Edmonton, Alberta
July 7, 1999
Review #1
submitted by Darren O'Neill
What a performer! Harry was in Edmonton last night and he brought the house
down. I was looking forward to this show since the day the tickets went on
sale. I've seen him before at the Albert Hall in London on his She tour,
but that was from the nose-bleeders. So I made sure I had good seats for the
big band show.
The Ned Goold trio opened with a half hour performance of high quality jazz.
One thing that did disappoint me was that their CD was not on sale at the
concert, but Ned got a plug in at the end for an online store that sells it.
My money has changed hands...
A ten minute intermission and then Harry came onto the stage and opened with
"Charade". After the first 4 lines, he had the band stop playing and jokingly
moaned about all the people that were trying to take their seats - "lets'
shut the doors and all those that are late can wait til the next song!"
Everyone who was sat down was cheering this sentiment.
The band was in great form, especially with Leroy Jones back from tour.
He then went into "We Are In Love" and "I Could Write a Book", both of them
(unusually) with no piano playing. He then stopped to explain that he had
broken his thumb on his left hand and that piano playing "hurt like hell -
only joking". He was wearing a brace of some sort on his hand that must've
helped him cope with the piano playing, he assured the audience he wasn't
trying to start a new trend!
The rest of the show (which lasted just over an hour) included the following
numbers (I think I have the order correct!):
- All of You
- Pennies From Heaven (a great new arrangement)
- How Do Y'all Know
- Basin St Blues
- Danny Boy (the same solo piano gospel style as mentioned in other reviews)
- [One that I can't remember the name of]
- Cry Me a River
- I'm Going to New Orleans (Not sure if that is the title)
- Come By Me
ENCORE
- It Had To Be You (short version)
From the rest of the reviews that I have seen this appears to be a shorter
show than most others, I guess that it was because of the broken thumb, and
not because he doesn't like Canadians as much! In fact, after playing "Danny
Boy" Harry called Ben Wolfe over to play the piano on the next song, and I am
assuming because he was in pain. Not to take anything away from Ben's piano
playing which was great, and came as a complete surprise (both to the
audience and to Ben I think!).
Overall a superb show, it was just over too quickly, I could listen to him
for days on end. Harry is the complete entertainer, cracking jokes about
Canadians and the weather (which was miserable, as it always is up in
Edmonton!), and putting in a wonderful performance even with his injury,
which I hope gets better soon!
