Collecting setlists and organizing the art of live music. Part I

Honoring the great Fountains of Wayne.

1. Part of the reason I miss traveling so much is because I crave live music in new and different venues. I was six months old when my parents took me to my first concert, Steven Wright at the Iron Horse in Northampton, Massachusetts. Granted he is a comedian not a musician, but I must’ve felt very comfortable, even back then, in that nightclub environment.

   We had a booth about 15 feet from the stage, and I gurgled early on in his performance. From what I’ve been told, Mr. Wright heard me and without missing a beat said, “My my… the fans are getting younger and younger all the time.” Soon after that, my parents tried to get me into The Rusty Nail in Sunderland, MA, to see The Neville Brothers circa the release of their fabulous Treacherous anthology, but I was turned away for being “underage.” Sadly, my mom had to take me home and we both missed the show. I was barely a year old at the time.

   

   Fountains of Wayne, Copley Square in Boston, 08/09/07

   2. My father worked as a writer and music editor for much of his career, so I was exposed to a vast array of artists early on, and collecting set lists is a tradition of mine. I’ve accumulated a large body of these on-stage collectibles, from Allen Toussaint to Steve Earle and from Mary Chapin Carpenter to Brandi Carlile. From Earth, Wind & Fire to Rufus Wainwright, Wilco, and Peter Wolf, I now have an expansive binder I’m forever trying to organize.

   

   FOW with special guests, Green River Festival, 2006

   3. A fellow Substacker, “On Repeat by Kevin Alexander,” recently wrote a piece on Fountains of Wayne and it inspired me to find a few of their set lists that I’ve acquired. I positively love this band, and I dedicate this post to FOW’s extraordinary songwriter Adam Schlesinger, who tragically lost his battle with Covid in April 2020, and to his band mate, our local-hero power-pop pal Chris Collingwood.

   

   Many of my set lists are handwritten gems like this one. Fountains of Wayne. Location and date unknown.

   This is the first installment of my set list sharing, and I hope you enjoy. Do you have any special set lists you want to share? I’d love to hear about them!