Artist: Leo Kottke, Mike Gordon - Date: 11/15/02 - Location: St. Louis, MO

Setlist:
Disco, Linving in the Country, I'm Going Back to the Old Home, The Collins Missile, William Powell, Rings, From Pizza Towers to Defeat, I Can't Hang, Standing in my Shoes, Last Steam Engine Train, Te Veo, Cripple Creek, Clone, Middle of the Road, Corina Corina, Car Carrier Blues, Ya Mar, Deep River Blues, Eight Miles High

Leo Kottke is well known for his outstanding guitar work. Usually a solo artist, Kottke leans heavily toward finger picking and twelve string guitars. On his current tour and album he is joined by Phish bassist Mike Gordon. A bassist allows Kottke a little more freedom with the melody, and of course, Gordon has some unique creative influence in the songwriting department.

This tour mixes a fair amount of the new material with some older Kottke songs and other classic blues/folk tunes. The songs are generally pretty lighthearted and upbeat.

The performance is really worth listening to. These are two great musicians who work well together. It's quite apparent that Kottke and Gordon are having fun with this venture. Kottke botches the words on one or two songs. It's not too noticable, and it's not a big deal since the atmosphere is kind of extemporaneous, and this show is at the beginning of the tour. Of course it doesn't really need to be said that the guitar and bass playing is really superb. If you like up tempo/fingerpicking guitar, this would definitely be a great show to get ahold of. There aren't too many people who play a twelve string like Kottke does. Some highlights of the show include Ya Mar, on which Gordon takes lead vocals and Kottke plays a great little melody. Other highlights include the classics Corina Corina and Eight Miles High. The interplay between the bass and guitar is great, and Kottke is on top of his game. Gordon makes the show a little more lively with his interjections between the songs. The sound quality of this show is excellent. It is a good soundboard recording with relatively low audience noise. You really couldn't ask for much more in a live recording.

Overall this is about a good as a concert recording gets: great set, great show, great sound!

How I would rate this album (F-A+):

Sound Quality (source) - A+ (soundboard)
Setlist - A
Performance - A
Overall Score - A+