JAE In Lancaster

[Larry Lawthers <73552.1471@compuserve.com>]

Hi All,

I attended the JAE show last night in Lancaster, PA and was quite pleased with
many things from the drink-service to the atmosphere the club created.

JAE came on about 10:30 or so to somebody whispering, "The Ox" without any
amplification.  John was in great spirits as was evidenced by his perpetual
joking with fellow bandmates and by "effing" this and "effing" that.  For me,
the song selection started out great for at least the first half of the concert
(you've seen the set-list already in other posts), and then tailed off with less
familiar stuff.  This set-up seemed to give John time to warm-up since everybody
would theoretically be into the songs early on and then demand more from John as
the concert went on with respect to theatrical bass-playing.  The bass playing
was excellent by any standard but he started himself off with less complicated
bass-playing in the beginning and grew more complex as the set continued. Solos
became abundant and simply amazing. "Had Enough" did not sound good on the synth
but I cannot say that this was the fault of the keyboardist.  When first hearing
his Roland keyboard, I could have sworn I was listening to Van Halen based on
some of the sounds emminating from his equipment.  "Success Story" was a crowd
favorite.  The bass-playing was true to the sound from Who By Numbers.  I agree
with a previous review of the eight-string bass on "Trick of the Light" from the
Danbury show; I could see it but I couldn't hear it.  It suddenly dawned on me
that when JAE said "Mr. Townshend wrote this next song (referring to "Real
Me")", it seems John always refers to Pete as "Mr. Townshend" on-stage.  Is this
a subtle jibe at Pete for graduating to high-brow society and abandoning The
Who?  Great performance of that song, though.  In contrast to previous note
about John saying "You" being on Who Are You, John actually said something to
the effect that this next song "You" was off of one of those shitty albums after
Who Are You.  Hearing exactly what he had to say was difficult at times though
gravely unfortunate because he was joking quite a bit on-stage and hearing his
black humor would have been the icing on the cake.  Hearing the audience chant,
"My life's in jeopardy" at the beginning of My Wife wqas great since the crowd
knew all of the words to that song.  The women in the audinece were dancing
ferociously to this song off to the side and the unknown women around me were
sporting huge smirks and grins as John sang the lyrics to this song.  That alone
is worth the price of admission.

Attendance certainly was in the 200 range and the opening band was quite good.

I stood approximately fifteen feet from John in front of the neck of his guitar
and was seriously disappointed with two aspects of the sound.  There was a
center stack of speakers that could not handle all of the action beig forced
through them.  There were times when you were hearing nothing but noise.  I am
not an audiofile but sometimes the sound system was overmatched by what it was
handling and seemingly threw its hands up in the air and quit processing the
sound.  Eventually, and rather quickly, it would correct itself.  The other
aspect of the sound I was disappointed with Johns bass sound.  Too many times
did I feel the band's sound (their instruments) were overshadowing the volume on
Johns bass.  I simply could not hear Johns bass as well as I wanted to on many
songs.  Maybe he was finger-windmilling and missing the strings <G>?

Overall, it was a very good concert and one I will see again on Thursday in
Jersey and Saturday in Baltimore.  I know, I know, I need a life.  See the show
at all costs.  You will not regret it.

Larry