Peter Viney's Blog

Al Stewart

with The Empty Pockets

Bournemouth Pavilion

1 November 2022

BAND
Al Stewart- vocals, guitar

THE EMPTY POCKETS
Josh Solomon – electric guitar, piano, acoustic guitar, vocals
Nate Bellon – bass, vocals
Adam Balasco- drums
Erika Brett- keyboards, vocals

+ Marc Macisso- flute, saxophone, percussion

Al Stewart has done sixteen studio albums, and three live albums. I’m not familiar with all of them.  I’ve been playing him a lot recently, and Past, Present, Future and Modern Times are for me even better albums than the more famous Year of The Cat. I’d forgotten that he drew on the best British folk musicians as well as other great players.

Usually you can check Setlist.com, but like Van Morrison, Al Stewart does a varied set every night. This tour has had up to six in a show from Year of The Cat, and up to three from Time Passages. Three songs from Past, Present & Future have appeared, but no more than two on a show. The earliest albums are not being touched upon. The set is not only not set in stone, but at one point he seemed to change his mind and do a different song.

Bournemouth background

I’m going to divert to discuss the Bournemouth 60s Music Scene first.

Al Stewart’s certainly been here at the Pavilion before. His first professional job was with Tony Blackburn & The Sabres in the Pavilion Ballroom directly behind this theatre- the bar used to separate the theatre and ballroom and serve both. I saw that band, and they morphed into Tony Blackburn & The Rovers. No one believes me, but Tony Blackburn, blue lamé jacket in the first set, gold lamé jacket in the second was pretty good. I bought Elvis’s Devil in Disguise after seeing him perform it, and he used to do one of my favourites of the era, Joey Dee’s What Kind of Love Is This. Al mentioned the gold lamé jacket in an intro but didn’t note the electric blue change one.

Al Stewart counts as a Bournemouth musician. If you want the full history, it’s on the marvellous Bournemouth Beat Boom website, https://bournemouthbeatboom.wordpress.com/al-stewart-3/ LINK:    

The other source is by Al’s old friend, Jon Kremer, in his book,  Bournemouth A Go! Go!

I saw Al Stewart with The G-Men at the Bournemouth Beat Contest among others. Most Bournemouth links go to Don Strike’s Music in Westbourne Arcade, which is still there in 2022 with the same front. It’s the first port of call, pilgrimage even, for exiled Bournemouth musicians. Here Robert Fripp, Greg Lake and John Wetton took lessons from the son of the owner, Bev Strike … Greg Lake also had violin lessons from Don himself. Al Stewart was in the G-Men with Bev Strike and in turn took guitar lessons from Robert Fripp. All of them have pages on Bournemouth Beat Boom.

I like the account of a casual meeting in Fortes, Westover Road … there were two Forte restaurant businesses. One became Trust House Forte, the other was in Bournemouth, Poole and Llandudno. I was a grill chef for a fortnight before the corpulent Mr Forte arrived and dismissed me for having long hair. Fortes had real Gaggia coffee machines, and in the early 80s when we had an office in central Bournemouth, we had our coffee break there every morning (I held no grudge). Anyway, in the early 60s, Al Stewart was at a table for four having coffee with Lee Kerslake (later of Uriah Heep), Greg Lake (later of Emerson, Lake & Palmer) and Andy Somers (then in Zoot Money’s Big Roll Band, later of The Police … as Andy Summers). Hmm, drums, bass, two guitarists and two lead singers. They could have formed a band.

Now this may be false memory. Jon Kremer mentions them haunting the Le Disque A Go! Go! at the Lansdowne, previously The Downstairs Club. We all did … I saw The Who, Manfred Mann, Rod Stewart with The Soul Agents there.

On Mondays, it became Dave Steel Folk Club for one evening, and I’ll swear Al Stewart used to appear, singing from the floor, specializing in extremely good Dylan covers. Love Minus Zero has been a regular on this 2022 tour and I was hoping to hear it (in vain). He also recorded a great cover of I Don’t Believe You on Orange.

Al Stewart moved to London sharing a building with Paul Simon and Jackson C. Frank. When I saw Paul Simon in the early 00s, he talked about his first visit to Bournemouth, singing in a folk club. My first thought was, ‘Al Stewart must have brought him.’ The second was, ‘Surely it was the Dave Steel Folk Club? I never missed. Who knows?

Sticking with Bournemouth tales, there were so many bands here because there were so many venues as a major resort town. Love Chronicles refers to an encounter which took place in Bournemouth Gardens:

I can remember the first girl that I made love to
It was in a park
In the lower pleasure gardens in Bournemouth
In summer just after dark
My mind was reeling: Oh what a feeling.
I missed the bus and walked twelve miles home
And it really didn’t seem far

As we are only yards from where it took place, I had hopes of a reprise- not that it’s ever appeared on this tour, and it didn’t tonight. I once took a group of middle-aged Argentinian teachers to see ELT author Robert O’Neill in Bournemouth. He described Bournemouth with its ‘upper pleasure gardens’ for pleasures above the waist, and the ‘lower pleasure gardens’ for pleasures below the waist. They were shocked to the core. Love Chronicles is also famed for the use of ‘fucking’ later in the lyric:

And where I thought that just plucking
The fruits of the bed was enough
It grew to be less like fucking
And more like making love 

The ‘twelve miles home’ was because Al Stewart was among the ‘Wimborne’ sub-set with Robert Fripp and Gordon Haskell.

There were different Bournemouth band circles, which did not always intersect. Jon Kremer’s book has nothing on my friends, The Corvettes who became the Palmer James Group. That had John Wetton on bass and vocals (Mogul Thrash, Family, King Crimson, Roxy Music, Bryan Ferry Band, Uriah Heep, UK, Asia, Icon) and Richard Palmer-James on guitar and vocals (Supertramp, Emergency, La Bionda, Blues Meets Classical and King Crimson lyricist 1973-74). Nor does it mention Tetrad, or Ginger Man, with John Wetton and Richard Palmer, plus organist John Hutcheson and noted top session drummer Bob Jenkins. The latter two were later in Room whose Pre-Flight LP is extremely valuable. I remember being at the Pavilion with John Wetton watching a band, and Lee Kerslake lured us into the bar, trying to persuade John to join his new band. A few years later, he succeeded. Nor is there anything in the book on The Surfin’ Gremmies, another friend’s band who were Pavilion Ballroom regulars, or Dave Anthony’s Moods. Bournemouth School For Boys spawned bass guitarists … John Wetton, plus Paul Newman of The Surfin’ Gremmies and Bill Jacobs of Dave Anthony’s Moods (who had a massive Italian hit with their cover of A Whiter Shade of Pale.) In a different generation, Alec James of Blur continued the Bournemouth School bass guitarists tradition.

So move on to the early 2000s John Wetton was in Milton Keynes in a studio. He met Al Stewart. Everyone assumed they were old friends via Lee Kerslake (who played on an Al Stewart album), Greg Lake, Robert Fripp, Andy Somers, but they had never knowingly met. They worked out that as both had been playing every weekend evening, they never got to see each other’s bands … except at the Winter Gardens Beat Contest.

It ended with John Wetton going along to play with Al Stewart on Al’s solo gig that evening. Those who were there said it was a wonderful free form performance from both.

THE EMPTY POCKETS SET

I Hear Your Voice
Heart of Ash
A Bird Does Sing
Privatize The Profits
Meet On The Ledge (Fairport Convention)
That Gun
Instrumental
Oh, Darling (The Beatles)
Outside Spectrum

A very good Chicago four piece, justly proud of their recent Billboard #1 blues album Outside Spectrum. They’ve been playing with Al Stewart for six years as well as having their own successful career.

Lead vocals switch between Josh Solomon and Erika Brett. Wisely for a support slot, they do two well-known covers: Fairport Convention’s Meet On The Ledge (they said Al Stewart introduced them to Fairport material) and The Beatles Abbey Road song, Oh, Darling, sung by Erika Brett. Women are better at achieving the full Paul McCartney!

There’s always a concert earworm, and of the whole evening, Oh, Darling was the one going through my head when I woke up.

My favourite song was Heart of Ash sung by Erika Brett upfront holding the mic, with a three piece backing … three piece plus a singer? The Who and Led Zep managed too.

Josh Solomon mentioned Al Stewart introducing them to the likes of Fairport Convention and Hank B. Marvin and said they had been inspired to do their first instrumental by Hank. OK, it was very good, but Hank never played funk chords like that in his life.

I liked their merchandise stand … they have released several CDs, and the price was £15 for one, but then any second CD was £5. It convinced me to buy two. Outside Spectrum was the CD they played four songs from. Al Stewart had tote bags and posters, but no CDs on sale. A pity. He should have taken John Wetton’s example – do a new live CD every year to sell at concerts.

In the end, they were a band I’d happily go to see on their own.

AL STEWART SET

Sirens of Titan
Antarctica
Palace of Versailles
Time Passages
The Dark and Rolling Sea
On The Border
Helen & Cassandra
Broadway Hotel
Midas Shadow
Clifton In The Rain
Modern Times
Year of The Cat

ENCORE

If It Doesn’t Come Naturally, Leave It

REVIEW

The voice is still there. He excels when he demonstrates flashes of his folk guitar virtuoso days. Early on he gave us his guitar riff from Twist and Shout which he reminded us was what he was playing in the ballroom a few yards behind the theatre stage way back in the 60s. What was most interesting was the stories, anecdotes and narration, and the deal on those with artists and reviews is ‘don’t repeat them.’

Sirens of Titan

From Modern Times, this has been the starter throughout recent gigs. Named after the 1959 Kurt Vonnegut sci-fi novel.

Antarctica

This is later, from Last Days of The Century in 1985. The album had a rather brittle typically mid-80s sound, especially on drums and bass. The track had great flute playing though and Marc Massiso’s flute live shimmered and brought back memories of the original. Marc Massiso is a vital ingredient in the band. They’re younger, and rock solidly, but the songs also need his touch.

Palace of Versailles
From Time Passages. Al Stewart has carved out his own niche in song lyrics, on history and legend. He knows his stuff too, taking us from Robespierre to De Gaulle. He mentioned Daniel Cohn-Bendit and the 1968 demos. That was one where I wanted to call, ‘I’ve met him! Seen him speak too!’

Time Passages

From Time Passages, and the single was his biggest American hit. There was some astonishingly good saxophone playing from Marc Macisso, moving all over the stage.

The Dark and Rolling Sea
From Modern Times.

On The Border
From Year of The Cat. This was spectacular work from Josh Solomon, who started it off on keyboards (piano sound), then strapped on an acoustic guitar to do the “Spanish style” bits. I wanted him to play more acoustic guitar after that.

Helen and CassandraI is theoretically from Last Days of The Century, but it’s not on the LP version (which I have), but is on the CD version, and then on A Piece of Yesterday: The Anthology. I loved the long intro on the Trojan War and his fascination with the borderline between myth and legend, and that was tonight’s second ear worm, Helen, the face that launched a thousand ships. There was a twin keyboard song, Josh on a piano setting, and Erika on a synth setting. With Al Stewart well able to hold his own on acoustic guitar, I thought this was an effective instrumental line-up, especially because it brought out the flute playing by Marc Massiso.

Broadway Hotel
From Year of The Cat. Keyboards and flute again. A wonderful line ‘explaining’ the content. The folk years have left the ability to hold an audience with introductions about songs. As he said, that’s what you used to do on folk concerts.

Midas Shadow
From Year of The Cat. The intro mentioned the Robert Fripp guitar lessons with the jazz chords – I won’t spoil the story, but I noted he can do Fripp’s accent. The whole evening as memories, but that brought back trying to get a band together circa 1965, one of those two or three rehearsals, it’s not going to work events. The guitarist, whose name escapes me, had a magnificent cherry red Epiphone or Gibson electric guitar. He sat down to play, because Fripp had told him that was the best way to concentrate. While we conceded his point for Watermelon Man, we thought it excessive for Louie Louie and The Uncle Willy. Anyway, a rare jazzy song.

Clifton in The Rain
Solo Al Stewart. The band get a rest. This is a major throwback, all the way to Bedsitter Images album, though it’s not on the original album, but only on the 2007 ‘Collectors Choice’ edition CD. It began its revival on Rhymes in Rooms. Al Stewart does acoustic solo (or two guitars) tours, and I’d love to see one. He is very good on his own too.

Modern Times
From Modern Times. The lyrics continue to fascinate. He has said that when he first heard Dylan (due in Bournemouth on the Saturday following this Monday, as it happens) he realized he could use lyrics as his major thing.

Year of The Cat
The biggest hit always hangs over songwriters’ heads. Wait for the recognition roar. The ‘year of the cat’ is the missing piece of the Chinese Zodiac, but exists in the Vietnamese calendar. That would be February 1975 up to January 1976, and the album was released in July 1976, but Al Stewart had everything finished and arranged in advance. The cat is surely the exotic woman in silk. The song starts off referring to Casablanca:

On a morning from a Bogart movie
In a country where they turn back time
You go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre
Contemplating a crime
She comes out of the sun in a silk dress running
Like a watercolor in the rain

ENCORE

If It Doesn’t Come Naturally, Leave It
From Year of The Cat, and an unexpected encore. It hasn’t appeared much, and I’d expected either my great favourite, Soho (Needless To Say) which has usually been somewhere in the set, or the Don’t Think Twice cover. The others I had hoped to hear tonight were Hanno The Navigator (from Sparks of Ancient Light) and Old Admirals from Past, Present, Future both featured on recent shows (see Setlist dot com). With such a large catalogue, there will always be misses.

The lighting was basic, but a feature was lighting the audience frequently. It does create a two-way thing rather than playing into the dark.

A very good evening.