Richard Thompson, 1991

Cafe Society
1

I may or may not have posted here about one of my favorite concerts ever, but either way here it is: back in the 80s/early 90s my wife and I lived on Lowest Greenville in Dallas and would occasionally catch shows at Poor David’s Pub, which was a little larger than a real pub but not by very much. We were also big Richard Thompson fans, and so when he scheduled two performances there we made a date night of it and got tickets to the early show.

The great thing about Poor David’s was that when a second show didn’t sell out, they’d let you hang around for it…as a result, almost everyone tended to buy tickets to the early show and very few for the second (I’m not sure what the economic model for that was, but it can’t have been all that great). And sure enough there were maybe a dozen people in line for the late performance, and they were squeezed into the club, which had IIRC fewer than a hundred people in attendance. So we stayed, and it was a terrifically intimate show that ran something like 3 hours. [It also featured, during the intermission, Thompson’s wife (who was really nice) handing out brochures for some kind of travel tours she ran.]

I describe all this because tonight it randomly occurred to me that the setlist must be out there on the interwebs somewhere, and I went looking for it…and instead found that someone had taped the entire show! I’m listening to it right now, and what an unbelievable flashback it’s turning out to be. SO happy to have found this.

Anyway, if you’re an RT fan it’s worth a listen, as the sound is great and it captures him more than two decades ago.

Here by the way is the setlist and a description of how the guy managed to tape the show; spoiler boxed because the html is messed up:

[spoiler]Richard Thompson <�br>Poor David’s Pub <�br>Dallas, Texas <�br>February 22, 1991 <�br> <�br>Best Richard Thompson show ever. Solo shows. Both Early and Late Shows complete. Two completely different sets. 40 Songs. Over 3 hours. Stellar sound.
I went to the club around 5pm to buy a ticket. RT was soundchecking (The Who’s “I Can’t Explain,” among others) to an empty room. The club was tiny and I was a bit nervous about taping, so after the soundcheck, I decided to boldly go up and ask the guy if I could tape his show. After several minutes of arm twisting, he finally said “If you must.”

Notes - No idea what title of last song of first set is. Slight cut at beginning of Not Fade Away. Probably a battery change. This is an upgrade over any previous version, but there is probably very few copies of this floating around. <�br> <�br>Sony 959 mic>Aiwa DAT>ProTools (for eq, level adjustment, compression, and song separation)>Flac <�br> <�br>Taped and mastered by JB. Please don’t sell or convert to lossy format. <�br> <�br> <�br>CD 1 (73:34) <�br> <�br>Early Show Part 1 <�br> <�br>1. Mystery Wind <�br>2. Vincent Black Lighting 1952 <�br>3. Shoot Out The Lights <�br>4. Two Left Feet <�br>5. God Loves A Drunk <�br>6. Jerusalem On The Jukebox <�br>7. Pharaoh <�br>8. Now That I Am Dead <�br>9. She Moves Through The Fair <�br>10. I Feel So Good <�br>11. Al Bowlly’s In Heaven <�br>12. Wall Of Death <�br>13. Waltzing’s For Dreamers <�br>14. Valerie <�br> <�br> <�br>CD 2 (64:33) <�br> <�br>Early Show Part 2 <�br> <�br>Early Show Encore <�br>1. Down Where The Drunkards Roll <�br>2. ???[maserschmidt: I haven’t gotten to this yet, but I’m guessing Ca Plan Pour Moi]<�br>----------------------------------------------------------------- <�br> <�br>Late Show Part 1 <�br> <�br>3. I Misunderstood <�br>4. She Twists The Knife Again <�br>5. How Will I Ever Be Simple Again <�br>6. Turning The Tide <�br>7. Beat The Retreat <�br>8. A Bone Through Her Nose <�br>9. Ghost In The Wind <�br>10. Read About Love <�br>11. Soap Opera Improv <�br>12. Meet On The Ledge <�br>13. When The Spell Is Broken <�br>14. How Many Times <�br> <�br> <�br>CD 3 (52:12) <�br> <�br>Late Show Part 2 <�br> <�br>1. Woman Or A Man? <�br>2. Bogie’s Bonnie Belle <�br>3. Jennie <�br>4. Tear Stained Letter <�br>5. Not Fade Away <�br>6. Unknown Instrumental <�br>7. Devonside <�br>8. Motherless Children <�br>9. Psycho Street <�br>10. Can’t Win <�br>11. Bloodshot Eyes <�br>----------- <�br>12. The End Of The Rainbow[/spoiler]

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Thanks for posting this. RT is one of my favorite performers. I’ll have to give it a listen when I have three hours to spare.

3

I’ll give it a listen. The first time we heard him was in the '80s when he was on a joint bill in Princeton with Roger McGuinn, both solo. We’d never really heard of him (this was right after Amnesia came out) He was so great that we went right out and bought all his CDs. He is just awesome live. There are quite a few concert albums, maybe bootlegs, that we have.

4

Thanks for the link! Introduced to him by my girlfriend. Still working my way through all his catalog.

5

The linked article in the OP’s link is hilarious. I’m assuming that the part about dragging his dad out of his hospital bed to take him to a Richard Thompson show is as tongue-in-cheek as the rest of the article, but it reminds me of a similar situation I found myself in many years ago. It was probably 1999 or 2000 - RT was touring with the full band in support of “Mock Tudor”, and I had a pair of tickets to the show here in town. The day of the show, my stepdaughter had a severe asthma attack and my wife and I spent several hours with her in the emergency room. As show time drew nearer and nearer, I’m ashamed to admit that I kept trying to think of some way that I could get out of the ER and get to the show. It never happened - I wound up having to eat those tickets, and missed what was apparently a fantastic show. (At the end of the year it showed up on many local music critics’ “top ten shows of the past year” list.)

6

Just a request for future threads: Don’t EVER title a thread with just a name and a date!

After seeing the PSH thread, I had a momentary horrified thought that Richard had died, too!

Bad Maserschmidt!