I thought I was about done talking about Last Train Home on this site, but I got all a-fluttery on Saturday. While the band does it new intensive touring thing, the 'Iota Weekend' was a bit more of a personal thing, looking for little nuanced changes that seemed gossipy and not worth writing about. So how cool is it that Alan Brace stepped up and clinched the night (On Saturday). Now we adore Alan, though I don't know how much I've written about him in the past. He heart wrenching cover of "These Little Things" - the Patsy Cline standard and likewise with Bob Dylan's "Song to Woody". His voice is fantastic and he's got the emotion to really break your heart, but oh mi god, he just opened up on the song in the title here, "A Whole Lota Shakin' goin' on." As you can see a kind of Sun record tribute night brought some new material to the stage which was excellent. (And note to self: Bill Williams did a version of Buddy Hacket doing "Shapoopie" from the Music Man that was a non-sequitur to end all non-sequiturs).
"Walls of Time" is one of my favorite songs ever, (up there with Phil Ochs "The Highwayman" and the posthumously recorded "Remember the Mountain Bed" by Woody Guthrie). I am not a purist, I love LTH's arrangement and I love that I can save my voice now at shows because other people will groupie-scream for it, it's caught on like "It Doesn't Matter". I am getting off on a tangent though. The first time I heard this song was at a show with Lee Wilhoit sitting in for Alan. Lee is a crazy mofo on stage and he runs away with the vocals, forget harmony, he goes for broke and plows over Eric. That's when their version of "Walls" truly rocks, totally transcends. Well after channeling the spirit body of Elvis, Alan through complete happenstance, I think, managed to take "Walls of Time" over Lee style without even realizing it. For what ever reason, finally, finally, finally, Alan Brace while on the second mike took over the vocal, the fact that Alan has the aforementioned heart wrenching je ne sais quoi gives him a bit of an edge on Lee too. For whatever reason is how it should be on this song. Eric's voice just does not carry on "Walls of Time", so much so that on their recent CD, Time and Water the "Walls of Time" track was a let down to me and my compadres. Lee Wilhoit sings on the CD, but the tracking on Lee's voice is not prominent enough, not loud enough, not there enough, of course there are others that look at me cockamamie when I mention this.
God forbid anyone in the band actually reads this, someday please plant a seed for a re-issue of that track with the vocals remastered or retracked with Eric (Um, cough cough-hesitant pause) on backup. (Smile) Just on this one song, I swear.
Oh, one more thing. Kevin Cordt was not there to play trumpet so Chris Watling bought the barri-sax along which went awful well on "Walls of Time" too. And while I'm at it, dude needs a remote mike for his accordion NOW! If he's going to keep bringing it to LTH home shows. Bye.
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