Well, Zevon came to Boston and I almost missed it. If it hadn't been for my girlfriend Kelly, who makes me listen to the radio in the car rather then my voluminous collection of tapes, then I never would have heard about The River's (WZRV) benefit concert headlined by Mr. Zevon himself. It was also because of Kelly that Zevon waved at us. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
It was a dark and stormy night. A substantial amount of people fought their way through the rain and chill to the House of Blues in Harvard Square to catch this 8:00 show billed as a benefit for WXRV. The tix didn't lie either; they said the show started at 8:00 and when we arrived at 8:20 after a nice Mexican meal, Juliana Hatfield was already in the midst of her set. She played a collection of pop rock tunes that featured some nice Matthew Sweet-ish guitar and bouncy rhythms. I enjoyed her music even though I don't know any of her songs (other then, of course, her classic Spin the Bottle). However, I couldn't hear Juliana's vocals at all. Whether or not this was due to poor sound mixing or, as she announced towards the end of her set, her cold, I couldn't tell you.
In either case, one of the high points of the evening for myself came when I happened to catch sight of Warren checking out the set up of the stage from a balcony in the back of the room. Due to the amount of colorful memorabilia cluttering the walls and ceiling of the cramped House of Blues, this balcony is not immediately apparent, so no one else had noticed him. After checking him out for a minute (he's one suave dude), I pointed him out to my girlfriend Kelly who asked "can he see us?" and excitably waved at him. He gave us a quick wave back before heading out, which gave us a small thrill its always nice when someone you admire connects personally with you (no matter how small the connection).
Anywho, Zevon came on shortly and started off on the piano with Excitable Boy. Not my favorite of his tunes, but I did enjoy it when he played the "made a cage with her bones" verse entirely in the high keys. He was in a good mood all evening, making several jokes that even won Kelly (a non-Zevon fan, god save her) over, saying at one point, "So this is a radio deal, huh? That means that you all won tickets? Well, I've got some bad news for you: I'm not Bryan Adams." Then, alluding to Juliana Hatfield's sickness, said he'd met her upstairs, shook her hand and rubbed his eye, making the next song (Don't Let Us Get Sick) aptly appropriate. Another funny moment came when he asked the audience for requests. Ignoring my requests for Detox Mansion (I love it when he solos over his guitar loops) he launched into Searching for a Heart, saying: "Bet you weren't expecting that!"
Overall, it was a great (if short) show that got a fantastic reaction. After working the crowd up during Excitable Boy, people calmed down during Seminole Bingo, a song nobody appeared to know. (This didn't bother me so much since the crowd silence meant that we could savor that rich baritone without distractions.) However, by the end of the show (and especially after the solo on Poor Poor Pitiful Me) the crowd was behind him 100%, a fact that seemed to surprise the radio personality that came on afterwards to point us towards the merchandise. My only complaints are with the venue (it was very crowded with several very tall folks down front) and the brevity of his set.
The set list (perhaps minus one or two) was:
(On piano)
Excitable Boy
Seminole Bingo
Don't let us get Sick
Roland
(On guitar)
Searching for a Heart
Boom Boom Mancini
Lawyers, Guns, and Money
Poor Poor Pitiful Me (solo over guitar loops)
(After a quick break, back to the piano)
For my next trick I'll need a volunteer
Werewolves o London
This review originally was inspired by and appeared on a private Warren Zevon fan page. Thanks for the bootleg!
© Todd Meigs
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