Come to the Show: Patrick Fitzsimmons' LIVE The Birthday Shows

John Wesley Harding’s Dynablob 3: 26th March 1999, an entire, unedited recording of a show at Berkeley, California’s Freight & Salvage, gave a definitive feel of being at the show—an intimate sound with enough stage banter left as part of the recorded version to capture the moment. While I can testify to this because of actually being at the show, with Patrick Fitzsimmons, I wasn’t at the show but his LIVE The Birthday Shows (2006) appears to have delivered us to show.

Fitzsimmons (formerly From Good Homes) has an Ellis Paul-type folk sound with John Mayer’s voice. On these performances, he is beautifully backed by Rob Meehan (bass, guitars, vocals, melodica), Ned Stroh (percussion) Loni Bach (cello, vocals), Leena Gilbert (violin), and Tom Askin (piano, vocals). Fitzsimmons has some of the guitar chops of Peter Mayer, especially apparent on a song like “Come to Me.”

“Two Birds” is a picked tune again reminiscent of John Wesley Harding in the Trad Arr Jones era. Fitzsimmons even makes a melodica joke with Meehan that comes surprisingly close to a joke that Harding makes with Robert Lloyd during the Dynablob 3 concert.

Fitzsimmons lays out wonderful ballads, but his up-tempo songs are where his flashes of guitar brilliance shine. “Drive” has a 50’s feel as a rollicking, upbeat, folk song that kicks you out the door to get you to the sock hop.

Thanks to Patrick Fitzsimmons for the review CD.