Jack Hardy - November 11, 2000

The Vanilla Bean, Pomfret, Connecticut

Here's what Jack played last Saturday (Nov. 11) at the Vanilla Bean in Pomfret, Connecticut:

First Set

Second Set

Encores

The Vanilla Bean in northeast Connecticut is a great place to catch a show. It's small, has a good sound system, is run by an extremely nice guy, and has good food at inexpensive prices.

Mike Laureanno accompanied Jack on bass and harmony vocals and did his usual top-notch work. His delicate bass on "In the Building of the Boat" added as much to the song as Kate MacLeod's fiddle on the Omens version does.

Jack has a bunch of new songs, several of them outstanding. "Came to Love Those Sad Eyes" is about Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca and is a beautiful song. I'm not sure if that will be the title.

"The Ghost of Grierson" was just written for Al Grierson and can be played from jackhardy.com.

The mill song was written when Jack was in Uley, England, during his September tour. It mentions The Old Crown, the pub where Jack played, though the song is set in the 1800s. It's about a worker from Ireland whose job in Uley is displayed when the mills switch from water power to coal and move north to Yorkshire.

"The Lady Turned Away" and "The Roan" were written on his trip out west in August and were played on the Bound for Glory program on WVBR that same month.

Jack wrote "The Last of the O'Neils" for his uncle who died last summer.

"The 111th Pennsylvane" was a request and was played slowly, lasting almost 9 minutes even with the next-to-last chorus dropped.

I hadn't seen Jack perform for several months. Fortunately he'll be back in the vicinity in December at the Blackstone River Theatre in Rhode Island.

Ron Mura