Joe Jackson :Official Joe Jackson Website (original) (raw)

COMING SOON: Anyone who missed the show can soon get a taste of it, as an excerpt was filmed at the Alexandra Palace Theatre in London. We'll be posting it online as soon as the video editing and sound mixing is finished. Watch this space!

The 'Two Rounds of Racket' Tour finished on October 21st at one of my all-time favourite venues, the Olympia in Dublin - three weeks ago as I write, but I still have a bad case of Tour Lag. That's when you keep waking up in your own bed thinking 'when do I have to check out?' Or 'how the hell am I going to get through a show tonight?' Since I don't quite know what to do with myself, I thought I'd write down a few thoughts about the tour. It was a pretty special one, and a big part of that was the band. The audience response exceeded my expectations, but the band exceeded that.

More about that in a moment. For the first 50 minutes of the show, I was playing solo. This isn't something I find particularly easy, or enjoyable. A lot of people tell me they like it, and don't get me wrong, I'm glad they do. But I like playing with other people! Playing solo can be nerve-wracking; you feel sometimes like the lone gladiator walking into the Coliseum. I was frankly terrified on some of the early shows. Even towards the end, it still took every bit of concentration I could manage. But what the hell, it's good to challenge yourself, and in this case it also seemed like a good way to give the audience something in return for 'taking a chance' on the second half.

The idea of a solo set as the 'opening act' came up in a conversation with my manager, about how to still give the audience some familiar songs. But I wasn't sure about it, until I hit on the idea of a set that went backwards in time. We wanted to take the audience back to 1910 in the second half - so, why not start with something from my most recent album Fool, from 2019, and go back via earlier and earlier songs, to my first two albums (1979) - and then further back with a couple of cover versions, until we reach the Max Champion era? I made a list of possible songs from each album, in reverse chronological order, and practiced a lot of them. And of course, there were way too many. Some that I like, just refused to 'work' solo, and I can't really tell you why; these decisions are often more intuitive than rational. And inevitably, some recent songs had to make way for better-known older ones. Some were easy enough to play solo, others were only just possible (if you don't believe me, try keeping the bass line for Steppin' Out going through the whole song while also singing and playing all the right chords).

As for the cover versions, the first question, rather than 'can I figure out a workable arrangement?' was 'can I sing this?!' I worked at versions of songs from the 1930s or 40s by Harold Arlen, Cole Porter and Noel Coward. Believe me, you were better off without them.

I felt on safer ground with the 1960s, and The Kinks' Waterloo Sunset was the perfect choice. It's a song I've always loved, and related to, having grown up on the South Coast of England and taken so many trains to and from Waterloo Station, and so many walks across Waterloo Bridge. More importantly, I was able to sing it pretty naturally in the same key that Ray Davies wrote it. As for the piano part, I did something Ben Folds suggested to me years ago. He is very good at playing solo, and when I said I struggled because I thought of my songs so much in terms of band arrangements, he suggested I try, even just as an experiment, to find the minimum 'information' required from the piano, to enable the song to hang together. And that might be just simple repeated chords with one hand.

This has worked for me more than once, and it worked for Waterloo Sunset, which also had the advantage of taking us to London and setting up my little chat about the Music Hall era in Britain (something Ray Davies also appreciated). A song from 1913 and a snippet of another from 1893, turned out to be a better bridge to the second part of the show than anything from the Great American Songbook. Then I got to leave the stage for a few minutes and take a few deep breaths as the band gradually filled the stage. (Incidentally, my idea of playing the solo set on a completely empty stage, which would then gradually fill up not with just the musicians but the equipment too, was something that I think initially freaked out our road crew. But to their great credit, they rose to the challenge and made it work - even in some venues that turned out to be 'less than ideal' for the production, where all kinds of compromises and work-arounds had to be found. So kudos to those guys).

Back to that band. I don't think I've ever done a whole tour where everyone not only got on so well, but were a delight from start to finish. (And there were nine of them!) It was a treat to see how everyone got into their 'characters' onstage, and contributed all kinds of theatrical touches, some of them quite bonkers. It all gave the show the raucous vaudevillian vibe I'd always imagined. While the solo set felt like walking a tightrope without a safety net, the Max Champion set was pure fun.

Before I started putting this band together, I wrestled with the idea that this very English project really ought to be assembled in England, with English musicians. But New York is still my main musical base and where I have contacts, and contacts who have contacts, and it was much easier to do it there. It still took a long time, but another pleasant surprise for me was that I ended up with a motley crew in which I was the only Brit - and it didn't matter at all. So a big THANK YOU to the following, in alphabetical order (and in case anyone was wondering where they're from):

Ms. SUSAN AQUILA - Violin (Brooklyn, New York)

Ms. JACKIE COLEMAN - Trumpet (Indianapolis, Indiana)

Mr. RICHARD HAMMOND - Acoustic Bass (Dargaville, New Zealand)

Mr. SAM KULIK - Trombone & Tuba (Worthington, Massachusetts)

Maestro DANIEL MINTSERIS - Musical Director, Piano & Ukulele (Vilnius, Lithuania)

Señorita LOURDES ('LOU') ROSALES - Viola (Madrid, Spain)

Mr. RICKY ROSHELL - Flute & Piccolo (Dallas, Texas)

Ms. CHRISTA VAN ALSTINE - Clarinet & Bass Clarinet (Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada)

Mr. DOUGLAS J. YOWELL - Drums and General Racket (New Milford, New Jersey)

And that road crew were: for the whole thing, Chris Bailey (Tour Manager), George Cowan (Sound), Chaz Martin (Lights), and Jon Carter (Monitors) - and for parts of it, Brett Morgan and Geoff Weate acted as deputy tour managers and general helpers, and Chris Dale and Dek McCarthy did stage setup and tech stuff.

The costumes evolved out of a lot of research on my part and then a back-and- forth with each band member. Everyone had to feel comfortable in their outfit, otherwise they'd look uncomfortable - and hate me. A costume designer, or ten full custom-made outfits, were luxuries we couldn't afford, so the clothes mostly came ready-made from various sources, and were then altered to fit where necessary. The most useful of several sources was Historical Emporium and their excellent online service. Some pieces were made to order: Doug's Edwardian Gentleman's Bathing Suit was made by Joanna Read of Blue Lady Couture in England. My hat and Lou's, Richard's, Ricky's and Christa's were made by Julia Knox of East Village Hats NYC. My jackets and trousers were made by Michael Andrews Bespoke NYC. (My shirts were from Historical Emporium and the tie was from a shopping mall outside Albany NY). My lovely Victorian 'conductor' music stand was custom-made by Michael 'Mr. Standman' Norris of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, and I found the vintage lamp that attached to it, on eBay.

Dean Howard, of Type Twenty Five Graphic Design, Portsmouth UK, designed the album package, tour poster, most of our tour merchandise, and some other stuff.

Our backdrop was a photograph of Ludgate Circus, London EC4, looking East towards St. Paul's Cathedral, taken in 1910.