Another great performance by Joe on Sunday night! My third Joe concert and now I'm beginning to feel like an old-timer! Bought six tickets for the show including two front row seats. Deposited my kids and two of their friends in the four fifth row seats while one of the dads and I proceeded on to the front. And what front row seats they are at the Brady ... you're so close to the stage you can actually rest your cup of beer on it (of course, with security sitting directly to my right, I placed mine carefully under my seat). However, the downside for us was that our seats were located in the far right corner of the stage directly in front of a bank of enormous speakers that scared the bejesus out of me when I realized what it was! In fact, my right ear was no more than three feet away from that monster! Luckily, I'd had the good sense to purchase a pair of cheap ear plugs ("just in case") at Larsen Music in OKC on Saturday, and this turned out to be the best $5 investment I've ever made. The show started "late" a few minutes after 8 with Joe entering from stage left with a broad smile on his face, smartly clad in jacket, jeans, and loafers. He then launched into Cradle Rock which should have been very familiar to everyone in my group since I'd regaled them on the 90-plus mile drive up to Tulsa from Edmond by playing Joe's A New Day Yesterday, Live CD. The set list appeared to have been the same as the one posted for the Albuquerque show (sans "Blue and Evil"). The highlights of the show for me were "So Many Roads" (this Joe staple, with its soulful lyrics and soaring guitar solos definitely grabs your attention and sets the tone for the rest of the show), Slow Train, and Young Man Blues (great chemistry between Joe, Tal, and Carmine!). Halfway through the show, Joe reminded the crowd that the last time he played the Brady ten years ago, he was billed not by name but as " ... and support!" Joe's shy, good-natured banter is always well-appreciated by his audience and he could probably do a bit more of it.
Truth be told though, the sound was a bit distorted where I was sitting, probably due to my being seated directly in front of the speakers with plugs in my ears! Since the chances of me ever landing front-row seats again to see Joe in concert are vanishingly slim, I tried to take advantage of my prime location by shooting lots of pics with my Canon point-and-shoot and hoping for the best. Seated as I was on the right side of the stage, I enjoyed a somewhat different perspective of things than if I'd been sitting in a more central location, including a lot of the left side of Joe's face! However, I did manage to squeeze off a few decent shots. After the show was over, I asked my hitherto less-than-enthusiastic 17 year-old daughter what she thought of it. Her grudging reply was, "Some parts were good". Yeah, right! My daughter's opinion notwithstanding, I know that my son and the other two boys really enjoyed the show, especially the show-stopping "Woke Up Dreaming" (this song earned Joe a standing ovation). In fact, they couldn't stop raving afterwards about Joe's amazing "fretwork"!
Anyway, it was another tremendous performance by Joe and here are a few pics that commemorate the experience ... enjoy!
https://picasaweb.google.com/1074511917 … JSz_9jZMQ#
