Posted on August 15, 2018 at 1:32 am

So Cynthia texted me to ask if we could get together while she was in town to make some music. So I thought she just meant to, like, come over to my house and sing. So it turns out, no, she wanted to do a concert. So, thing is, I wasn’t going to do an August concert this year because I was a little burned out from the craziness of the last two months, but I did just happen to have a night free to do it in the same week that Cynthia was in NYC. So amazingly, SubCulture has the night free, on two weeks’ notice. So my band is all available. So we decide to just do it as a secret concert – the plan was: I’d announce it at the Rachel Bay Jones concert, and then send out one email to my mailing list, and that’s it – no press release, no second show, just one big blowout. So I announced it at the show, and we were almost totally sold out already; then I sent out the mailing list announcement, and within half an hour, there were no tickets left.

So it happens that this is the 40th concert of the residency, a pretty big milestone. And so I invite my friend Jimmy Greene to come play saxophone with us, because some nights deserve that special sauce and no one brings it better than Jimmy. And so I premiere a brand new song, a Junior Walker-inspired funk tune about what happens in our house when the kids go to camp.

So I ask Cynthia to learn two new songs – “Cassandra” and “Invisible” – and she in turn asked if we could do “Another Life” because she said it was “sexy as fuck,” so of course I’m down with that. So we also decide as a surprise to sing one of Georgia‘s songs, because Georgia introduced me to Cynthia in the first place, and because after forty shows, having done songs by so many of the great contemporary theater writers, it was long past time to do one by my amazing wife.

So it was two hours long and it was just more fun than anything, and I’m so grateful to my audience for supporting this residency, and I’m so grateful to Marc Kaplan and the whole SubCulture culture for giving me a place to make and share music.

The Used-To-Be Us (premiere)
Melinda from How We React and How We Recover (2018)
Hallowed Ground from How We React and How We Recover (2018)
CYNTHIA: I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You) (music and lyrics by Ronnie Shannon, 1967)
CYNTHIA: Another Life from The Bridges of Madison County (2014)
CYNTHIA: Cassandra from The Connector (2018)
CYNTHIA: It Almost Felt Like Love (music and lyrics by Georgia Stitt, from This Ordinary Thursday, 2007)
I Love Betsy from Honeymoon In Vegas (2015)
Temporarily Lost from The Bridges of Madison County (2014)
JIMMY: Someday (music by Jimmy Greene; available here, from Flowers: Beautiful Life, Vol. 2, 2017)
CYNTHIA: Still Hurting from The Last Five Years (2002)
CYNTHIA & JRB: I’d Give It All For You from Songs for a New World (1995)
CYNTHIA: Invisible from How We React and How We Recover (2018)
CYNTHIA: I Can Do Better Than That from The Last Five Years (2002)
Wait ‘Til You See What’s Next from How We React and How We Recover (2018)

Encores: 
CYNTHIA: A Summer in Ohio from The Last Five Years (2002)
All Things in Time from How We React and How We Recover (2018)

Oh, and so Cynthia brought her dog.

Cynthia Erivo: vocal
JRB: piano, vocal
Jimmy Greene: soprano and tenor sax
Todd Reynolds: violin
Gary Sieger, Justin Goldner: electric and acoustic guitars
Randy Landau: bass
Jamie Eblen: drums