August 28, 2024

About Last Night at Levon’s (setlist, reflections, and a lot of love)

Hello my friends.

LAST NIGHTS SHOW WAS BEAUTIFUL, YOU CAN WATCH IT HERE:

https://www.crowdcast.io/c/goodbyewoodstock

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Greetings from Woodstock. I have fun news about new art in the pike, but for now….

Just a little follow-up from last night’s livestream ..which was, and I don’t often say this, a transformative show for me. I have spent a lot of the last few months reflecting on Work, and Music, and my Job….and the songs themselves, the power they carry (or don’t), and how to navigate my future.

The show was attended by just a 100 patrons and locals, and the vibe in the room was so incredibly warm. I felt so at home. I wanted to take this moment to give a shout out to the local crewe at Levon Helm’s (especially Brendan on the sound, who did an impeccable mix), my assistant Michael, the cast assistant Amanda Saunders, the filmmaker Anthony Mulcahy who produced the set and show so gorgeously….and to the four special guests who showed up on practically no notice to send me off in style. To all the people who tuned in: thank you. It meant so much to me that you cane

You can watch/listen to the whole archive here, and it will live here for patrons forever: https://www.amazon.com/Body-Doorway-Memoir-Journey-Healing/dp/0762487410

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I got distracted at a certain point and went off on a tangent about Chappell Roan.

With your blessing, I may write that essay I chatted about.

This set threaded together so many themes…and sometimes I don’t know where I am, or what I’ve done, til I get on a stage and have to….see what I’ve done.

The material that’s grown out of my time living in this town is incredibly dark, and I don’t mind.

Sophie’s passage could not have been more perfect to set the tone for the evening.

It’s been a dark, dark few years. Fo me. For many. This era – “post-New-Zealand-Woodstock-triage” as I’ve come to think of it – has been marked mostly by survival and a kind of cocooned patience, an extreme patience, as I wait for the freedom to butterfly out of the dark soup of this liminal goo-space. The caterpillar will come with me, with all she’s transformed into as a result of turning to mush. I really thought my life after my 2019 tour was going to get simpler. Organized. I didn’t expect my life from 2020 to become a series of phoenix-ashes moments, over and over again, but there you have it.

Life will bring you to your knees, and sometimes, you have no choice. You can, as holocaust survivor and psychologist Viktor Frankl says, always choose your attitude towards the circumstances: the last of the human freedoms.

To still believe in hope and goodness when the collapse around you happens.

I still believe in hope, and goodness, even when the world seems to wants me to believe otherwise. And hope does not just “happen” by itself. There are different choices to be made, and things, people, and places to leave behind in order to create the conditions for hope.

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The setlist….

Times are a bit approximate:

0:00 – Intro

2:30 – In My Mind

10:00 – special guest writer Sophie Strand, who reads a passage from “The Body is a Doorway”

20:00 – backstory and “Drowning in the Sound”

28:00 – special guest songwriter Noah Britton, who plays a solo song and then

32:00 – Amanda and Noah sing a song Noah wrote inspired by their dads

39:00 – explanations of some things and “Houdini”

47:00 – a difficult question from the stream, and answers in more than three words

53:00 – backstory and “Another Christmas”