(TV) Richard at TT the Bears, Boston

[Ty Burr <tyburr@mindspring.com>]

Just got back. One of the stranger concerts I've been to. (Leo, where  
you there? I looked for you but only saw people with clothes).

Richard and his band -- three young guys -- come on at midnight and  
proceed to chant the mantra of the Buddha of compassion (Om mane  
padme hum) for several minutes, sounding like Tuvan throat singers.  
The 20 or so people in front of the stage are respectful/indulgent,  
the folks at the bar chatter on. Richard then announces he will say  
the Lord's Prayer in Aramaic, the way Jesus knew it, but first he  
needs complete silence throughout the club.

No dice; the bar crowd just keeps talking. He says if he doesn't get  
silence, there'll be no concert. Pause. He walks off the stage. A  
weird five minutes of waiting, then he comes back and asks for  
complete silence again, which is greeted by invective by some  
assholes in the back. Us assholes in the front tell the assholes in  
the back to shut the fuck up. The mood's getting tense, even ugly.  
Richard, looking flat-out exhausted, launches into a harangue about  
people who refuse to honor a simple, sincere request for a moment of  
silence, insists that their karma will come back to bite them on the  
ass and somehow ends up blaming them for the war in Iraq. This has  
the unintended result of shocking everyone into speechlessness, which  
gives him the chance to do his Aramaic Lord's Prayer thing. Takes  
about a minute. That out of his system, he kicks into a very loud,  
very satisfying hour and a half of music.

Set list is a mix of new songs -- titles are things like "Monkey" and  
"Amnesia," and there's one about the people on the planes on 9/11;  
they're all very muscular and hooky, wouldn't be out of place on "The  
Cover Doesn' Matter" -- and songs off "Field of Fire." "Pleading" is  
everything I want it to be and the "Field of Fire" finale is  
stretched out beautifully. Richard's guitar playing throughout is  
tremendous, fluid. confident, if not exploratory; the band's  
supportive, it's his show. His voice is wrung out, though, and he  
sings most of the songs an octave below the recorded versions, the  
bass player doubling him on the high parts.

Every so often he introduces "Jamie Neverts," an alter ego whose  
express purpose, it seems, is to play Hendrix covers. "Purple Haze,"  
"Axis Bold as Love/Are You Experienced," and a Hendrix soundalike  
tune ensue. At one point he talks in the voice of Neverts, sounding  
like a country galoot.

The final encore tune, one I don't recognize, oddly features Richard  
on harmonica but not guitar. The whole evening feels off-kilter and  
vaguely hostile in a way he seems quite comfortable with, but the  
music speaks louder and more consistently. A good night, all in all,  
with doubters silenced.

Ty
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