It was December 15th, 2012, and Santa Cruz, California was frigid and rainy. Inside The Catalyst, it was only frigid. Seriously, people wore coats and scarfs through the whole concert. But it was well worth it to see Graham Parker reunited with The Rumour after over thirty years. Their albums from that period are classics, including Squeezing Out Sparks, Howling Wind, and more.

Recently they released an album of new material and the show combined a number of songs from that effort with many of Graham’s best know songs from back in the day. (The full set list follows, plus pictures!).

Graham was very energetic, moving around, dancing, and entertaining the crowd. He seemed to be having a whole lot of fun. I’d seen him a couple times before, once solo and once as a twosome, so I had only seen a more subdued side of his show. But this one totally rocked the house. The band didn’t seem at all like they had taken a 30+ year break. They gave the feeling of old friends playing and having fun with a lot of great songs.

By the end of the second encore, everyone had pretty much forgotten about the cold thanks to Graham and the band heating up the place with music. The new songs were good, but the crowd really responded to the older material, with people mouthing the words and sometimes singing along. Of course, with a full band, some of the lyrics got lost in the mix, but the rocking band made up for it. For the record though, Graham is a masterful lyricist and often rivals the best of Elvis Costello, who he is occasionally compared to. But while Elvis has ventured into genre after genre, with mixed but usually positive results, Graham has stayed fairly true to his style, a great mix of sharp and clever new wave, British pub rock, A bit of soul, and catchy folk-pop-rock. Yeah, whatever that is. But so what, it doesn’t really need to be classified, he’s been doing great music for nearly forty years.

Graham Parker web site | Wikipedia | Shop for Graham Parker

The official set list and pictures from the show are after the “read more”…

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Here’s the official set list from the stage floor (pictured). I listed the full song titles below:

Fools Gold

Nothing’s Gonna Pull It Apart

Hotel Chambermaid

Snake Oil Capital Of The World

Thunder And Rain

Get Started (Start A Fire)

Stop Cryin’ About The Rain

Long Emotional Ride

Howlin’ Wind

Live In Shadows

A Lie Gets Halfway ‘Round The World

Watch The Moon Come Down

Discovering Japan

Nobody Hurts You

Protection

Stupefaction

Local Girls

(First Encore)

You Can’t Be Too Strong

Passion Is No Ordinary Word

(Second Encore)

Don’t Ask Me Questions

Soul Shoes

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Here are some pictures of the show (below). Click on the first one, then you can use the arrow keys to step through them. Keep in mind they are cell phone pics, so they are not “perfect”. But not bad, and they do give you an idea of the show. I hope to post some video of a couple songs too, stay tuned for that in the future.

You can always leave me a comment below…

Graham Parker web site | Wikipedia | Shop for Graham Parker

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