From Lynda:

I need to pack up and catch an early train in the morning, or should I say, a little later this morning, so this will be a short report about the seventh Vanguard show, at least short by my standards. Since there were so many people at the show tonight from all over who have seen Russell and TOFOGs 1 and 2 before - more than I can even begin to remember the names of, some who where at Le Thor and some who haven't seen shows since 2003 - I'm sure there will be an abundant number of reports and specifics and impressions coming soon, so I think I'll try to limit my contribution to what might not be as likely to be said by some of the others.

As much as I want to start with how good it was to have Alan back filling up that empty spot, I know that's not where I should begin. Where I should begin is by saying how different a show I thought this one was from all of the other shows I've seen on this tour. That's the one word that keeps sticking in my mind: "different." I'm not sure I'm going to be able to be clear about exactly how it was different. The set list was the same, albeit with one delightful exception: At the very end, after the this-could-end-the-problems-of-the-world communal singing on Easy and Free and Molly Malone, there was one more song added on; I got to hear The Legend Of Barry Kable live for the first time, and it was a very good first time. But other than that, the songs were the same, the performances were as sharp and as clean as they have been all along, and the music was as touching and as powerful as it's been at each show. Russell didn't appear to be in a particularly expansive frame of mind, and the time allotted for story-telling was less than at some shows, but that's happened before too.

There were silly moments (Russell gave Stewart a massage and tickle during How Did We Get From Saying I Love You, and the holiday intro for Swept Away Bayou is still up and going strong after nearly a month...by the final Vanguard show, I expect it to become a Valentine's Day chorus), and there were moments of deliciously edged humour (that "group photo moment" to satisfy all of those whose night would not be complete without having taken a flash photo or two, with all of the band members standing together smiling their most insincere and artificial smiles while a few dozen people thought it really was time to start shooting away; then there was the "guess what country people in the audience travelled here from" ESP game, with such mind-reading mockery as "Barbados," "United Arab Emirates," "Equatorial Guinea," and "Lichtenstein," with one person up in the balcony actually hailing from Lichtenstein, or at least saying so). There was dancing ("These women up sitting up front here want a young man to come down and swing his buttocks in front of their eyes" - and once again, as soon as the words were out of Russell's mouth, there was the young man and the buttocks) and there was clapping and singing along. There was even another excellent opening set by the man who is his own backup band, Darren Percival, king of the looping/delay function.

It was all as it's been before, which is to say it was a very good show. And it was different, which is still to say it was a very good show, just not the same kind of good show. I can't say if it was different from how TOFOG shows were before this tour because I have no clue about that...that one I'll defer to those who were there tonight who are far more experienced than I am. All I can say is that it was different from any of the other shows I've seen on this tour. Not surprisingly, it was also a different crowd from any I've been in on this tour. At every other show, the crowd has largely been made up of those who have never seen Russell or TOFOG before, those who are almost all unfamiliar with the music, except for a handful of show veterans or the newly converted. But there were so many at this show who had seen earlier shows - when Russell asked how many people had travelled internationally to come to the show, it sounded like half the people there were cheering - that it made for a completely different feeling, at least out in the audience. It felt like a crowd that knew what to expect, or at least a crowd that thought it knew what to expect. Whether those expectations were or were not met, it's up to others to say. Whether the differences in the crowd played a significant role in the differences in the show, perhaps time will tell.

I haven't been around long enough to develop very many expectations, except maybe to expect that I will be listening to songs that I grow more respectful of with each hearing and that I will be seeing performers whose skill I admire and whose honesty moves me. For all that this show was so different from the others I've seen, I can say beyond a doubt that the expectations I brought into the Vanguard with me for this seventh show weren't only met, they were surpassed.

And now I can say how good it was to see (and hear) Alan back on stage with The Ordinary Fear Of God, to hear his harmony parts completing Mr. Harris and powering Swept Away Bayou over the top, and to see him standing by Russell's side as they sang Raewyn together, the song that is "the principle reason why we wrote other songs together". It was good to see and hear my favourite guitar player use his hands to make both his acoustic and his electric guitars sound as expressive as his face looks while he is playing those instruments. And I missed the pick slides too. But most of all, I've missed that "This is so much fucking fun" look that passes between Russell and Alan in the midst of songs. I've become very fond of that look.

Since seeing TOFOG2 for the first time in France not too many months ago, I've gone from being downright surprised to see Alan as such an integral component of this band to thinking that this band does not feel truly complete without him, and perhaps the opposite as well. As different as this show felt to me, two very consistent parts of it were how much I like seeing Alan with this band, and, even more, how much I think of the music this band is making. Oh yes, and how sweet the smile on Russell Crowe's face is when he knows he has just done an excellent job singing one of his songs. I'm getting rather fond of that look too.

Time to go pack, or I will be missing my train.

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I forgot one thing - there are now The Ordinary Fear Of God tour shirts being sold at the shows, hot off the presses, with the band name on front and the back having the stained-glass church window that is in the new tour poster. Very cool, only $15, and kudos to them for actually having small sizes.