August 18, 2022

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Al Stewart and his band, The Empty Pockets played a laid back set of folk-rock at The Kent Stage on Wednesday evening.

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The Scottish singer/songwriter played to a near capacity crowd.  It was a storytellers type of show where Stewart told the origins of each song that he played.  He was engaging and quite funny.

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He noted that he liked to take history, literature and documentaries, mix them all up and see what comes out.

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There were songs about French history, "The Palace of Versailles," Joseph Stalin, "Joe the Georgian" and even one about a woman who would not sleep with him, "Antarctica."

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Early on, Stewart almost forgot to play one of his biggest hits, "Time Passages."  He quipped that it had been so long since he has played, he forgot the setlist.  His guitarist, Josh Solomon, pointed out that there was a setlist taped to the floor.

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Stewart was in a great mood and his voice was spot on all evening.  However, multi-instrumentalist Marc Macisso stole the show with his energy and incredible saxaphone playing.

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He even told a story of taking guitar lessons from Robert Fripp of King Crimson fame.  He said that after ten lessons, his fingers hurt from playing all these difficult chords.  Stewart told Fripp that he didn't need to know all of the technical stuff because he wanted to be a singer songwriter.  Fripp replied, "There's no future in that."

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The main set ended with an extended version of "Year of the Cat" that really saw Macisso and Solomon take the spotlight.

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The band returned to play Bob Dylan's "Love Minus Zero/No Limit" for their encore.

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Opening up the show with their own thirty minute set was The Empty Pockets.  They are out promoting their latest album Outside Spectrum.

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Review and photos by Greg Drugan

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