Ottawa

Barrymore's

March 24, 1996

From: Kent Orr (kent.orr@cognos.com)

John's show here in Ottawa was great. Barrymore's is a small club which used to be a movie theater so the atmosphere was very intimate. I'd say it was about three quarters full (200 or so people). This was John's first trek back to Ottawa since The 'OO played here on Oct. 15, 1969. Does anyone know what the venue was? I'd be glad to find this out. The closest he has been to Ottawa was the Who's Montreal Forum show in May of 1980. Their summer 1989 gig at Montreal's Olympic Stadium was canceled so I saw them at Toronto's CNE.

Joni's Butterly went on stage at 9:30 and opened up with Made in Japan, a tune from John's third solo album Rigor Mortis Sets In. Their set was ok but no one really paid them much attention which was to be expected.

At 10:50 John and band took the stage. Here's the set list which is identical to their Toronto show from last week.

  • Heaven and Hell (John lead vocals)
  • Had Enough ("should have been an A side to a single but the record company screwed up and put it on the B side")
  • Success Story (red 8-string)
  • Trick of the Light (red 8-string, John lead vocals)
  • Bridges Under the Water
  • The Real Me
  • Love Doesn't Last
  • Under A Raging Moon (with drum solo)
  • Boris the Spider (stretched out version, John lead vocals of course)
  • Life After Love
  • My Wife (John lead vocals)
  • Last Song
  • Summertime Blues

    Encore :

  • Long Live Rock
  • Shakin' All Over

    John looked sharp with his blue leather jacket and trademark Boris medallion. He had some trouble with his sound on the first two songs and his roadie had to make some on stage adjustments to his mix. The vocal mix was very low. This wasn't a problem for most people as they already knew the words to all the songs (except the ones from the new CD). I was looking forward to the part in Success Story where John uses his Boris voice for "You shall play the Carnegie Hall" but this wasn't audible. This may have been due to the fact that I spent the entire show in the first row directly in front of John's bass amps. John was in fine form and showed that he hasn't lost his chops. His bass was smoking all night long. He really let loose on the encore for Shakin' All Over. All in all it was a great show and it wasn't as loud as I was expecting based on other reviewers.

    There were t-shirts etc. and John's "new" CD The Rock (recorded in 1988) on sale. Make sure you have a look at the sample tour book. It's written entirely by John and is quite hilarious. It contains a two page mock autobiographical essay. In it John mentions that one of the reasons for going out on his own was that he got tired of being told to turn his bass down on the Daltrey and Ringo tours. On Ringo's 1994 tour he mentions that he now holds the dubious honor of having played Yellow Submarine in concert more times than Paul McCartney. His home photos are also quite funny. There's a photo from the early 70's of John and his 3 year old son. John is holding his bass while his son has a toy bass guitar. The caption reads "Mine is bigger than his". We can also look forward to John's new book on his life with the Who and beyond. It will be coming out in three separate volumes and hopefully will contain many ribald road stories.

    For all you autograph seekers out there, make sure that you stay after the show as John and band will gladly sign all of your album covers etc. I lucked out as his tour manager (the tall guy with the deep southern accent) was nice enough to give me John's used bass strings in the original packages. I was expecting them to be Rotosound as per I Can See for Miles but they were Maxima. John gladly autographed the package for me.

    I asked John about the possibility of playing Whiskey Man or Silas Stingy in concert. His response was that the former was "a possibility" but the later "is too hard". Everyone in line was very orderly as is to be expected of the people here in Ottawa. Thanks guys for a great evening.

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