Tuesday, May 12, 2020

Richard Thompson with Zara Phillips - Royal Albert Hall Benefit - Home Concert, Montclair, NJ, 5-10-2020

Due to the worldwide coronavirus lockdown, Richard Thompson has been playing home concerts every few weeks. The first one was on March 30, 2020. It was a fine performance, but it was marred by middling sound quality due to the way it was broadcast onto the Internet. You can find that performance here:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2020/03/richard-thompson-with-zara-phillips.html

On April 19, 2020, Thompson did a second home concert. Unfortunately, the sound problem was even worse. There were small gaps of lost sound all the way through it, around 20 to 30 a song. It rendered the recording unlistenable, in my opinion, so I haven't posted that one here.

Happily, the third time is the charm. He did his third home concert just two days ago as I write this. This one was a benefit for the Royal Albert Hall, asking people to give donations to help that concert venue stay open through plummeting revenue due to the virus situation. Just to be clear, though this concert was for the Royal Albert Hall, it took place at Thompson's house. This time, for the first time, Thompson appears to have done the recording from a different room in his house where he has professional studio equipment. So the sound quality is significantly better than the first concert, and there were no transmission glitches as in the second concert.

It terms of content, he played songs from throughout his career, with two new songs he hasn't recorded yet "("If I Could Live My Life" and "Survivor"). He did the first one at the first home concert, but the second one was played publicly for the first time here. For the second half of the concert he was joined by his romantic partner and fellow musician Zara Phillips, who added some nice vocal harmonies.

The only disappointment about this concert in my opinion is that it's rather short, at only 35 minutes.

01 talk (Richard Thompson)
02 Gethsemane (Richard Thompson)
03 talk (Richard Thompson)
04 Withered and Died (Richard Thompson)
05 talk (Richard Thompson)
06 If I Could Live My Life Again (Richard Thompson)
07 talk (Richard Thompson)
08 The Rattle Within (Richard Thompson with Zara Phillips)
09 talk (Richard Thompson with Zara Phillips)
10 Survivor (Richard Thompson with Zara Phillips)
11 talk (Richard Thompson with Zara Phillips)
12 The Storm Won't Come (Richard Thompson with Zara Phillips)
13 talk (Richard Thompson with Zara Phillips)
14 Wall of Death (Richard Thompson with Zara Phillips)
15 talk (Richard Thompson with Zara Phillips)
16 When the Saints Rise Out of Their Graves (Richard Thompson with Zara Phillips)
17 talk (Richard Thompson with Zara Phillips)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15271025/RichrdT_2020b_RoyalAlbrtHallBnefitHomeConcrtMontclairNJ__5-10-2020_atse.zip.html

The cover art is a screenshot from the concert in question.

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