Shows/John Linnell/2000-02-23

2 wikians attended: Arbitropia Zaph

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Setlist:

• The Songs Of The 50 States
• South Carolina
• Maine
• Idaho
• North To Alaska
• Utah
• New Hampshire
• Mississippi
• Arkansas
• Oregon
• Iowa
• Pennsylvania
• Nebraska
• Montana
• Michigan

Encore:

• California Über Alles
• West Virginia

John Linnell
The Black Cat in Washington, DC
February 23, 2000

Fan Recaps and Comments:

I just got back from seeing John L. and The Statesmen at The Black Cat in Washington, DC.

Best comment of the night - "We're not really in any State right now, are we? So we can can speak freely tonight."

Set List - as far as I can tell, the same as the other State shows.

Attendence - about 100. I, for the first time ever, stood right against the stage - in front of Dan, and often John, who moved into that position from time to time.. Anyone ever notice how shy Dan is? I think it would kill him to make eye contact with the audience. John, on the other hand, looked at everyone and often grinned as if he saw something hilarious.

Favorite musical moment - Mark playing the solo chromatic bass line in Oregon. It was amazing to hear how that was able to imply all the chords that would normally be harmonizing at that point.

Overall performance - first rate and highly enjoyable. I would have paid more than the $10.00 ticket price to see this show.

Observation that is news to no one - John doesn't really like his audiences, does he? After walking up to the mike, saying "Hi," and having everyone say "Hi" back to him, he says "I was just checking the monitor. That wasn't actual conversation." Comments from the audience were met at one point with "I have ear plugs in my ears. I can't hear you," even though I could see that he wasn't wearing ear plugs. One thing that annoyed me somewhat is that he ended several songs by saying "Thank you" before anyone had started to applaud. It's a small detail like that that suggests to me that he was on auto-pilot. I have a suspicion that if he could make a good living without having to actually do live performances, it would be a dream come true for him. There's nothing wrong with that. The Beatles certainly felt that way in 1966.

J. D. Mack