Last Night's (Solo) Setlist: The Great Hall, Morial Convention Center, New Orleans, La.

The Great Hall... and probably big enough

for Beowulf and all his rowdy boys... not a stretch.

Last night was easily the biggest venue I've ever played, a massive hall in the Morial Convention Center in New Orleans where the acoustics were so good I was able to fill it with just my Fender Acoustasonic amp. Being in the Big Easy, I put together a set that was heavy on N'awlins tunes, including a few I wrote.

Click here to stream/download the set, courtesy of Archive.org:

One set:
Gris-Gris Gumbo Ya-Ya (M. Rebennack)
Dauphine*
Dire Wolf (Dead)
Garbage Man (M. McKinley)
Dark as a Dungeon (M. Travis)
New Mexican Shuffle*
Positively 4th Street (Dylan)
Strange Moon*
Alligator (Dead) >
Leaving Louisiana in the Broad Daylight (Oak Ridge Boys)
The One That Got Away (T. Waits)
Jitterbug Boy (T. Waits)
Craney Crow (M. Rebennnack) >
Lou-Easy-Ann (J.J. Cale) >
Junco Partner (J. Waynes)
Shady Grove (Trad.)
Bird Stealing Bread (Iron & Wine)
Smokestack Lightning (C. Burnett)
Long Black Veil (D. Dill/M. Wilkin)
Throwing Stones (Dead)

*Original

Monday's (Solo) Setlist: 3/2/14 McCormick Place, Chicago, Ill.

Sweet home, Chicago. Sweet, snowy, frigid, 

bone-snapping, nice-but-thankfully-temporary home...

I left Pittsburgh for what Skippy the Local Weatherman deemed "among Chicago's coldest winters on record," soooo hooray for that. We got more snow during the Soldier Field hockey game than Pittsburgh got in the whole Titan "storm."

But I did squeeze in a couple sets with some accompaniment by my sister, in-between bouts with frostbite. Archive link forthcoming:

Early set:

Strange Moon*

Garbage Man (M. McKinley)

New Mexican Shuffle*

Cyprus Avenue (V. Morrison) >

Quite a Night*

Mystery Train (J. Walker)

Went to See the Gypsy (Dylan) >

Like a Rolling Stone/Uncle John's Band teases >

Shady Grove (Trad.)

Slow Train (T. Bruno) >

Lady with a Fan (Dead) >

Deep Elem Blues (Trad.)

Late set:

Dauphine*

The Captain* > 

'Spanish Ladies' tease > The Captain >

Jam >

Southwest Sky* >

Eyes of the World (Dead)

Dark as a Dungeon^ (M. Travis)

I Am Weary, Let Me Rest^ (Cox Family)

Goin' to Acapulco (Dylan/The Band)

Angel Band (Stanley Bros.)

Sweet Home Chicago (R. Johnson)

*Original

^with Rachel Grumet

Cruisin' in the A-T-LLLLLLL: Pittcon, Day 1

Seriously, this is one crazy-ass hotel...

So far, I'm a big fan of Atlanta. Centennial Park is really neat, and you can't argue with 72 and sunny in mid-March, especially if you're from Pittsburgh. I'll take that six days a week and twice on Sunday. Not to mention that the Atlanta Marriott Marquis is one crazy-ass hotel. It's laid out like an H.R. Giger drawing, only with much-brighter colors and no weird mechanical fetuses or aliens.

Pittcon has also been going well. No major SNAFUs except for the food-service people not cleaning up THE BIGGEST FOOD LAYOUT OF THE WHOLE DAY because "the door was locked and we didn't know what to do." Uh... how about you ask the people next door... you know, THE ONES WITH THE KEYS? Doesn't matter, though. Turns out several pub-staff members and a few volunteer media members can break down a room faster AND better than the food-service staff.

There is a pretty severe lack of shows coming to the ATL this week. I was pretty geeked up at the possibility of seeing a band at the historic Fox Theatre, but naturally this is the only week of the entire MONTH where there's literally nothing there. Oh well.

Another thing I've learned is that, with my massive, glorious beard, a lot of Atlantans think I'm Zac Brown, from the Zac Brown Band. Fine by me. I'll happily be mistaken for a country-rock star who included the tremendous lyric "And I told him lick my sack" on his latest album.