Regular Great Big Sea and Alan Doyle and The Beautiful, Beautiful Band fan and concert goer Squinityt4e bootlegged entire concert at Infinity Hall, Norfolk, CT on the 21 April, 2018. These videos were shared via the Online Kitchen Party Great Big Sea Facebook page back in April and on their YouTube site. (A discussion about bootlegging later in this post)
The playlist attached to the recordings states Alan Doyle and The Beautiful, Beautiful Band opened with the song 'Come Out With Me' from the most recently released solo album 'A Week At The Warehouse'. The setlist included songs from Great Big Sea, and Alan's other solo albums 'Boy On Bridge' and 'So Let's Go'.
The Infinity Hall venue was small and intimate. From the moment the band walked on stage the crowd treated the band with a regular familiarity and appreciation. From the opening song the band had the crowd in the palm of their hand and up on their feet dancing, cheering and singing along at a kitchen party not in Newfoundland.
Great Big Sea songs that were incorporated into this American leg of the tour were particular crowd favourites. These included 'Captain Kidd', 'When I'm Up', 'Sea Of No Cares', 'Lukey's Boat', 'Old Black Rum', 'Run, RunAway' and 'Ordinary Day'. I enjoyed hearing these songs and how Alan and the individual band members have made them their own, adding their own personal touch.
I really enjoyed the quality of this recording by Squinityt4e. Despite the confinement of the small stage for the band, the bootlegger made the concert interesting by zooming on all the band members during their solo moments. There were lots of close ups not only of Alan Doyle on guitar, Cory Tetford on guitar and Kendel Carson on fiddle, but also Todd Lumley on keyboard and accordion, Kris MacFarlane on drums and Shehab Illyas on based guitar which I loved and appreciated.
Despite the bootlegger sitting close to the front I really enjoyed the quality of the recording and there was no static that can come from when a recording is made close to the front of the stage. I also loved the inclusion of fans in the audience and in particular of a family with their young children dancing and having a time in front of the bootlegger showing music reaching across cultures and generations. I was there dancing and singing along with them.
The night ended as it started with the audience up on their feet singing, clapping and dancing along. The last song of the night was '1, 2, 3, 4' and Alan and the band left the audience wanting for more. They returned for an encore playing the song that made Great Big Sea, 'Ordinary Day'.
Alan individually thanked all the members of his band leaving no doubt he appreciated their support. The last song of the night was an Alan solo version of 'Where I Belong' about Newfoundland sang passionately from the heart.
This was certainly was an interesting setlist. I personally love 'Paper N Fire' and 'Testify' and the music magic created on stage with these songs from all the individual members of this band.
But to be honest I enjoy other songs more than many of those selected that were not sung from Alan's previous solo albums so much such as 'Stay', 'Sins of Saturday Night' and 'Shine On' from the 'So Let's Go' album and 'Break It Slow' and 'I've Seen A Little' from the 'Boy on Bridge' album for instance. But I guess what is sung depends on the audience and their history with Great Big Sea and Alan the solo performer.
As I have said many times before on this blog I am not a fan of music fans who bootleg full concerts of any kind. I am also not a fan of bootleggers who follow artists and musicians around recording everything that happens at a concerts for YouTube as this makes it incredibly difficult for the artists and musicians to make each concert unique to the people that pay.
Some bootleggers in this fandom record for their YouTube sites regardless of what the artist or musician they profess to love is trying to do including making professional live music clips or a live recorded album.
To be honest fans who can't or don't pay or continually choose other things over artists and musician's goods and services are of little benefit to those who create them. If fans like me can't afford to go to concerts for what ever reasons including not living in the country where they tour, then that is our bad luck and we should be happy with legal products such as albums and videos.
With that said the eastern states of America where the band toured there are a couple of other bootleggers (besides the regular fan) who always decide to record entire concerts and share them via social media.
On the one hand I believe they seriously undermine the artists and musicians they record to make a living, but on the other hand provide fans with an alternative to the usual sometimes poor quality recordings of everything that happens on stage of the tour recordings.
With the many sold out concerts in Canada and the United States and a full summer season of festivals and other concerts I believe Alan Doyle and this band would have done really well financially as far as musicians goes.
As a fan who can't get to concerts very often I very much appreciated this bootlegger's efforts even if it was against my philosophy of bootlegging entire concerts. From the number of views not many fans have seen these. I would recommend these if you are an Alan Doyle and the Beautiful, Beautiful Band fan.
I have circulated a few songs from this concert I really liked and will let you discover them for yourselves. Enjoy !
I included a post from the official Twitter account of Alanthomasdoyle about the concert at Infinity Hall on 21 April, 2018. No copyright infringement intended.
