TR / JJ in Baltimore, MD 4/23/05

Review by Chris Granger (Switch to
)
4/25/2005

After anticipating a great evening with two legends at the new Ramshead Live in Baltimore, we ended up feeling extremely disappointed, wished we hadn't wasted our time and money, and felt bad for Todd. Don't worry, I'm not writing this to bash Todd or Joe, both performed brilliantly in their solo performances. From what I could actually hear over the audience's chatter and occasionally see when I was able to jockey myself within eyesight, both performers were outstanding. Unfortunately they picked the new money hungry, general admission Ramshead Live in Baltimore as one of their venues and hopefully were so disappointed themselves that they will never return.

Much of the "audience", or better yet, "bar-patrons", were more interested in talking or screaming out intelligent "gotta get me a women" requests, or, in most cases, unaware there was actually a fantastic show going on. One-third of the audience came to see Joe Jackson, but were so unfamiliar with Todd that they simply talked through his whole show. One-third were there to see Todd, as were we, as loyal fans and tried to enjoy what otherwise would have been a fantastic show, but were either too annoyed by the audience or were so disappointed in the venue that it ruined the show. The other third of the audience were obviously not true fans of either performer and were there only to hear Look Sharp or Hello its Me, get laid, or were unable to deal with the beauty and talent of each performer's solo acts of mostly unfamiliar songs.

After having seen Todd several times including two memorable shows at the other Ramshead Tavern in Annapolis, in its wonderful intimate reserved seating venue, it was very difficult to stand for 4 hours with such an unappreciative audience in this extremely disappointing venue. The Ramshead Live venue will not be able to continue to fill shows similar to this once the curiosity factor has been satisfied and musically mature people realize that it is nothing more that the 9:30 club with lots of 36" plasma TV monitors everywhere that no one really gives a damn about anyway. The sound was horrible and the bar chatter created an annoying harmony to the musicians. After each of our party having spent $100 on tickets, food and beer, the security staff was completely uncool and treated us like we were teenagers ready to crowd surf. I can only imagine that the security staff were hired with the future of this venue in mind, one that won't see me or many other true Todd fans return to.


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