Fink, Greg and I all saw Arlo Guthrie for the second time in 3-ish months tonight at the Birchmere; we'd last seen him with Richie Havens at Wolf Trap sometime around the end of the summer. Not sure exactly when the Wolf Trap show was, but I have the ticket stub somewhere in my wallet...
'Who is Arlo Guthrie,' you may ask? 'Well,' I'd say, 'He's only the son of Woody, the most revered figure (well...at least for longer than Bob) in American folk music history. He performed at Woodstock and he also happens to have written one of the best 18-minute-long protest songs evah, "Alice's Restaurant."'
Despite the best efforts of the Birchmere security staff, I managed to sneak some (really shittily shaky and blurry) videos of the performance...here's a cool clip from the final 3 and a half minutes of "Alice's Restaurant":
0:45 - 0:55 - Imagine two of 'em [men] walkin' in [to the draft board], hand-in-hand, singin' in harmony, [you can get anything you want at Alice's restaurant]...I don't understand the policy, but I guess if you tell 'em, you ain't goin'!
2:03 - 2:22 - [After the audience participated in the first sing-along chorus/finale:] Oh no. That sucked. You can't just start singin' louder just at the end or something...you woulda thought after all this time, you woulda learned by now that if you wanna end war and stuff you gotta sing loud all the time so people can hear you.
Fantastic fantastic experience. Again.
You can get anything you want
At Alice's Restaurant.
You can get anything you want
At Alice's Restaurant.
Walk right in, it's around the back
Just a half a mile from the railroad track.
You can get anything you want
At Alice's Restaurant.
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