Richard Thompson Electric Trio w/ Robert Ellis, The Birchmere, 6/17/2015

Richard Thompson, great show, yada yada yada. Nothing particularly unusual about that. Over the past several years, most of the times I’ve seen him have been solo. One of the advantages of a band show such as this is that it lets him rock out more, spotlighting his electrifying (sorry) work on electric guitar as well as his superb acoustic work.

 

The credibility that Thompson has built up with his audiences over the years allowed him to trot out about half of the 12 songs on his new album Still (although it won’t be available for purchase until next week), including the first and third songs of the set. The best of the new tracks were the first single, “Beatnik Walking,” and the album-closing “Guitar Heroes,” during which Thompson plays in the style of everyone from Django Reinhardt to Chuck Berry.

 

Thompson also mixed in quite a few classics, including a stunning version of my all-time favorite, “Al Bowlly’s In Heaven.” Other highlights included “Tear-Stained Letter” (which ended the two-song first encore) and “Wall Of Death.” Thompson and band played for an hour and 45 minutes, and no one left feeling cheated.

 

Many of us hadn’t realized that Thompson would have an opening act: Robert Ellis, who performed several songs on acoustic guitar in a 30-minute opening set. The Texas-born Ellis struck me as a sensitive singer-songwriter with a bit of country twang in his voice, meaning that he seemed like an odd opening act for Thompson. The audience was reasonably appreciative, with the best crowd reaction coming from “TV Song.” (I found out later that he co-wrote “Steady As The Rising Sun,” which he also performed Wednesday night, with Taylor Goldsmith of Dawes.)

 

Traffic on the GW Parkway coming down was a mess due to an earlier accident – left Rockville at 3:30 (via Falls Road) and didn’t arrive until 4:45. Still got a reasonable line number (D66, with a starting point of D19) and sat at table 214, on the left about halfway back. Coming back, I heard on WTOP before I got too far that the northbound Parkway was completely closed due to an accident. (It was still closed when I got up this morning.) I followed the Google Navigation recommendation to take I-395 south and catch the Beltway at Springfield – seemed out of the way but worked well, getting home in under an hour. Tried the orange butter salmon from the specials menu, which was quite good.

What time is it? Time for some campaign dysfunction

Early last week, I received some material (including a bumper sticker!) in the mail from the Clinton presidential campaign. Since I knew that she was planning a major rally and speech on Saturday, I decided to wait to see how that went before deciding whether to make a contribution at this point.

 

On Friday morning, I thought I might watch the speech myself, assuming that it would be available live on the Internet, but didn’t know what time it was scheduled for. Figuring this would not be difficult to find out – the campaign would certainly want as many people as possible to watch this, correct? – I went to the official campaign web site. I was surprised that no time was listed, nor was there any such information on the campaign’s Facebook page. There was a reference to the speech being Livestreamed, so I went to the Livestream site and checked their listing of events for Saturday. Not there either.

 

Being nothing if not persistent, I tried again around 8:30 Saturday morning. The web site now had a large “LISTEN LIVE” arrow button, but still no information about the time. I went to Google News and searched for “Clinton campaign rally” – this produced a number of articles about the event, but nothing that gave a starting time. Tried the Livestream calendar again, still with no luck.

 

I finally went back to the campaign web site, and decided to see what would happen if I clicked the LISTEN LIVE button. Well, this brought up a page that promised, if I entered my email address and zip code, to send me a message when the live broadcast was about to begin.

 

I did not have any difficulty whatsover deciding NOT to give them my personal information in exchange for the “privilege” of knowing when their rally was going to start. I decided instead to award them my first (and perhaps only) “Most Clueless Campaign Move of the Week” award.

 

I will be returning the postpaid envelope they sent me earlier, but it will contain a copy of this blog entry rather than a campaign contribution.

Near-symmetry

With their loss yesterday afternoon, the Phillies reached a season-low 20 games under .500 (22-42). All signs point to that deficit getting worse – much worse – as the long summer continues in the City of Brotherly Love.

 

Meanwhile, their top minor-league club, the AAA Lehigh Valley IronPigs, has a record of 23-42, “only” 19 games under.

Whom did the Phillies outsmart by drafting Cornelius Randolph?

The Philadelphia Phillies pulled a mild surprise in last week’s baseball draft, selecting high school shortstop Cornelius Randolph with the #10 pick in the draft. After many years of unsuccessful high draft picks (Anthony Hewitt, Joe Savery et al), the Phils seem to have turned things around with their previous two top selections (J.P. Crawford and Aaron Nola). The Randolph selection appears to be popular in Philadelphia, with one columnist quoting the team’s area scout for Georgia as saying that Randolph has the “hitting gene.”

 

Outside of Philly, the pick was not met with universal acclaim. Randolph was listed as the 20^th-best draft prospect in Baseball America’s pre-draft review. Christopher Crawford of Baseball Prospectus wrote that he didn’t “understand this pick at all” and opined that Randolph would lack the power to be any more than a “second-division regular” at non-premium positions such as third base and left field. (The Phillies have indicated that they plan to move Randolph to left.)

 

Only time will tell, of course. It will be interesting to see how highly Randolph is regarded a few years down the road compared to other high-school bats that the Phillies passed over, such as catcher Tyler Stephenson and outfielders Garrett Whitley, Trent Clark, and Nick Plummer, all of whom were more highly rated by many analysts coming into the draft.

 

Did the Phillies outsmart the rest of baseball by picking Randolph, or did they outsmart themselves?

Weird Al Yankovic, Wolf Trap, 6/12/2015

Q: What do you get when a performer makes his entrance on video, winding up coming down one of the aisles through the audience (to the strains of “Tacky”)? When he (briefly) rides a Segway on stage? When he manages more costume changes than Madonna and Katy Perry ever dreamed of?

 

A: Must be a Weird Al Yankovic show. And the sellout crowd loved every minute of the two-hour spectacle.

 

I especially enjoyed the “acoustic set” in the middle, featuring “Eat It,” “I Lost on Jeopardy,” “I Love Rocky Road,” and “Like a Surgeon,” as well as the Star Wars-themed encore with “The Saga Begins” and “Yoda.” (The guy sitting next to me seemed to know every word to the former, which is done to the tune of Don McLean’s “American Pie.”) Other highlights included “Word Crimes” (the big hit from his most recent album), “Fat,” “White & Nerdy,” and Al’s extended foray into the crowd during “Wanna B Ur Lovr.” Many of the videos shown during Al’s costume changes were also hilarious, most notably a mock interview with Celine Dion. The four-piece band did an excellent job throughout. The music covered most of his career, going back to “Another One Rides The Bus”; the only omission that surprised me (given the latest sequel’s massive hype) was “Jurassic Park.”

 

The full setlist is available at setlist.fm.