Glass Harp at the Agora, Cleveland, OH

Glass Harp @ the Agora
Saturday, May 11, 2002
Cleveland, OH

Review by Reuben D. Budiardja

I'll have to say it was the most amazing and entertaining concert I've ever seen. I had the previlege of sharing a table with Mr. Rodman (?) and his wife. He took some pictures of Phil Keaggy band back in the 70's, and his pictures were the ones used in the album of Re-Emerging. They showed me some pictures from the previous GH concerts in Power and Staumbaugh (sp?) auditorium.

As Jane said, it didn't seem that GH had a set list. But this is an attempt of set list, from what I remember. I think I most of the order wrong :) :

First set:
- Never is a long time
- Jam
- Children Fantasy, with Alex as a guest guitarist
- Whatever Life Demand
I think during this time someone from the crowd said "Glass Harp you rocks!!", and Daniel replied "yeah, we read too " :)
- John the Revelator
- In the Presense of the Lord
- Salvation Army Band

A brief intermission, then
Second Set:
- Southbound
- Garden
- new song by John Sferra
- This Boy (Beatles song), in which Daniel, John and Phil sang with one mic, with Phil played the guitar only.
- Intro and first line of Day Tripper
- Sign Came through window
- Changes with Matt Corey on Sax, instead of the flute solo
- David and Goliath
- Going Home
- Do Lord
- Can you see me
- Amazing Grace, with Alex's sister in solo vocal, then Phil solo / rendetion of this song were totally amazing, which (I think) then goes back to Can you see me chord progression
- From the beginning, with Math Corey on sax, some jams, then goes to What a Day
- You have my heart

Anchor:
- Child of the Universe
- Special Friend
?? (I forget what the third song)

Some detail observation:
I had a pretty good seat that I could clearly see how the musicians communicate with each other, and it was trully a jam session. At one point during the concert, Daniel said "Glass Harp never did rehearse". During "Changes", Phil breaks one of his guitar string (I think the 1st string), but it didn't slow him down a beat. He keeps improvising and doing licks with amazing speed as if nothing had happenned. In fact, if I didn't see the broken string hung from his guitar, I wouldn't know if he had lost one string. What an amazing show of talent.

With no orchestra at the background, Chris Queen tried to emulate the orchestra sounds with his organ during "Changes", which prompted Phil to make a funny face looking at him, as if asking "what are you doing?", and then Chris answered by making a gesture of playing violin, and Phil answered back with his expression as if saying "cool..". Another proof they didn't rehearse (??). Chris did a really good job of emulating the orchestra though.

I was really thrilled they played the trilogy (David and Golliath, Going home, Do Lord). David and Golliath is one of my favs. At one point during the song, Phil hit the jamman at the wrong time (during his doubled melodies of the descending licks, if you know what I mean). So he just laugh at it, and keep playing.

During the "Child of the Universe", Phil doubled Matt Corey's sax, which supposedly be played by the brass section, because there is no brass section. It worked well, and I can say that this happened un-planned. It seems to me that Phil just got the idea, and executed it.

Many other wonderful things happened during the concert, that hard to be put into words. But as I said, it surely was an amazing concert. I drove over 250 mile to see it, and it was well worth it. Oh, I also had that silly grin decease that happened to most of us after seeing GH played during the driving back home :)

Reuben Donald Budiardja
Homepage: http://www.goshen.edu/~reubendb

- Read the review by Jane Skon
- Read the review by Joe Petelin
- Photos, mp3's and video clips from this show are here.