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The God Of Low The Traveller Afraid Himself To Be Yellow Cab There Goes My Inspiration Cliché Sacrifice Before She Was Gone Libertine
Set Me Free  Click here for more photos from this gig.
Review by SueW:
The gig was in a record store where they transform the top part into a stage (or a carpet as the announcer described it) and apparently the first 30 or so people who book tickets can sit up in the top section and the rest of the people stand in the lower part. Unfortunately this is not at all obvious from their website so, as it costs me more to book tickets online than to pay at the door, I didn’t book enough in advance. (I know that when I’ve spent $800 for a trip to the gig, a few dollars more isn’t a great deal but it really wasn’t at all obvious from the website.)
The main problem was that Kasim was sitting on a stool (I think) that was only the height of the people sitting so not only was he just level with those people but we were also standing about two feet below the level of the upper floor. It’s a shame that they didn’t allow people to stand around the edges of the upper level so at least some more people could see or an easier alternative would just have been for Kasim to have stood so he would have been higher than all the people sitting in the top level.
To make it worse some of the people in the front were so concerned with getting photos too that they kept their cameras up and blocked our view even more! There was one girl in the front row who videoed all but TOST so I could see Kasim when he was talking but as soon as he started singing, up would come her fat arms and block half of his face. (It can not have been nice for him either having someone videoing so close to his face.) There was also someone who kept standing up to take a photo from their seat and blocked even more people’s view. If you’re going to take photos or video through most of a gig at least have some consideration for people around and behind you!
After a long list of all the other artists who would be playing at the venue, Kasim Sulton took the stage at just past 8pm. After he’d said what a cosy venue it was, Kasim’s first song was The God Of Low. He sang it in his more gentle style again and, once again, that was the song which was going through my head when I woke up the following morning.
Kasim then went almost straight into his new song The Traveller. Unfortunately he messed the song up after a few lines so he sung that part again. He didn’t specify tonight that it was a new song but it still received a massive round of applause.
Next Kasim said that he was going to sing a song from when he first started doing his solo gigs and asked whether I it was 2000 or 2001. (It was 2001 – next February it will be 10 years) but Kasim said that he wanted to believe that it was 2004 so that he had been doing the shows for 3 years less than he had! The song was Afraid Himself To Be and, even though it’s not one of his own songs, he played it perfectly which was beautiful to hear.
Yellow Cab was next followed immediately by There Goes My Inspiration. That song was obviously very popular with the audience tonight. Kasim then spoke about Todd and made a joke about Todd’s piano playing at the gigs in September which I thought was quite ironic tonight. Kasim followed this by playing his homage to Todd – Cliché. This was another crowd favourite.
After Sacrifice (during which a big smile cam across his face as he had messed up some of the words), Kasim spoke about Quid Pro Quo and that he was going to sing a song from it which he had not played on stage for about a year – Before She Was Gone. He started by saying that he expected that he would make mistakes in it and that whenever he did, he would nod to someone to count how many mistakes he made. However he actually sang that song perfectly so I think that was one he had obviously rehearsed.
Libertine was next with the audience participation which went reasonably well as there were lots of Utopia fans in the audience tonight.
Libertine ended Kasim’s first set of about 48 minutes and then there was about a 15 minute interval while they played some Christmas carols and again advertised all their forthcoming gigs at this venue. I didn’t really know why the show was in two parts but later someone told me that it was in the hope of the venue (record store) selling CDs. At other places when Kasim has had to do this, it has been classed as two different gigs so there was some duplication of songs but this time he played one set in two parts. Unfortunately I know he doesn’t like playing a gig like this and I think that contributed to his distracted demeanour.
Before Kasim could start his second set someone gave him a coloured boa, someone else a birthday cake and also a card (as it’s his birthday on Wednesday) which he seemed quite touched by. For this set Kasim started on the piano and played Set Me Fee which was a great hit with the audience tonight. Unfortunately that was one song where he struggled to hit the higher notes. However he followed it with Love Alone which is deeper so he sounded really good in that song. He also sang a couple of the lines slightly slower near the end which was effective.
Next Kasim spoke about playing as part of the Classical Mystery Tour this past summer. He listed a number of other Beatles tribute bands but said that his one was into the visual look rather than focussing on the music (which I found strange as they are the band who play with symphony orchestras but when I saw them I did notice that they mimicked The Beatles movements a lot). Kasim told us about the costumes he wore on stage for those gigs. This then went into Lady Madonna followed by The Long And Winding Road. Before he left the piano Kasim sang Someone To Watch Over Me.
Kasim then moved back to his guitar (so I could finally see him again at times) and sang Watching The World Go By (with forgotten words in the middle but he made up some lines saying which was funny!) followed by The One Sure Thing. The latter is my favourite song so I was delighted that fat arms in the front row didn’t video that particular song so I could actually see Kasim for most of that song.
One World was next but again Kasim messed up the lyrics as he started with the second verse! Most of the audience joined in tonight with the clapping in the song. It was a good one to end on but Kasim didn’t say it was his final song so I and most others I spoke to afterwards were expecting another song as an encore afterwards so that was slightly flat. Kasim usually always says when it’s his final song so maybe he was expecting to sing another one too but they had quickly turned the store lights on.
They then instructed people to leave the upper area immediately as they had to get that part back into being a shop and to make a line snaked around the store for a "meet and great" which sounded to pompous for me so I decided it was definitely time to leave (and to sit down!).
Overall it was an adequate gig but with just one evening spent rehearsing the songs, it could have been a really great gig as all those people there were very keen to see him. Being objective if that was the first Kasim solo gigs that I had seen, I would not have been too keen on going to see him again.
Roll on Chicago on Wednesday!
Video:
The venue (taken from the KasimInfo.com Blog that day):
The address of the venue is The Record Collector, 358 Farnsworth Ave
Tickets for the gig are available from this link at $19.26 in advance or are $20 on the door.
Pre-show page on KasimInfo.com:
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