[johnfowles]

For us it was a relatively quick and easy drive down New Jersey's Garden State Parkway then on to the old "Lincoln Highway" now known prosaically as "Route 27" to the city of New Brunswick home of Rutgers University and the "Heart Center of New Jersey" the hospital that performed my quintuple heart bypass operation back in 2000 (reminds me I have just heardthat David "The Lawman" Uffelman had a quad bypass back in November)
After a fine repast at Tumelty's Irish pub (within easy walking distance of the State Theatre we attended the concert
Thanks to a very last minute offer of cheap seats by Groupon the theatre was not as empty looking as it had threatened to be according to the online seating plan earlier in the week.
We had good central seats in the third row (behind two row of extra individual chairs for the privileged presumably a few of whom were no shows)
Gord and his orchestra strolled out a few minutes late then got down to the work that apparently love!!)
Unusually with just one major exception and one omission the setlist and indeed the running order (as committed to my memory using my one-bun two-shoe three-tree routine that I explained to Rick afterwards were extremely similar to that for the Syracuse concert on the 13th so I can copy and paste Annie's setlist with minor changes
The State Theatre New Brunswick,New Jersey 17 May 2012
1.Did She Mention My Name
2.Carefree Highway two-shoes on a road
3.Sea of Tranquility three-a tree on the moon
(the memory method works best if you visualise something stupid!)
4.Never Too "Late" err umm try Close)
5.14 Karat Gold
6.A Painter Passing Through
7.Let It Ride (heavenly) 7-heaven geddit?
8 Christian island
9.Shadows
10.Beautiful
11.The Watchman's Gone
12.Ribbon of Darkness
13.Sundown
14.The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald
Intermission,
1.Sweet Guinevere
2.Cotton Jenny
3.Early Moring Rain
three-tree a Boeing 707 taking of over a tree at the runway's end
and then a bit of chat about the upcoming induction in New York into the Songwriter's Hall of Fame
one gent in front of me loudly acclaimed Not before time or words to that effect
I cannot recall exactly what Gord's response was but I think it was some form of agreement
Then into a wonderfully confident and sublime completely solo I'll Tag Along
after which he said something like
"practice for the event" .
4 I'll Tag Along.
5. Home From the Forest
6 Waiting for You
7 if Children Had Wings
8 as Don Quixote
9 Make Way for the Lady
10 If You Could Read My Mind
11Baby Step Back
12.Canadian Railroad Trilogy
Then the same two encores as at Syracuse
13 Rainy Day People
14 In My Fashion
Wow 28 songs
That memory method works pretty well for me
(I find it hard to write and even harder to reread my writing!!)