It's late and I just got home from the show in Syracuse. I had a true Bruce moment!! I
arrived a little before 6 and parked near the tour bus. I noticed Bruce coming out of the
bus and going into what appeared to be a side entrance to Styleen's. As any fan
would do next, I followed him! But it wasn't a side entrance that he went in. There's a
tobacco shop of some kind and when I turned to my left, there was Bruce, looking at
cigar boxes. I pretended to look around in the store, and eventually got the courage
up to say hello. I told him what a big fan I was, etc. and then asked if Dialogue was in
the setlist for that evening. he said as of yet, nothing was. I told him I'd love to hear it
or words to that effect, and then left him alone. Anyway, during the show, he
mentions that he ran into a fan in one of the shops who asked for Dialogue. I yelled
out "Thank you, Bruce!!" It was great.
A quick note about the setlist. When I looked at it before the
show, it looked like Lovers was on it to be played after Dialogue during the encores.
He played Tequila in lieu of lovers. Pehaps someone else can verify.
Styleen's Rhythm Palace is a good bar with a large
selection of micro-brews
in the nicely developed downtown Syracuse Armory district.
It has a small
soundstage but excellent sound. Bruce has played the venue
twice, solo
acoustic last year and last night with his 3-piece band.
Interestingly,
there really hasn't been any other artist of his stature
that has played the
club, which suggests that maybe he knows the owners or
something. Or maybe he just likes it, who knows.
The band filled the entire stage and around 200 people were
in attendance.
Not overly crowded by any means, but several friends that I
haven't seen
since last year's show were there again & glad to see that
he had brought a
band and his electric guitar.
Bruce played 2 sets as he has done most of the year. Lord
of the Starfields
was a great opener, and Candy Man's Gone was another first
set highlight.
Down To the Delta was a tremendous jam and probably the
best song of the
set. Bruce's guitar solos & Steve's bass solo drew
excellent response from
the crowd and overall this far exceeded the studio version.
The second set highlight was by far Feast Of Fools. A
great, fairly obscure
(except for this year) song with Bruce really smoking on
lead guitar. Night
Train could have used the electric leads heard on the
studio version, but
Bruce played acoustic on it. Call It Democracy was good as
always & you
can't go wrong with Last Night Of The World.
Bruce introduced the first encore, Dialogue With The Devil,
by saying that
someone he met earlier in the day while walking around the
Armory area shops
has requested it, or hoped that it wouldn't happen, he
wasn't quite sure.
But he played a great version anyway. Then he played some
great surf guitar
on an instrumental song I guess is called Tequila, as the
crowd shouted that
out at certain points in the song. Then came Blueberry
Hill which I wasn't
that pysched to see, but found myself singing it today, so
it must been
good. Kind of wondering why he chose to cover that song &
who he is
referencing in the lines "though we're apart, you're part
of me still".
Great show. Definitely a tour to see him on.