Table 102, Seat 4 – front and center,
4-person table. Exactly the same seat I had when I saw
him in 2019.
It happens that Richard Thompson was the last
live show I saw (January 22, 2020) before the pandemic shut things down.
That was at the Birchmere, and Zara Phillips was there to provide backing
vocals on several of the songs. Going back to check, about half of the material
overlapped between that show and this one.
After striding on stage in his black beret/pants/short-sleeved
shirt, Thompson showed that he had lost nothing in terms of voice, guitar
artistry, or sense of humor. Only a few of the songs were from this century; most
came from his Fairport Convention days, his albums with then-wife Linda Thompson,
and his 1990s efforts on Capitol – for better or worse, he may have the record (pun
intended) for most labels for which an act has ever recorded. While the
audience reacted most enthusiastically to the classics “Beeswing” and “1952
Vincent Black Lightning”, as well as the singalongs on the up-tempo “Johnny’s
Far Away” (his “cruise” song) and “My Daddy Is A Mummy”, they also paid rapt
attention to the ballads, such as the show-closing “Dimming Of The Day”. Thompson
also paid tribute to the late Jeff Beck (prior to “Walking The Long Miles Home”)
and Sandy Denny (with his performance of her “Who Knows Where The Time Goes?”).
At one point he broke into a few bars of “Stewball”, after someone asked whether
he had any “horse-racing songs”.