"I've Got Rare '61 Beatles, I've Got A Film Of My Dreams"

As I turned the corner from Main Street to Center Street, with my guitar in hand, I saw before me a huge serious tour bus. "Oh yeah." I thought, "World Party is a very successful act."

In the past I have had the good fortune to open shows for a number of my musical influences but all of them, Jane Siberry, Robyn Hitchcock, Freedy Johnston, Evan Dando, were on smaller tour budgets. They travelled in cars or Econo-Vans. World Party, though, obviously had some support behind them, and I figured they must have been comfortable in the air-conditioning inside what I am sure they have referred, at one point or another, to as "their ship of fools".

I, on the other-hand, was on foot. I walked into the Iron Horse and found it to be pleasantly cool on this muggy and hot afternoon. But, I knew that would change drastically by the end of the night. For this was a sold-out show, and sold-out shows at The Iron Horse get hot. It turns out that this heat would be the main topic of Karl Wallinger's stage banter. That sweaty little man.

But, I'm getting ahead of myself.

I put down my stuff and grabbed a table and watched the World Party trio set up and do their sound check. "Oh yeah." I thought, "They are British." They had a few small issues with the violin player's distortion pedal and so their sound check lasted quite a while, during it, they played almost all of "Is It Like Today" and I was "like" the only one in the room, so it was "like" a private concert. Which was "like" pretty cool.

People had already been waiting outside the door when I got there at 4:30 and now they were starting to filter in. And they didn't stop. The place was packed to the gills. The staff even brought out some extra chairs that they had out back.

I took the stage at 7:00 exactly after a nice introduction and proceeded to play:

Uncomfortable, Looks Like I'm Tall, Disgruntled Lover, Rock and Roll Camper, Dayjob, Planes Trains and Automobiles, and Omnivore.

My set went well, the crowd was 90% made up of huge music fans. They listened and participated and laughed and wept. Well, they probably didn't weep. I wasn't THAT bad.

I felt very comfortable and in charge, which is always good and which is how I always feel at shows with good crowds. After I played, a number of people told me that they enjoyed it. One guy said I had a James Taylor introspection and another said that most people can't pull it off with just an acoustic guitar but that I did.

When I was done it was a very, very short break before World Party took the stage. They were great. I had been thinking about creating a best of World Party mix and they almost played the exact songs that I would have put on it. They kicked right in with "Put The Message In The Box" and then played "Is It Like Today?", and the hits just kept coming.

They were only a three piece. The electric guitar player, John Turnbull, was incredible. He was seasoned and efficient and somehow knocked off all the right riffs that are often really buried in the heavy production on the albums. The violin/mandolin player, David Duffy, was really good too. He reminded me of the actor Steve Zahn. Both of them sang excellent falcetto harmonies.

Karl Wallinger (he IS World Party) played acoustic guitar (upside-down, like Brian does) and piano (very, very well). Somehow the three of them covered all the bases on these heavily produced songs. In a few instances the songs even came through better in this pared down line-up ("Sweet Soul Dream" comes to mind).

The three of them had a very natural regular-guy stage presence, there wasn't much posturing or rock-star attitude. It was nice and it was clearly all about the music. And, man, so was the audience, who hung on every note and instantly jumped up for two standing ovations. I'm not sure that I've ever heard such an explosion of earnest appreciation at the Iron Horse.

By the end of the set it was approximately 150 degrees in the room. Wallinger remarked on the heat often, while making good use of his towel. Poor English sod. Despite the heat, much of the crowd stuck around for almost an hour waiting to talk to him and get autographs and what have you. I shook a bunch of hands and stood off in the back with Lesa.

It was a good night.

(photo by: David Barnum)