Gallery of screen shots
Tin Angel
Philadelphia, PA
Friday May 10, 1996
1st show 7:00pm (aka 3rd show)
1st show
2nd show
4th show
If you have photos and/or more information about this show, including thoughts and posts, please contact me. I'd love to include them.
Opener: Caryn Lin
Lineup:
Happy Rhodes - Vocals and Guitar
Kevin Bartlett - Electric guitars & interesting electronic box full of goodies
Carl Adami - Bass
Kevin's post about the equipment he used at these 4 shows
Sharon's writeup in Rhodeways #5
Can't say much about May 9th because I wasn't there. But hey, she's always good. May 10th was pretty dang cool nonetheless. The band consisted of Kevin Bartlett on guitar and effects, Carl Adami on bass, and Happy on nylon string guitar. Happy stepped out barefoot in a black top and sarong, The mood was set with a candelabra which was sorta creepy, I must say. Happy's mother, Danny Robbins, attended the show and sat to the right of the stage. The show began with "Words Weren't Made For Cowards", after which Happy made a comment about the heat putting the instruments out of tune, but hopefully not her voice.
One from the archives followed, "Take Me With You", which contained some fancy guitar work from both Kevin and Happy. Happy commented on how she could not be a joke a minute this time because of the heat and would have to resort to being drab (what a lie). This would seem to indicate that I had missed some sort of Comedy Central act the evening before. Damn. Next, the band performed a yet different version of "Save Our Souls" and her famous bulgarian tune "Lay Me Down ", which earned Happy the honorary title of Queen of the Macabre and made me wish for a bigger candelabra and some beer. The next tune was Freddie Mercury's "Lily of the Valley", which she claimed was not one of her own tunes, but she still loved it anyway. Ahem... This tune was done solo acoustic and lead right into "Possessed", which goes without saying.
The song that followed is one that she loving refers to as "lork", mainly because when storing it on her computer, she named it the first thing she could think of. A Bjork CD lay next to her, so basically she dropped the "B", gave it a temporary (not eternal) title, and left it to the audience to work it out on their own. "lork" is a peppy new song, and by far my favorite of all I have recently heard live. After "lork" came what seems to be a new segment in Happy concert lore: sticking a tape recorder in someone's face for what could be an eternally glorious or embarrassing experience. After selecting someone from the audience, she asked that person to tell quickly what their fondest memory was.
She then played a small section of the voice recording into Kevin's guitar by placing it against the strings. This snippet was quickly recorded into a looping device, and by stepping on a pedal, it was incorporated into the next tune, "The Issue Is", with the phrase repeating itself in the background (a very cool gimmick that would be implemented at the next two gigs as well). Following "The Issue Is", the band performed "Phobos" and "Summer", after which Happy wished her mom a Happy Mother's Day. "If So" was the final number, aside from a rousing encore of "When The Rain Came Down."
Tin Angel cards
