As a fan of a wide variety of popular (and not-so-popular) music from the 1950s (and sometimes even earlier) up through the present, one of my bucket list projects for years has been to put together a list of my 100 favorite songs of all time. At some point I decided that, once I got around to figuring that out, I could put it out on a blog, for the infinitesimally small proportion of the Internet world that might be interested. So, here we are. While the Top 100 will be a major focus, I also plan to post on a variety of other musical (and occasionally non-musical) topics, in which you may or may not be interested. (If a particular posting doesn’t ring your bell, you’re only a few clicks away from a dancing cat video on YouTube.)

Thursday, February 4, 2016

Arlo Guthrie – Alice’s Restaurant 50th Anniversary Tour, Strathmore, 2/3/2016


If this sounds vaguely familiar, it’s because this is the second show we caught on the Guthrie “50th Anniversary” tour. (The first was almost exactly one year ago.) The tour is still going strong – nice crowd at Strathmore, two-sold out shows at the Birchmere coming up this weekend, plus one in Annapolis in May.
 
We had much closer seats this time (Row J, 116-117 – center section on the left aisle). The band continued to rock, especially on the classic “Coming Into Los Angeles”. Arlo’s daughter Sarah Lee Guthrie has recently been opening his shows; she did a 35-minute set leading off with “Catch The Wind” and including two originals plus songs by Woody Guthrie and Phil Ochs. She performed with the band, which was a bit of a mixed blessing, as a few of the more gentle tunes (“Catch The Wind” most notably) really aren’t meant for drums.
 
Consequently, Arlo’s section of the show was somewhat shorter than in Frederick. Both times he did two sets (coming on right after his daughter this time), but he dropped four songs from the show (including, unfortunately, “Darkest Hour”), while adding “St. James Infirmary”.

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