chase the light

Setlist: Things That Scare Me, Favorite, Dirty Knife, Soulful Shade of Blue, Set Out Running, Buckets of Rain, Star Witness, Margaret vs. Pauline, Maybe Sparrow, The Tigers Have Spoken, I Wish I Was the Moon, If You Knew, Hex, Hold On, Hold On, Teenage Feeling, Deep Red Bells.

Encores: Lady Pilot, John Saw That Number.

Oh Neko. Ok, first thing was as I was on my way over and Michael texted me wondering if I was there yet but I was on the road, so I was able to tell him I was on my way. JD was there already too. As I got in the area all of the parking lots were full and it was just nuts around there. The musical Wicked was going on across the street so it was a busy night in Hollywood. After parking a few blocks away there was a line going around the building. Still! It was 9:45 and doors opened at 8. Yikes.

It went fast and I was able to get in just in time to find Michael and JD and for Neko to come out on stage to introduce Porter Wagoner and Marty Stuart. Two legendary artists bringing the Opry to Los Angeles for a set. Porter came out in a purple suit with all sorts of sparkles all over it. With his grey hair and tall stature he looked rather regal. They did a half an hour set and were joined on stage by Billy Bob Thorton and Dwight Yoakam as their backing band. Billy Bob was hilarious and in the most sparkling vest this side of the Rio Grande. Here’s a [full review] over at [LAist] with the photo of the kiddies having fun.

Oh, and then… guess what happened? Yeah! Good guess! Neko came out!! Ha! Amazing, and she didn’t open with Favorite! Thank God! Although she put it in the second slot. I love the song but what a lousy song to open a concert. The band was the usual suspects, Rauhouse, Rigby, Tom V. Ray, the dude on drums whose name I always forget, and Rachel Flotard on backing vocals instead of Kelly Hogan. Which is a big mistake. Because I like Kelly. Where’s Kelly? Boo.

Short of that, excellent show! 18 song set focused primarily on Fox Confessor and the Tigers album, but she dusted off “Set Out Running” from Furnace Room Lullaby which was great to hear. Nothing from the first album, 1 from Furnace, 4 from Blacklisted, 1 from Canadian Amp, 4 from Tigers, 7 from Fox Confessor and Dylan’s Buckets of Rain that she had been doing for years. My only complaints are Neko was really quiet throughout the show. Normally she’s very animated and cracking jokes left and right and I think that had to do with Kelly not being there.

The other very cool thing about Neko shows is she very supportive of artists and always has interesting old school tour posters. I particularly liked this one so I picked it up. Unlike the show in San Francisco a couple years ago when I waited until after the show and they were sold out. Just checked out the [site of the artist] and she has a lot of nice scratchboard work. Something else to get framed. Running out of room really quickly. Ya know the ceiling is a bit of an unexplored space…

All that really matters is she sang “I Wish I Was the Moon”.