Simone Felice & Josh Ritter - ABC Music Deli, 13 July 2012

This was a pretty phenomenal tour and I'm really glad to have seen their show at The Corner. Sadly Josh Ritter hasn't been back since then and I was in Sydney to see Wilco when Simone Felice played a solo show.

This is a performance and discussion they did for ABC radio during the tour. It's a nice little sampler for anyone unfamiliar with their work. The only thing that would have made it better is if they'd sung something together as they did at the shows. Finally, although the comment at the end of the main set makes it sound as if there are a few bonus songs available, the only one I could find is Charade. Not sure if that's because there weren't any others or they've been taken down.

New York Times
Folk Bloodbath
Scarecrow
The Temptation of Adam
One More American Song
Change of Time
Charade [Bonus]

https://mega.co.nz/#F!8J8ARITa!IN_Q8Uwl_CVxX14qWfEr5w

Simone Felice - 11 July 2012, Corner Hotel

Like I said in the previous post, going into this show I didn't know too much about Simone Felice.  I've got all the Felice Brothers albums he was involved in, but nothing from his time after that.  Given that I was a bit uncertain about whether to go to this show, but the fact it was cheap and Josh Ritter was opening sold it for me.  I'm glad I went.

For a start, Felice's solo (and the Duke and the King) material is great. Plus an artist of his stature doesn't usually have a band of this quality, simply because musicians as talented as these ones are usually snapped up by bigger (read higher paying) acts.  But somehow he's got them.

Felice is also pretty engaging, talking to the crowd between most songs.  Sometimes this can drag, but he managed to get the mix of earnestness and humour about right (ending the relatively serious introduction to You and I Belong with the MC5-esque 'hit it motherfuckers'.  My only real complaint was that, while singalongs are great, they were a bit too concentrated in the encore.  Moving one of those songs to mid-set would have helped things flow a bit better.  It might not be so noticeable here because the set went for about 40 minutes longer than scheduled, which meant my recording ran out part way through the penultimate song.  Normally I don't bother putting up incomplete recordings, but the quality of this set justifies it.

As regular readers will know, I've got a bit of a thing about talkative crowds, but (as for Josh Ritter) the crowd here were generally pretty good.  The only other thing to note is that I've cut out a section after Union Street.  Someone at the front collapsed and there was a bit of break while they made sure he was ok (credit to Simi Stone and Simone for jumping down to help him out).

New York Times
You and I Belong
Famous
Charade
Shaky
Scarecrow
Gimme All You Got
Summer Rain
One More American Song
Union Street
Radio Song
I Shall Be Released (with Josh Ritter)

Wish You Were Here
Atlantic City
Helpless (with Josh Ritter on backing vocals)
Knockin' on Heaven's Door (with Josh Ritter) - not recorded

http://www.mediafire.com/?bybylrdlvfj66