Hi Suzanne and All,

 Just want to thank you for the wonderful concert last night, and for speaking to a small group of us afterwards - I was the one with the brown skin and trousers, and the white t-shirt.  And I apologise for the standing around and staring with the silly grin on my face!  It wasn't my intention to do that beforehand.  Your band and The Sound Guy (Phil?) were also very friendly and kind.

I was surprised on the night to bump into a friend who I didn't know was a fan.  He introduced me to his friend who was also there (the girl who you met who said she was calling out for TQATS).  And they were thrilled when I told them that you might be willing to speak to them backstage and brought them along with me to Phil.

 
I wanted to tell you about how valuable your music is to me, and specifically about how a particular song fits into my life now, but it would have been a bit complicated, and you needed to go to the signing (which I didn't know about until seeing the queue when we left the green room).  I recently was contacted by a half-brother I didn't know I had on my father's side of my family and am now in contact with my father, who I had no contact with since being about 3 - until now I also knew next to nothing about his side of the family.  We haven't met in person yet, but it will happen eventually.

Thank you for standing in a photo with me, for signing my copy of The Passionate Eye (again!  It is the signed copy that was supplied by a towie in 1999,  - David from Connecticut IIRC - Hi if you're still here! ), and for coming and playing for us in Perth.

 I hope the group photo I took with Phil's camera came out okay!

Best wishes,

Neil
 

A bit more on Perth.

* Thought the show at Burswood was excellent, I was third row from the front, to her right.  Which is the best side as she's right handed so was turned in my direction when playing guitar.  Plenty close enough to watch her fingers on the guitar when I wanted to.  She did a mixture of old and new songs and there were also new arrangements of some old songs.  Left of Centre and Blood Makes Noise were done accompanied only by Mike V, and she did a full band (keys, bass, drums, electric guitar) version of Tom's Diner, as well as the a cappella version.  All sounded great!  And I thought In Liverpool sounded awesome.  Set list very similar to others posted, though she didn't do Small Blue Thing. 

* The opening was fun.  Suzanne started the show with the a-cappella Tom's Diner.  A moment after she started we saw Mike V walking across the stage carrying an "I love NY" mug, which he made sure we all saw, filling it (only half way?) with water before placing it beside Suzanne.   I meant to tell Mike V afterwards that I really enjoyed the songs with only him accompanying Suzanne, but didn't get to it.

* All of the Beauty and Crime songs were wonderful even better I think live than on CD – my friends were persuaded to buy the new CD after this (I already have it, of course!).  Suzanne was wearing the dress and hat on the cover of the album during the gig, but she explained that it wasn't hers and that she will be returning it after this show, as it is the end of the tour - this was the last time we would see her wearing it.  I was hoping she would still have it on at the meet-and-greet, but she had changed before coming to see us. 

* During the full-band Tom's Diner, Suzanne walked around the stage, and looked out at the audience – at one point I thought I was being looked at directly and felt a need to avert my eyes – but it would have been too dark to see us clearly!

* Suzanne did two encores – for the second I heard people calling out for The Queen and the Solider, and also for Calypso.  Suzanne explained that Mike doesn't like Calypso so they (Suzanne and Mike V) ended with The Queen and the Soldier 

*During the meet-and-greet, there were at least four other fans there who I hadn't met (are they here?), and I recall one person asking Suzanne about the meaning of Solitude Standing, and the significance of the flower and the flame, which she explained.

Sara Storer (support) was sitting in the green room too, and I think she might have been feeling a bit left-out as I don't think any of us went to speak to her – am feeling a bit bad about that now, but didn't think to do anything about it at the time.  I hadn't heard of her before but I enjoyed her performance, and thought she was very compatible with Suzanne, as a support act.  She is considered to be a country singer, but I only knew that when I googled her after the show – she didn't sound the way I thought country sounds (no "twang" – am showing my ignorance of country music here!). 

Phil gave me his camera to take a group photo of Suzanne the band and crew (and Sara Storer and her guitarist).  I might have been a more demanding photographer than they expected, as I asked them to move some chairs out of the way that I thought would spoil the picture, and also to squeeze in more closely than they were standing originally.  I could have stepped back, but then more of a table would have been in the picture.  I might have been trying their patience a bit.  I hope I didn't miss seeing something growing out of Suzanne's head!  He also made a point of telling me to be careful with my left fingers as it's easy to cover the flash.  I hope, in my excitement, I didn't forget to keep my fingers out of the way.

* I hope the show was worth her while, as I heard that the ticket sales for Perth were a bit slow, but the theatre looked mostly filled when I looked back – is hard to tell in the dark though. 

* As everybody knows, Suzanne is very gracious - backstage, and also during the show when she often bowed between songs! 

Neil