Review and other tidbits from the Saturday, 2013-8-3 Justin Hayward “Spirits” tour at the Ram’s Head on Stage in Annapolis, MD:

THE SHOW: It was the same setlist as previously reported from the first night of the tour show near Pittsburgh on Friday 8/2. As before, Justin came out to introduce Mike Dawes and then Mike did several solo guitar pieces, with friendly banter to introduce them. He is an extraordinary talent on the guitar, and has quite a stage presence during his performance, almost seeming to be transported by the music and often playing with his eyes closed.

For me, the highlight of Mike’s role in the overall show was during “Nights,” when he performed an almost Spanish-guitar style riff to take over for the lack of Norda’s usual extraordinary flute solo. It was very different, and very well done, and lent a creative new touch to the song we all know so well. During the show, Mike alternated between electric and acoustic guitar but Justin was all acoustic, switching out to different acoustic guitars that were different from the ones we normally see on a Moodies tour.

Justin’s voice was incredibly strong and especially on the songs from the new “Spirits” CD, it was almost as if you were listening to a studio rendition instead of a live acoustic set in a small club setting. He was pretty relaxed, and became more so, as the evening progressed. Among the “Spirits” songs—of which there were six—the highlight for me was Eastern Sun. He performed it solo on stage, as Mike, Alan and Julie left the stage, and it was just the songwriter, his guitar, and his unique voice in the spotlight.

The treasures from the past that are unique to this solo tour were ‘It’s Up to You” and “Land of Make Believe,” which is one of my personal favorites. Justin seemed to take particular pleasure in doing ‘Make Believe’ and really put his heart into it.

It was a magical evening, despite a less than ideal venue. (more on that later)

CHATTER AND PATTER—Justin wove some of the commentary we’ve heard in interviews about “Spirits” into his introductions to the songs. He went into detail about the room he shared with his brother before “Western Sky” and had a few cute elaborations: the brothers tended to fight about things so their parents divided their room with “formica stuff down the middle” to try to keep them apart. The boys also had to share “the gramophone” and alternate which records to play.

“Seventh Sojourn” was a difficult time among the band members and was fraught with painful memories for him, “So I never listened to it.” But he decided to include some songs from it (“Make Believe” and “New Horizons”) on this tour.

“Eastern Sun” was written at a time when he was essentially “homeless,” moving from one apartment to another and with no real sense of a place he belonged, he said, and that feeling carried over into the song.

When Justin spoke about Nashville and the bluegrass community, Mike playfully played a little bit from the song in the ‘Deliverance’ movie, Dueling Banjos, and after a two second delay Justin piped in with the next little bit from the song. It seemed to be a funny, spontaneous moment (or maybe they had rehearsed it?)

The biggest laugh of the night came when Justin said a few words about what a nice venue it was, asked if the food was good (no, in my personal opinion) and a man called out “is this your first time here” and Justin replied with a grin, “I don’t know.” Justin also joked about how the band owned a record shop where people would come "for the great service, and then they'd go buy it cheaper at Woolworth's." 

THE TEAM—Julie and Alan are doing great work, essentially having to create the sounds of the full Moodies on the classic songs. Julie’s harmonies with Justin are great and she is really putting herself into providing some percussion touches given the lack of a drummer. Alan is joining in on backup vocals and seemed to be enjoying the show. On the intro to “Wildest Dreams” he seemed to jack up the synth part almost to the levels of disco excess from the Patrick days, but seemed to be doing it almost as a goof and Justin looked over at him with a smile. The rest of the song was in the more restrained style we’ve come to expect on stage these days.

Udo the tour director of the Moodies tours is back on this trip and he spoke with some fans outside the venue, where there were two tour buses and a little U-haul type trailer attached to the back, parked right on the brick-lined streets of old Annapolis. He said everyone is looking forward to the next cruise and the Divinia will be “much better” than the Poesia.

“David” appears to be the guitar tech for this tour and there were some glitches. At one point, Justin called him by name to come out and fix the strap on him because it was all twisted. At several points, after picking up a different guitar, Justin had to retune it and at one point complained that a battery on his lead pick-up was dead.

THE VENUE—The Ram’s Head is in a very old building and is not optimized for a concert of this sort. Posts block views, the aggressive servers keep moving around trying to hustle drink sales at tables during the show and then stand together chatting right in your sightlines. Every picture I took has part of a server’s head in it. I paid over $100 per ticket, after adding in their service fees on top of the $85 ticket price, and got shoved in a corner next to the servers’ protruding computer terminal to which they all trooped up during the show to enter orders. Beep, beep, beep computer noises punctuated the music on stage.

The crowd was pretty laid back, but in truth they had to be because if anyone stood, they would tumble into someone’s lap at the next table jammed into theirs. The greatest outpouring of excitement and reaction was to IKOTS, which was the last song of the show. ‘Question’ registered the second-biggest reaction, but it was much more restrained that the usual response at concerts by the full band that has everyone standing and singing along.

Sorry to go on and on, but I know some of you who won’t be able to attend any of the solo shows are looking for any and all information.

Edited 1 time by Swindon Sal 08/04/13 09:22:34.