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Fell In Love For The Last Time 15 Minutes Summer's Gone Watching The World Go By Too Much On Her Mind The Traveler Someone To Watch Over Me Clocks All Stopped Fade Away
Sacrifice
New York State Of Mind
Review by SueW
Just a brief review but this was not one of my favourite Kasim Sulton solo gigs.
Although the idea of this being the first time that Kasim played all tracks from his new album 3 on stage was a great selling point, unfortunately it did mean that for the first 45 minute set, it was music which probably only a third of the audience knew so Kasim didn't receive as much applause as he usually does so that set seemed slightly subdued to me.
The Akron Civic Center is an amazing building which has fantastic deco and probably the friendliest staff I've ever met at a theatre. The theatre seats probably over 1,000 people but this gig was described as 'cabaret style' which meant that we all sat on the stage with our backs to the theatre. The stage probably held more than at the Beachland Ballroom and it was great that people didn't keep going to the bar through Kasim's set so that we could all enjoy the music without interruptions.
Best of all, tonight copies of Kasim's new album 3 were available to purchase for $15 so that was a lovely surprise!
Someone from the theatre introduced Kasim and then the lights went down and track one from 3 (titled Introduction) was played as Kasim walked on stage.
I won't go through the whole set but Kasim played a 45 minute set of all new songs from 3 and then there was about a 20 minute interval and then he returned for a set which was slightly longer when he played the remaining songs from 3 as well as some Utopia songs and some of his older solo songs.
Unfortunately the battery in Kasim's guitar died after his second song, 15 Minutes, so Kasim had to switch and then retune another guitar which I'm sure distracted him slightly.
Most of the new songs Kasim played to a backing tape so there was a really full sound to the music.
As Kasim played he told us a little bit about each of the songs and who played on each of the tracks.
Kasim spoke fondly at one point about New York and told us that he used to catch the Staten Island ferry across to Manhattan when he was just 14 years old as he worked in a studio on 42nd Street. It seems amazing nowadays that a 14 year old could do that! This was part of the intro to the Billy Joel song New York On My Mind.
At the end of Kasim's gig lots of people were standing and dancing to One World which was great to see!
Roll on Evanston on Tuesday!
Video - Love Alone
The venue (taken from the KasimInfo.com Blog that day):
The gig starts tonight at 8pm and the address is 182 South Main Street, Akron, Ohio 44308. Seating at this gig is general admission in cabaret style.
There are still some tickets available (from this link) and they cost $25 (plus charges).
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