The Lists

I’ve now completed the UK leg of my current touring. Over the seven shows I played eight-two different songs. (I think so, anyway – I note down what I’ve played from my set-lists after the event and of course I might go astray in the listings from time to time….)

This isn’t some kind of competition with myself though. As I’ve said before, the songs remain alive only as long as I’m still touring and presenting them. The recorded versions will always be there of course but, butterfly-like, they’re pinned down and certain, not flexible and mutating as are live renditions. I’ve been expanding the list of songs which in principle it’s possible for me to play over the years and the list now stands at over a hundred so I’m interested in doing as many of those as I can.

The assembly of sets is not an exact science – well, it’s not scientific in any way in fact. (With the exception of the one for QEH which, as I’ve written, had a very specific time-stamped element to the choice of material.) I’ll be influenced, of course, by what I’ve played or haven’t played on previous nights but I’m also looking to strike a balance between old and new, aggressive and calm, up-tempo and down, reflective and anticipatory. The piano/gtr splits also have to be taken into account and within  the guitar sets unusual tunings have to be taken into consideration as well. (Thankfully I’ve got significantly faster at going from one tuning to the next than used to be the case, but still it’s best not to have too many radical shifts one after another.)

Within all this there also has to be the consideration that most people in an audience are only going to see one show – so I’ve got a responsibility to have some like-for-like equivalence in quality, tone and balance one to the other.

And finally, of course, both out of interest, out of self-promotion and, indeed, in order to bed them in for future tours, it’s important to play some of the newest material rather than just The Hits (sic).

I don’t intend to make a habit of this but just this once I’ve decided to put up the list of what’s been played on this stretch of the tour. Songs in bold make their first appearance on the relevant night; in italics denotes a second showing and normal typeface a third. (There are only three of the latter, all songs from the new disc.) I hope the lists are correct but, well, you already know me for an unreliable narrator!

Only a few days now until the shows in Germany, where I’ll be playing two entirely different sets over the two nights in each city. I shan’t be consulting what I’ve played in the UK, so it’s unlikely that any sets will be repeats of these. And of course there are tunes which I haven’t yet played so I might sneak some of those in as well. In any event, I hope the concerts will be full of That Liveness, That Right Here and Now.

Yes, onward!

QEH, London, 20/4/18

Don’t Tell Me
Just Good Friends
Friday Afternoon
Faculty X
Time to Burn
I will Find You
Stumbled
Torpor
Like Veronica
Driven
La Rossa
The Lie
Bubble
Your Tall Ship
That Wasn’t What I Said
The Descent
Refugees

Modern

Oran Mor, Glasgow, 24/4/18

Siren Song
Losing Faith in Words
Anagnorisis
After the Show
Time Heals
Amnesiac
Shingle Song
Charm Alone
Sitting Targets
If I Could
Time for a Change
Last Frame
Unrehearsed
Reputation
His Best Girl
The Mercy
Stranger Still

Vision

Stoller Hall, Manchester, 25/4/18

My Room
Too Many of my Yesterdays
This Side of the Looking-Glass
Milked
The Mousetrap
The Habit of the Broken Heart
Slender Threads
My Unintended
Yoga
Happy Hour
Primo on the Parapet
Nothing Comes
Undone
Shell
A Way Out
Traintime

A Better Time

St. Luke’s Church, Brighton 1, 27/4/18

Easy to Slip Away
The Unconscious Life
Autumn
Bravest Face
Anagnorisis
The Comet, the Course, the Tail
The Birds
The Second Hand
Ophelia
Something about Ysabel’s dance
Driven
Modern
Four Pails
Milked
Gone Ahead
Mirror Images
In the End

House with no Door

St. Luke’s Church, Brighton 2, 28/4/18

Don’t Tell me
Just Good Friends
Curtains
Confidence
Tenderness
Comfortable
Shingle Song
Torpor
The Sphinx in the Face
Central Hotel
Patient
Sleep Now
Bubble
Time to Burn
The Descent
Still Life

Stranger Still

The Lantern, Bristol 29/4/18

Siren Song
Time Heals
Shell
Anagnorisis
Losing Faith in Words
The Habit of the Broken Heart
What’s it Worth?
(On Tuesdays she used to do) Yoga
Amnesiac
Been Alone so Long
Primo on the parapet
Labour of Love
Unrehearsed
His Best Girl
Milked
The Mercy
Traintime

Afterwards

The Junction, Cambridge, 30/4/18

My Room
Easy to Slip Away
Too Many of my Yesterdays
Reputation
The Unconscious Life
The Comet, the Course, the Tail
Our Eyes Give It Shape
Once You Called Me
Skin
The Birds
Patient
Faculty X
Friday Afternoon
That Wasn’t What I said
The Descent
A Way Out
A Better Time

Refugees