Paul Kelly intro

I stumbled on to Paul Kelly quite by accident. In early 1987 I received a CD in the mail from one of the record labels. It contained one song each from several new artists who were scheduled to have new albums that year. Right from the start there was one song that jumped out and grabbed me. It was Kelly’s song, “Before Too Long”. To me it was reminiscent of the acoustic style of The Beatles middle period, my favourite era (think of a mash up of some songs from "Help!"). When his Gossip CD came out I was ready and I devoured it as I did with all of his subsequent albums over the years. I have never been disappointed and Paul Kelly is right at the top of my ‘desert island’ list.

In 1988 Paul Kelly and The Messengers were the opening act at an outdoor concert at Smithville Lake in support of their second US release, Under The Sun. They would never play Kansas City again. As an Australian band it was simply too costly to tour America extensively and their efforts only garnered them a limited cult fan base. Future tours got smaller and smaller hitting only the largest North American cities.

About a month ago I got an email from his new manager, John Porter. I met John in New York last year when he was managing Carrie Rodriguez. His email included Paul Kelly’s itinerary. He was hitting five cities for two nights each. L.A., Vancouver, Chicago, New York, and…Toronto! I couldn’t believe it. He was scheduled for a Friday and Saturday and only charging $15. I immediately called the venue, The Dakota Tavern, and was devastated to find that both shows were sold out! What a rollercoaster. I quickly wrote John to see if he could get me on the guest list for Saturday night. He was encouraging but couldn’t be certain for three or four days. I called the venue back and put my name on the waiting list for Friday. I was assured that it was hopeless and my only chance would be to stop by the day of the show and hope for some no shows.

By the time Friday rolled around we were still undecided on our plan of action. We had received a commitment that we were on the guest list for Saturday. It was a bit cool out and raining steadily so we were starting to lose our enthusiasm for standing in line for what was probably a fruitless venture. After much discussion that morning we were leaning toward blowing it off. Five minutes later the phone rang and it was the venue. They had some cancellations and would we want them? We were in!

to be continued...