Stagestruck
RICHARD THOMPSON
@Austin City Limits, Austin, TX
July 2, 2001
Austin City Limits producer Terry Lickona has been trying to get British rock legend Richard Thompson on the show for over a decade. Finally, he succeeded, and it was worth the wait. Magic often happens in studio 6A during tapings, and this night saw the air shimmer with it. Accompanied by longtime bassist Danny Thompson (a fellow 60s British folk vet known better these days for his jazz work) and drummer Michael Jerome, Thompson and his guitars held the capacity crowd in the palm of his callused hand with a set that traversed the last two decades of his fabled career. He began with his trusty Lowden acoustic and three songs from Mock Tudor, his last studio record. "Cooksferry Queen," "Uninhabited Man" and "Walking the Long Miles Home" stood equal to his previous classics, with Thompson deftly showing off his facility with words, melody and six-string virtuosity. He then pulled out "Al Bowlly's in Heaven," from his landmark LP Daring Adventures, a jazzy ballad perfectly suited to Danny Thompson's improvisational double bass lines. "Mingus Eyes," from the underrated Mirror Blue, and "Dry My Tears and Go Home," another from Tudor, followed, with the former eliciting cries of delight from a handful of diehards. He revisited Blue for the oddly metered "Easy There, Steady Now," a showcase not only for his unusual sense of melody but also his stunningly deft fretwork. He closed out the acoustic portion of the set with a lovely reading of the pop ballad "Persuasion," a tune he wrote with Tim Finn and performs with his son Teddy on the recent best-of collection Action Packed.
A set this strong would have been enough to be proud of, but the evening was only half over. Thompson put aside the Lowden and strapped on his electric, rocking the house immediately with Tudor's "Bathsheba Smiles" and the best-of's "Mr. Rebound." He gave powerful readings of two older tunes, the appropriately haunted "Ghosts in the Wind" and the bitter "She Twists the Knife Again," both from 1985's Across a Crowded Room, before launching into the song many had been waiting for. The only tune he played from his years with former partner Linda Thompson, "Shoot Out the Lights," from the classic album of the same name, was simply a killer, with Thompson singing his heart out and shearing the heads off the audience with spiked fills and razor-edged solos. His playing so fiery he snapped a string, Thompson entertained the crowd during the string change with "Sam Hall," a British jailhouse ballad from the early 19th century that required the audience to groan "damn your eyes" at the appropriate moments.
His axe back in one piece, Thompson closed the set proper with Tudor's crowd-pleasing rocker "Crawl Back (Under My Stone)," exiting to a standing ovation. He returned swiftly, of course, with his Lowden but minus Jerome and Danny Thompson, and graced the stage with a loose, dynamic version of "1952 Vincent Black Lightning," a song from the Grammy-nominated Rumor and Sigh that's one of his finest creations. He brought his rhythm section back, strapped on the electric and executed a searing take on "Put It There, Pal" (from 1996's You? Me? Us?) that brought the audience to its feet once again. Thompson waved and quit the stage with his mates, his grin reflecting the satisfaction the enraptured audience radiated back at him. Magic occurred once again on the Austin City Limits stage, with the genius Richard Thompson as its wielder. Michael Toland
