Peter Hammill
Stuart Gordon
Tokyo November 7 2004

Easy To Slip Away (Piano)
Just Good Friends
Tenderness
Touch and Go
A Better Time

Comfortable (Guitar)
Shingle Song
Something About Ysabel's Dance
The Birds
Driven
(On Tuesdays She Used To Do) Yoga

Your Tall Ship (Piano)
Bubble
A Way Out
Still Life
(encore) Stranger Still

More from Sean (Couch Noise @ Yahoo ):

Back from Japan, and just found time to write this one up.
Every concert up until now had either its `hairy' moments or some element showing some lack of preparation. So I think this motivated the sort of concert Peter gave tonight. There were many repeats and seemingly chose songs he knew very well. There was less experimenting and add lib and an obvious effort to stick to the song. He and Stuart arrived and without comment began:

Easy To Slip Away
Just Good Friends
Tenderness
Touch and Go
A Better Time

Very straight versions, can't really comment about anything being `out of the ordinary'. It's almost as if they were for a live CD, very aesthetic! There was a very subdued beginning to the concert and quite a tranquil ambiance in the hall. For Tenderness he did need the odd peek at his notes but besides that he was very well prepared. He did of course play all of these previously during the other gigs. I suppose he was out to prove he was after all a `professional' and able to not make mistakes! He got up and while passing Stuart decided then to present him to the crowd.

Comfortable
Shingle Song

In keeping with the trend, these were very solid if not tame versions. He said they will also play some songs that they haven't yet played and did:

Something About Ysabel's Dance
The Birds
Driven
(On Tuesdays She Used To Do) Yoga

Ysabel's Dance was good and The Birds very well done. At this point I started to think they either very tired from the past days events, or they had a few too many last night because it was all too calm up to this point. After Driven, he started detuning his guitar, and very unsuccessfully I might add. "If I'm going to be out of tune, might as well be way out of tune." At this point Stuart started tuning himself to Peter and both ended up out of tune. They got it sorted for a very haunting version Yoga, which I enjoyed very much but would have liked for Stuart's violin to be turned up a bit during the `Booonnnnggg' parts for added punch.

Your Tall Ship
Bubble
A Way Out
Still Life

Tall Ship was nice to hear, Bubble is quickly catching up to My Room and Easy to Slip Away as the song most played by Peter! A Way Out is almost always full of tension. I notice both times he played this one Stuart gives Peter an added look afterwards to see if all is well. Still Life the last of the set and was as solid as the rest.

(encore) Stranger Still

Before Peter said there are no more new songs and thank god for that. He went on to stand and throw his notes to the ground and stomp on them. He finished the "a stranger, a worldly man" part by standing and facing the crowd. There was no second encore, but he did come back out to say thank you to all who came and took time to give eye contact to almost everyone there.

After the concert a few of us fans were taking quite our time to leave, and Stuart shouted to me as he was packing his gear up.. "you want these" shaking his setlists in the air. Do I?? Anyhow, I put forth the question to Stuart about it being almost an errorless gig, as if it were a live CD… he replied "What?? I made like 10 mistakes!!" Well so much for that impression…

Ps- on his setlist there is a title called Hugh, which is for I will Find You (Hugh) sung in a drunken English accent.

S.