My second night with David Ford at Rockwood Music Hall. This night it was just rtb and me. The crowd was bigger. And joining David on stage was John Paul Ruggieri (sp?) on electric guitar on several of the songs. When David announced again that it had been ten years since his first US tour, it turned out there was a woman who had been at that first NYC show at the Living Room. David didn’t believe it because she was so young and she confessed that she had snuck in with a false ID.

This time I noticed there was no looping mic or electric keyboards. I was looking at the grand piano and wondering how they got it into the room. Did they knock out a wall? Did they place the piano on stage and then build the room around it? ‘Tis a mystery.

Just like the night before David got on stage with his guitar and started singing without a word but then he had a story for every song after that. David was just as friendly as he’d been the night before and we heard some more new songs along with familiar songs. And just like the night before, with the familiar songs, there was sometimes a different emphasis or David played with the words a bit as he was singing them. The intensity was still there but his voice played with lyrics in a different way. Some songs started a little slower than usual and then were brought up to speed or other music/lyrics were thrown in for some fun – “I got 99 problems but a bitch ain’t one” as part of “Pour a Little Poison.”

One of the new songs was about the economy – he said half the songs on the new album were about the economy and the other half were about the new baby. This one was written after his reading a lot about the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act. David asked if there were any economists in the audience and there was! The guy sitting in front of us did something with banking regulation, which excited David very much and he told the guy that they must talk after the show. The song had something to do with animal spirits – one of the books David had read linked economics with animal spirits. The song after that was another new song, which was a happier song.

I got chills during “Every Time” when he was leading up to and sang, “I choose this, motherfucker, and I’d choose it again.” And just like the night before we left happy and wanting more.

Set List

What Would You Have Me Do?
Pour a Little Poison
I Don’t Care What You Call Me
Stephen
To Hell with the World
Animal Spirits
New song (little hard luck and trouble made a man out of me)
Train
Requiem
The Ballad of Miss Lily
O’Sullivan’s Jukebox
Every Time

By Carene Lydia Lopez