Rhythms & Rhymes Recreated

I’m the kind of person who can’t sleep the night before a concert because of the excitement that builds up within me. And Sunday night was no exception, For Monday I had plans to See Derek Webb and Sandra McCracken with my beautiful wife Jennifer in Tulsa. We got to the Riverwalk Amphitheater at around 1 o’clock in the afternoon. I just wanted to check out the place and get a feel for it. It was a great Venue it’s an outdoor riverwalk lined with 8-10 different restaurants. The stage is open and overlooks the river and is quite beautiful although, the water level was very low. It was so low, in fact, that Derek called it the “Puddlewalk.”

Jen and I decided to go to the grocery store and get stuff for a picnic lunch/dinner and just eat it there. When we returned from the store Mark Polack was there with Derek’s road manager Dean (Andrew Osenga’s cousin) setting up for the show. Jen and I got to have a great conversation with Mark Polack (bassist, engineer, keyboardist, photographer, road warrior…etc). He was very kind and talked to us for quite a while. He spoke of being excited to be playing bass for Caedmon’s Call this fall. On a side note he said they are planning on playing Manner and Means on the fall tour which is cool. We talked about his favorite shows, tours and venues that he has played. After a while Derek and Sandra showed up and sound check began. Derek apparently hates playing outdoors. He spoke to me after the show about how much he hated playing festivals with Caedmon’s back in the day. The sound was hard to set up and had its share of frustrations but soon all was ready and the band headed off to eat dinner (Tsunami’s). Dean had great taste in house music. He played Anrew Osenga's The Morning before the show Andrew Peterson's Love and Thunder at the intermission and Andy Gullahorn's Room to Breathe after the show.


Sandra Stared off the show. Sandra's albums are always great but to me she is at her best when it's just her and her instrument. I had requested Ticket home but she said that it's in an alternate tunning and wasn't prepared for it. She did say, however, that she might work up a piano version for the future which could be quite cool. Sandra Setlist was as follows...

Springtime Indiana (Gypsy Flat Road)

Long Way Home (Gravity | Love)

Broken Cup (Gravity | Love)

Shelter (Gravity | Love)

Doubt (Gravity | Love)

Goodbye George (Gravity | Love)

No More Tears (Best Laid Plans)



Next, Sandra and Mark left the stage leaving Derek by himself. Derek talked about freederekwebb.com and even went so far as to make a startling comment. "I don't care what the FBI says. I own the copyright to all the music back there on the table" he said. "Download and burn,any of my music all you want." He went on to say that there are many bands who he would've never heard of if a friend hadn't made him a copy of a cassette (lol). So straight from the horses mouth, Derek doesn't care about burning his cd's. Derek then did his typical request portion of the show.


Mockingbird
A New Law
King and Kingdom
I Hate Everything but You
Rich Young Ruler *
Consistant Ethic
My Enemies are Men Like Me
Zeros and Ones
In God We Trust
Please Before I Go
Love is Not Against the Law
* denotes video recording at the end of this post


All in all it was a good show.

Mark Polack is an animal. If you ever get a chance to see him play....DO IT! His playing piano and bass at the same time was superb. He also is a beatles fan and told me he has the multi-tracks to Sgt. Peppers (DROOOOOOOOOOL.......). Revolver is his favrite Dyaln Album.

Sandra seemed pretty excited about the PASTE magazine review and her song (Long Way Home) being on the Sampler CD.

Derek said freederekwebb.com is going well and he has been very please with it's success.

Thanks for reading my review.


Random Bits:

- Mark said he had heard The Derek Remix album (due out early next year). He said it was done by Will Hunt and that it was done entirely with the existing tracks which will be neat to hear.

- Derek Likes:
1.) Bob Dylan's New album ( exact quotes: "Superb" and "Amazing"
2.) Thriller
3.) Chappelle Show

- Derek is still toying withthe idea of covering all of Bob Dylan's Shot of Love album. He wondered why people don't cover an artist's entire album.