This evening, I saw and heard Joan Osborne in concert at City Winery in Boston.
It was my second Joan Osborne concert. The first was 23½ years ago. The concert took place in September 2000 at the now defunct Avalon Ballroom on Lansdowne Street across from Fenway Park. The concert occurred around the time of the release of her second album Righteous Love. Osborne was five years removed from the success of her debut album Relish which included her best-known song "One of Us".
I absolutely relished Relish. My favorite song on the album is "Crazy Baby". During a pause in the show, people were shouting out requests. When I shouted, "Crazy Baby", Osborne paused and said, "You read my mind," and proceeded to play it to my absolute delight. After the show, I hung around on Lansdowne Street and managed to briefly meet her and informed her I was the one who read her mind.
Needless to say, much has changed from then to now. At the time of the first Joan Osborne concert, I had lived in Boston all of six months. Now, I've been here for more than 21 years despite the interregnum in New York and Atlanta. The Avalon was a hot club with a big standing room floor brimming with beautiful, young people in their 20's and 30's. City Winery is a supper club for middle aged people and senior citizens. While I don't think I'd be inclined to be in an Avalon like setting anytime soon, I had some issues with the banquet seating at City Winery almost a year ago today when Gilbert O'Sullivan performed. Fortunately, this was not as much of an issue tonight. The people around me were quieter. Also, there were fewer people in attendance. This probably owes to the fact it is a Sunday night and that the Oscars are airing.
Things have also changed with Joan Osborne. When I met her in 2000, she was 38-year-old single woman with two albums under her belt. In 2024, she is a 61-year-old single mother of a teenaged daughter with a dozen albums to her name. Before singing the title track of her latest album Nobody Owns You, Osborne said of her daughter, "She is smart, warm, funny and encouraging to everyone but me." She feared her daughter would never listen to her advice. While acknowledging that things are better for women in some respects, she lamented that women are still put in a position of having to look a certain way and not say anything to make anybody mad.
When Osborne performed at The Avalon nearly a quarter century ago, she had a full band. Tonight, she was joined by guitarist Jack Petruzelli and pianist Will Shine while she accompanied herself on acoustic guitar. Her set was relatively short - 13 songs including the encore. The set was a mix of material from the new album. Aside from the title track, she opened with "I Should've Danced More", "Woman's Work" and "Lifeline". She also performed two cuts from her 2020 album Trouble and Strife including the title track and "Whole Wide World", the latter of which was very catchy. There were two Bob Dylan covers ("Highway 61 Revisited" and "Gotta Serve Somebody"). The former appeared on her 2017 album Songs of Bob Dylan. A blues woman at heart, Osborne also sang Muddy Waters' "I Want To Be Loved".
Towards the end of her set she played three songs from Relish - "Pensacola", "St. Teresa" and, of course, "One of Us." Regarding "Pensacola", Osborne told the audience she had recently reintroduced it into her set with a new arrangement after a man contacted her on social media begging her to play the song. Osborne said that she had not performed the song in 15 years.
As I had after the 2000 concert, I met Osborne again. When I met her last time, she was outside her tour bus wearing a feather boa. Tonight, she signed autographs sporting a mask. Naturally, I told her the story the "Crazy Baby" story. Her reply was, "Well, don't make it another 24 years before you see me in concert." Only time will tell.
No comments:
Post a Comment