Saturday Night is Not Quite Dead Yet!! Graham Parker and The Rumour's Return

Last night in Tarrytown, Graham Parker and the Rumour, reunited after 30 or so years, opened their new tour, debuting live the material from their new album Three Chords Good, plus a big beautiful pile of old classics. With no aspersions cast on his recent backing band, Saratoga's 2nd finest, The Figgs, seeing him with the Rumour was a revelation. Do yourself a favor and see them perform if you can. I really enjoyed watching these old hands in action.

Boys are back in Town---Tarrytown!

Well despite the title of this blog post, they did not perform Saturday Night is Dead, my lone regret. There were regrets around me that he did not perform "I Want You Back", the Jackson 5 nugget. As much as I love his take on it, with the number of fantastic songs he's penned, it would have felt to me like a novelty song, in all honesty.

Though small in stature, Graham Parker has a huge voice and charisma--he seemed to get bigger and bigger, growing to behemoth size as the night progressed. The band was tight as could be expected after all this time, though collaborating on a new album surely must have helped their timing. Excluding Graham, there were at least three original Rumours, Stephen Goulding on drums, Brinsley Schwarz and Martin Belmont on guitars.

No warmup band. Little disappointed because I'm often surprised about warmups. At Tarrytown I've seen Tift Merritt, John Wesley Harding, Duke Robillard, Cash Brothers, The Acorn, Chris Smither...

Oh, yeah, and Graham Parker.

I saw him in a warmup capacity in Tarrytown, performing solo, supporting his recent album Imaginary Television. Seemed like a real gent, very funny. It was the first time I've seen him live.





He is an artist I've always identified with greatly, loved his songwriting, and emotional soulful singing. And as a young man, all the anger. Seeing him live many years later, I choose not to see him as the artist "formerly known as an Angry Young Man", but rather a mature adult man who merely makes more efficient use of  his anger. I'm sure he is aware of the perils of climate change.



Yeah,I couldn't have been happier to see Graham and Co, short of hopping in a time machine back to 1980, which technology we haven't quite worked out yet. I guess what is amazing is that it was the entire Rumour backing him. As I said before Graham was in fine voice, and I was surprised that he played a few songs that occurred between the bookends of the era of the Rumour, and a few from prior which was less surprising. And seeing them live finally, I have to say, Stephen Goulding is a remarkable drummer, incredibly fluid, setting beats in interesting ways. With Andrew Bodnar, a great rhythm section. Martin Belmont was particularly excited to be back, jumping up and down with enthusiasm, which I thought was great. Brinsley Schwarz was also superb,laying down riffs and leads like a consummate pro. Bob Andrews was particulary impressive on keyboards....wish I could play like that.

Though I have not purchase the new album, Three Chords Good, which was released a little over a week ago, what I heard last night impressed me. Maybe not quite on the level of his best work, but there is little to no discernible drop in quality. People were not walking out to use the bathroom or make a phone call during the songs. Probably more like the music prior to Squeezing Out Sparks.
Overall they mixed it up pretty well, promoting the new one plus paying homage to the older material. He started his set with Fool's Gold, saving most of the Squeezing out Sparks material for the second half and the two encores. He played Protection, Passion is no Ordinary Word, Discovering Japan, You Can't Be Too Strong, Local Girls from SOS. Also Don't Ask Me Question, Soul Shoes, from Howling Wind, and Start a Fire from Mona Lisa's Sister. Rumor has it, the band is featured in the new Judd Apatow comedy This is 40. So this is a big year for Graham Parker. I have to say it was a real blast to see Graham Parker and the Rumour live. Don't pass up the opportunity to see them--You Won't Regret It!!!!