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Somebody Loves You Yellow Cab Before She Was Gone Jane Doe Sacrifice Drive Where Is My Soul I Don't Mind At All The One Sure Thing Minutes Slipping Past Don't Hold Me Back Across The Universe Cliché
Click here for some great photos of this gig by Jennifer Salyer.
Review by SueW:
And out of all of those, I thought that this was musically the best set of his that I've seen!
However I wasn't 100% "fullfilled" though. Even though Kasim had over a month off before the start of this tour, I wasn't surprised that he didn't play any of his new songs in his first gig at The Bitter End two weeks ago. However, although people said it was a great show, I was disappointed when I heard the set list for his Tin Angel gig last week as he only had two of his own new songs on the list and he only played one anyway! Just this week he posted that he works every single day so considering Quid Pro Quo was released 4 years ago in September, I was disappointed that he's not playing 5 or 6 of his own new songs. Granted at times he's been working a lot with other artists this past 4 years but there's a lot down time on the road (for example during the European leg of the Meat Loaf tour last year he was only playing weekends) and for several months he mainly just played in Movin' Out so that only took matter of hours each week!
Kasim has added a few new cover songs to his set list this tour but in February he said on stage at The Tin Angel that that would be the last time we'd be hearing those songs he played then and yet at his first two gigs on this tour he trotted out Libertine and There Goes My Inspiration again despite recording 6 studio albums with Utopia and recording dozens of songs with them that he could have chosen.
Despite all that, and getting back to what we had at The Saint instead of what I was expecting, I have to say that the shows which Kasim is playing at the moment are brilliant! Hearing him fronting a band with two other guys on guitar and someone singing background vocals for him, is something that is really magical!
The Saint in Asbury Park is quite easy to miss but I spotted it from the well-lit tattoo parlour next door which I remembered from Kasim's gig here in 2001! Getting in was another problem as both I and a guy in front of me walked past the door the first time as there was nothing to say it was the entrance. The other door was locked but someone outside pointed us back to the first door. The thing that first struck me was how small the place was! My memory of it from 2001 was that it was 4 times smaller than I recalled! It's probably about half the size of The Tin Angel.
The website only said that the doors opened at 8.00pm (as did the recorded telephone message) so I got there at about 8.30pm and there weren't many people there at all. Just before Kasim took the stage we had a quick count and could only see about 25 people who paid to get in, and not all of them were there to see Kasim (like the guy who arrived just before me). This low crowd audience has happened on Kasim's other tours and I find it so disappointing that there's been so little publicity yet again when Kasim's playing so well. I appreciate that the tour was put on relatively late but the last concert of The New Cars Tour was 7 weeks ago now (with some fans reporting that they knew before then that the tour was going to be cancelled) so there's been sufficient time to get print press for this show now. Three gigs in and all there's been is promotion on the Internet and that's an area that Kasim has never had a problem getting word out about his gigs.
Some people told me that they'd arrived about an hour earlier and there'd been no sign of anyone attaneding the SoundCheck Package so I don't know if it didn't happen (it was advertised for this gig) or whether it was very early.
At about 8.45pm a trio took the stage whose name I never did catch. They consisted of a guy singing with an acoustic guitar, a female background singer and another lady on a double bass. Next we had two guys called Crash and Burn who sang an acoustic set of a selection of their own songs. During their set another guy joined them and he played a guitar with the strings face up with metal thimbles which gave it a great sound.
Kasim came on stage at about 10.00pm and played for about an hour and a quarter. This was my first time of seeing Dennis DelGaudio playing with him and he made a massive difference to the songs! It's a case of three parts being greater than the sum of the whole (or whatever the saying is!). I still remember being amazed at Arlene's Grocery at how great Kasim's solo set was and then when Doug Kennedy started playing with Kasim in August 2001, he lifted the set massively and now with the three of them (especially with Dennis singing background vocals), it's raised his set to a whole new level! Dennis only sang on a few songs (most memorably on Yellow Cab) so hopefully he'll join in on even more as the tour progresses.
The set list was similar to Kasim's first 2 gigs (only Cliché was an addition) so he started with Nik Kershaw's Somebody Loves you which is a great opener. I've said it before but it's so true that Kasim always picks cover songs which really suit his voice and this song certainly does. Somebody Loves You was just Kasim and Doug and then Dennis joined them for the rest of the set. Kasim introduced them immediately and called Doug his security blanket which I thought was a nice touch!
The second song was Yellow Cab. I was never overkeen on that song when it was on KasimSulton.com (partly as I was hoping for a Kasim-penned song and partly as my computer didn't play it too well!) but live it is a brilliant song and the arrangement they play really suits Kasim's voice perfectly again! Dennis sang some great vocals in this (especially a lot of Do-do-d-do-do's) and his voice blends really well with Kasim's. That was the song which was constantly going round in my head on my drive home tonight!
Next we had Before She Was Gone and the three guitars really lift this song. When Kasim opened Meat Loaf concerts, he sometimes played this song with keyboards and drums but I think this version sounds a lot better.
Kasim then said that some people had come a long way to see this gig. He joked that people had come from places like Redbank, New Jersey before saying that two Meat Loaf fans (Eva and Tamara) had travelled all the was from Germany for the gig and for Meat Loaf's concert last night! Kasim said that he always liked to see Eva in the front row at the Meat Loaf concerts and thanked her for coming tonight. Also, apparently I wasn't the only English person in the small audience tonight as Kasim said that there was someone there from London too! I doubt there will have been many gigs at The Saint when people from Europe make up nearly 20% of the audience!
Next Kasim played his second Nik Kershaw song of the evening, Jane Dow, (complete with a big sigh in the middle which obviously made Dennis laugh!). It's not a song that immediately grabbed me at The Bitter End but now that I've listened to it several times, it's really effective in this acoustic setting.
One thing which was very noticeable at The Bitter End gig was that Kasim didn't chat too much between his songs. That was probably due to the time restraint but that's always a great feature of Kasim's gigs. Sometimes he'll have some patter all ready but other times he'll just chat to the audience. This happened a couple of times in the set tonight - once about how he got suspended for a couple of days from school and also at this point in the show when someone in the audience was talking about his album Kasim not being available on iTunes! Kasim did say that he couldn't just sit and chat to the guy during his set....and then proceeded to do so! Eventually they got round to playing Sacrifice and this was a great performance as they played it very much like the Quid Pro Quo version with Doug Kennedy doing some amazing guitar work in the middle of it!
Next Kasim spoke about playing with The New Cars and said that he really enjoyed the tour up until the time the tour was cancelled. Kasim said tat they're going to reschedule some of the dates in November and December and that he plans to play them. He then made a joke that he also plans to play the Meat Loaf dates, his own solo dates, help Doug Kennedy out in his day job and help Dennis DelGaudio! They then played Drive which was a lovely version as I thought that sometimes all the instruments on The New Cars Tour took away from the beautiful simplicity of the song a bit whereas just 3 guitars emphasises Kasim's vocals. (Unfortunately Kasim messed up the words a bit at the end but hopefully that won't be reported anywhere on the Internet!)
Where Is My Soul was next with another great performance, enhanced by Dennis singing background vocals in it. (The set list apparently said that they were going to sing The One Sure Thing at that point but Kasim opted not to then.)
I thought I Don't Mind At All was fascinating to watch. So much so that I almost forgot to listen to the song! Both Kasim and Dennis play part of the song "properly" and part higher up the neck of their guitars. I could be wrong but I think it was this song also that Doug played in an unusual way as he sort of circled his hand as he was playing and then every so often would almost flick the strings! That's another song which sounds as though it was almost written for Kasim to sing.
Next we had my favourite, The One Sure Thing. They all switched guitars for this song and Dennis remarked on Kasim's smaller guitar so he explained that it was a parlour guitar. Apparently they were introduced during the Civil War when the men were away fighting so the women had to entertain themselves so they made smaller guitars for performances in parlours (Kasim explained it better than I did!).
We then had the only new Kasim song in the set (I didn't see the set list so I don't know if Are You Happy Now was originally going to be played or not), Minutes Slipping Past. Kasim preceded the song by telling us that he is working on new songs for a new album which is great news! He did say afterwards that he messed up the words at the end! I'm not sure if you'd call it a ballad or not but it's certainly a "deep" song with poignant words in it.
Next we had almost Kasim's signature song Don't Hold Me Back and then all too soon for me (and all the audience I think), it was time for Across The Universe. Dennis sang background vocals on this song too which was great. They then left the stage before Kasim came back out to sing Todd Rundgren's Cliché on his own which was just brilliant!
As I said before, the actual gig itself was really great and is one that I'd thoroughly recommend seeing. As much as I love seeing Kasim totally solo, I hope that Doug and Dennis can play all the gigs on this tour as they make the sound very full. Talking about the sound, Kasim's brother Alex was again their soundguy and (I thought) did really well. He apperaed to be having a few problems as he spoke to Doug several times during the set and one time when Kasim asked him if everything was okay, his face was a real picture in response! (He was also wearing a very nice Utopia Redux T-shirt!)
So far only 12 gigs are booked on this tour so with this one being the third it means that we're about a quarter through it already. Hopefully more will be added soon but, once again, this is a tour you really should see!!
Review by Jennifer Salyer:
Kasim opened the show with a smile and proceeded into the song …. Doug Kennedy and Dennis Delgaudio were onstage from the start as well. They have truly brought the show to a whole new level with their wonderful guitar work and, also in Dennis' case, beautiful harmonizing backing vocals.
The guitars, this night, seemed to come across the sound system a little stronger then the vocals (or it could have just been due to where I was sitting), but it didn’t spoil the show at all. I am pretty sure the set list was the same one performed at The Tin Angel the weekend before, with a few small changes here and there. Although there was a bit of chatter at the bar near the back of the audience, most in attendance were very attentive to Kasim’s performance. It was a smaller crowd, but an appreciative one at that!
All too soon the show was over. Don’t miss your chance to catch Kasim, DugE, and (possibly) Dennis if they come to your area; you won’t regret it!
Kasim Sulton:
Pre-show page on KasimInfo.com:
Many thanks to Jennifer Salyer for all the photos on this page All Rights Reserved |