The Long Afternoon’s bassist, Jeff Edmunds, has provided additional details about what the group plans for the second set of its upcoming performance on June 17, 2023.
When The Long Afternoon takes the stage for its second set at Tussey Mountain this coming Saturday evening, it will open with “Powderfinger” by Neil Young. If anyone can explain the lyrics of this one to me, please approach me after the show. I’m wondering whether Mary-Kate Savage Fox will be there. Next up is an original Eston Martz tune, “Just the Sun,” which I would describe as hypnotic psychedelic shoe-gaze rock. Dig it. Then “Let’s Go Crazy,” the Prince classic, which we performed at the 2015 Rock the 80s show (https://youtu.be/AuGgBPJWsAk) and during which Jean-Pierre Mulley will have the pleasure of playing a weedly-weedly wah-wah guitar solo. After that, one of our most popular (ha!) social commentary numbers, “The Chameleonaires” (You’ll never be a chameleonaire / we live to feed the chameleonaires). Then one by the inimitable Bob Dylan, very nearly the first rap song ever, “Subterranean Homesick Blues.” Next we’ll perform two originals, the first one off our 2011 album “An Index of Maladjustments” called “Well I Wish You Would,” and the second off the recently released “king charles” EP, “Checking Out,” about failing to meet one’s commitments. After that, a tune performed by the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show 49 days before my birth, “Twist and Shout.” (The only thing sadder than peforming this number for an audience of middle aged people trying to dance is performing this number for an audience of middle aged people seated on folding chairs.) Then two more original tunes, “Better Now” (2011) and “Interesting Things” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yX6xwiTBnRM), which we released as a music video during the pandemic to exactly zero fanfare. Next up is our delicious take on the classic 70s tune by Al Stewart, “Year of the Cat.” Then “Trains on Time,” from the soon-to-be-released new album, about how self-absorbed societies break down and how it CAN happen here. Penultimately, “She Sells Sanctuary” by The Cult, one of the stupidest songs ever written, with dopey repetitious lyrics and music so repetitive and bland that I frequently forget where I am in the song while playing its four notes (D, C, B, G). We’ll close with a new original “Fun Sucks,” whose title sums up a lot.
With that, I’ll leap triumphantly down off the stage to those five words that every working musician, after a successful gig, yearns to hear:
“Can you move the van?”
