Four years ago today, we were in Lincoln Center, participating in a three-night series starring the Blind Boys of Alabama. We play three songs, all rearranged for the occasion, concluding with a version of “More Stars Than There Are in Heaven” accompanied by the Blind Boys singing backup, Marshall Allen and a half dozen members of the Arkestra wailing away, and Lambchop’s Tony Crow on Hammond. Then we backed Lambchop, Exene Cervenka and Jim James. Was Jesse from New York there? I’m guessing yes, though it doesn’t come up in his email about a show eight years earlier: Not being hep enough to make my way to Hoboken for the first Hanukkah, Prospect Park in the summer of 2002 was my second YLT show since moving back to New York the previous summer. What I remember quite fondly: Running into very old friends on the lawn, hearing lots of songs I didn’t recognize, a Monkees cover I did, as well as a cool segue into a beautiful Sounds of Science piece, and coming to the realization that I should probably make an effort to see YLT way more often. What I remember mostly: That I somehow sat in gum, which affixed itself to my beloved desk chair when I got home that night and never quite came out, leaving a rubbery black splotch that I looked at every day subsequently when I sat down to work. The chair may or may not have later been thrown out a window.
