). Well - I met a few of you in front of the aw-pheum with my husband, then took off briefly and was called "Stupid" by a cab driver. (that really got my husband going). (and there were a lot of tall blondes a lot taller than me I couldn't believe it. I mean, over 6 feet??? Wow.

Anyway - I have to say again it was great except for that she did not play the songs I wanted her to. This is the first show of Patty's I have been to since my dear friend Laura passed away. She LOVED Patty. She played and sang many of her songs. Patty didn't play any of the songs Laura played. I am thinking this was her doing, since I don't think she would have wanted me to be upset at the show. Thanks Laura!!

Seats were great - I was smack dab in front of the microphone about 16 rows back. They beat the seats at Berklee. But I liked the show at Berklee a little better because of the song selection. I did notice she had a lot of energy - she was cute.

That's all from me!!

Ldog