Hello All,
I had the pleasure of attending the Beachwood Sparks show at Johnny Brenda's in the City of Brotherly Love this past Thursday. What a great show, and what a great venue! Sera Cahoone and the Willowz both had solid opening sets.
The line-up for Beachwood Sparks was Chris Gunst, Jennifer Lee Gunst, Dan Horne, Ben Knight, Brent Rademaker, and Aaron Sperske. The band sounded great. There weren't any surprises in the set-list, but, at least in my opinion, the performances themselves had some new exploratory twists. The band really seems to be gelling with the added personnell.
There was a great turnout and the crowd was very into the show (always a plus), as was the band. There were some dedications as well. "You Take the Gold" was dedicated to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays baseball team, and (if my memory serves me correctly) "Old Manatee" was dedicated to "Farmer" Dave, who's absence was acknowledged, and "The Reminder" was dedicated to Pete Kinne.
The highlight for me were the extended cosmic instrumental breaks on "Sister Rose", "Something I Don't Recognize", "Once We Were Trees", and the encore finale..."New County". The closing little hoedown at the end of the album version of "New County" was converted into an extended cosmic country space jam that was just awesome! Everyone in the crowd started dancing and it was such a stellar close to a wonderful evening.
The setlist was pretty much identical to Big Sur's. Some of you may be disappointed to learn that Farmer Dave does't appear to have made it East. Having seen the Big Sur and Philly shows (which were sans FD) and the Southern California shows (which had him in the line-up) I have to emphasize that it's still the same band. They sound fantastic! You won't be disappointed at all. This is an amazing band. I've ben lucky enough to see them five times on this reunion tour (and I might drive the 3 hours to NYC tonight) and their live performance has far exceeded any expectations I had. This is one AMAZING band...
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