no opening act

"Brenda's Iron Sledge" - GilNDave come out alone, acoustic guitars, and perform the song themselves. Robyn does not emerge until just before the final verse, then sings lead the rest of the way through. Did someone slip GilNDave a copy of GLASS FLESH or what? Kevin Z. Slick, take a bow.

"Miss Ohio" - Robyn takes up an acoustic guitar, Jim Boquist of Son Volt fame joins on electric bass, and to reverse the roles of the opening number, Robyn sings lead all the way through on a GilNDave song.

Then it's all of SPOOKED in order, sans "Welcome To Earth," with the above people playing all the parts you know from the record, mostly Gil on drums, though Jim played barely audible brushes on one song. Robyn finished his introduction/explanation of the SPOOKED section with "Just pretend that we're David Gilmour," which cracked me up.
The perfect pun for the evening!

"Television"
"If You Know Time"
"Everybody Needs Love"
"English Girl"
"Demons & Fiends"
"Creeped Out"
"Sometimes a Blonde"
"We're Gonna Live in the Trees" (yes, with Dave on drills + electric guitar)
"Tryin' To Get To Heaven Before They Close the Door" (Dylan)
"Full Moon in My Soul"
(Robyn explains they're not playing "Welcome To Earth" because "humor has no place in live music")
"Flanagan's Song"

Then a selection of songs that Robyn says that they played for each other during the recording of SPOOKED. Many were medley-fied and are indicated as such:

"Bang a Gong (Get It On)" (Bolan) / "I Just Want To Make Love To You" (Dixon) / "Tombstone Blues" (Dylan)
"Tears of Rage" (Dylan/Manuel)
"Luminous Rose" - lead vocal by Dave, backing by Gil, Robyn on acoustic only
"Elvis Presley Blues" (Welch/Rawlings) - lead vocal by Robyn
"Dear Prudence" (Lennon/McCartney)

Encore:
"Flesh #1 (Beatle Dennis)" / "More Than This" (Ferry) - going back into "Flesh #1" by the end
"Waiting For My Man" (Reed)
"Lo and Behold!" (Dylan) / "Life During Wartime" (Talking Heads) -
going back into "Lo and Behold!" to finish up, very approximate lyrics for the "Life During Wartime" segment

Total time: a shade over two hours

Sartorial report: blue jeans + light green shirt with spring/pastel floral design at bottom of shirt.

Blinking: heavy

Mood: still fit, still happier than I've ever seen him, least banter I've heard at a Robyn show but it was an unusual one, so it's not surprising that he'd

Annoyance: guy with booming voice who tried to engage Robyn in banter after almost every song in the regular set, and whose yelling continued into the beginning of several songs. Someone from the Belcourt (the venue) finally spoke to him during the last song of the regular set, and he either quieted down or couldn't be heard over the
somewhat noisier encores, and that was good. But he should have been thrown out about 80 minutes earlier.

In a nutshell: My first comment after it was over was "Well, that was fun [and it was!], but now I'm ready for a Robyn Hitchcock show." It's not the Robyn show I wanted, and in fact, I would have rather had any setlist from any other show on this tour. "Flavour of Night," "Somewhere Apart"... sigh. I had to look at it this way: Robyn's previous two Nashville shows came at intervals of five (1992 to 1997) and seven (1997 to 2004) years, and if it weren't for SPOOKED being recorded here, I likely wouldn't have gotten another Robyn show until 2013. And this beats that.

Random observations:
* Jim Boquist *still* looks perpetually cowed, like Jay Farrar is going to yell at him at any minute but if he can just hide near the back of the stage and no one sees him, maybe it won't happen, maybe not this time...

* GilNDave still interest me far more backing other people than they do when playing the Gillian Welch stuff.

* Kudos to GilNDave for picking "Luminous Rose" and for whatever consensus brought out "Flesh #1." I do love me some GLOBE OF FROGS.

* It's not that SPOOKED's songs are that poor, it's the combination of (1) them not being "A" material, (2) that I don't have any desire to hear all of them together, (3) that after LUXOR about the last thing I wanted was ten or twelve more mostly-acoustic mostly-mellow songs. Live, the songs have more energy, as expected, but I still had no
desire to hear all of them. Damn you, Internet, tantalizing me with those other tour setlists!

* "Flanagan's Song" is by far the best thing on SPOOKED. Too bad it's saddled with that unmemorable title. I even had to look it up again when I got home - my setlist just says "the good song that ends SPOOKED."

* The show was being videoed and recorded, and Robyn said (from the stage) that the intention was to release the show. So don't bitch at me about not taping shows, o.k.? All of y'all might get to see and/or hear this one, provided that Robyn isn't deterred by Sociopathic Yelling Man's contributions.

* I didn't stick around afterwards.

And that's all I have to say for now.

later,
Miles