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Nov. 8th, 2017 02:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seekingferretNew Josh Ritter album means a new tour- I saw him this past Sunday down in Philadelphia at Union Transfer, same place I last saw him play a year and a half ago.
I've not much listened yet to the new album- a few songs have clicked nicely on the first listen, particularly his collaboration with the Grateful Dead's Bob Weir on "When Will I Be Changed", a few have not, but it was a lot more of songs I'm not that familiar with than I'm used to at a Ritter show, where I'm usually singing along most of the concert. He also trotted out a few new songs that haven't been recorded yet.
Mostly the new stuff was slow storytelling stuff, some of which was fantastically engaging, but... I always say that Ritter's star orbits between two poles: Springsteen and Dylan. When he's closer to Springsteen, the concerts are more fun. He seems to be swinging back toward Dylan. A lot of the concert was standing and listening to the music's narratives and wishing there were more dancy songs. Even some of the stuff that can be played danceably wasn't- "Kathleen", one of Ritter's best songs, was played in a quiet, intimate acoustic version with an accordion taking the place of the keyboard and a single handdrum the place of the drumkit.
And then toward the end of the show they busted out "Getting Ready to Get Down" and I, er, got down. It's strange in some ways how much that song, about the survivor of a repressive Middle American Bible school, speaks to me. In other ways it makes perfect sense- it's a song about how the cure for bad religion is actually reading and engaging with the Old Testament. It shows that Tanakh is talking about how to manage our desires in ways that are responsible without denying that we have desires. Dancing to this song is such an organically joyful experience, a sort of affirmation of identity.
Then he ended the show with a solo version of "Girl in the War". "This is a time for leadership," he said, and everyone kind of sadly nodded along.
I've not much listened yet to the new album- a few songs have clicked nicely on the first listen, particularly his collaboration with the Grateful Dead's Bob Weir on "When Will I Be Changed", a few have not, but it was a lot more of songs I'm not that familiar with than I'm used to at a Ritter show, where I'm usually singing along most of the concert. He also trotted out a few new songs that haven't been recorded yet.
Mostly the new stuff was slow storytelling stuff, some of which was fantastically engaging, but... I always say that Ritter's star orbits between two poles: Springsteen and Dylan. When he's closer to Springsteen, the concerts are more fun. He seems to be swinging back toward Dylan. A lot of the concert was standing and listening to the music's narratives and wishing there were more dancy songs. Even some of the stuff that can be played danceably wasn't- "Kathleen", one of Ritter's best songs, was played in a quiet, intimate acoustic version with an accordion taking the place of the keyboard and a single handdrum the place of the drumkit.
And then toward the end of the show they busted out "Getting Ready to Get Down" and I, er, got down. It's strange in some ways how much that song, about the survivor of a repressive Middle American Bible school, speaks to me. In other ways it makes perfect sense- it's a song about how the cure for bad religion is actually reading and engaging with the Old Testament. It shows that Tanakh is talking about how to manage our desires in ways that are responsible without denying that we have desires. Dancing to this song is such an organically joyful experience, a sort of affirmation of identity.
Then he ended the show with a solo version of "Girl in the War". "This is a time for leadership," he said, and everyone kind of sadly nodded along.