Another Ian Hunter thread

[Brian]

Mott the Hoople broke up after little more than five years. Coincidentally, because of the new software running the Montrose Peace Vigil message board, I have to cut off The Ian Hunter Thread after five years.  Its seven pages with its 66 posts contained album and concert reviews, setlists, photos, reader comments and many great You Tube videos still, despite the inevitable deletions along the way. The last page covering 12 months of all things Ian is linked here. This year, I also started the Mott the Hoople reunion thread for the release of the CD's and the DVD of the band's concerts last autumn.  Now, just out, we get a new album by Ian Hunter and the Rant Band of their concerts in 2010 with a string quartet:

You are looking at the front and back covers of the first self-released album by Ian Hunter.  Earlier this month, he notified his loyal fans via e-mail, so Anni and I ordered copies of the CD on the official Ian Hunter Dot Com website and very soon received a link to download an mp3 of the album before the CD ships on September 1, well in advance of the album's release through Amazon and iTunes.

It's bliss.

[Brian]

Anni snapped this shot of Ian Hunter and the Rant Band in January 2011.

Ian released his beautiful and brilliant "Man Overboard" album in July 2009.  Eighteen months would pass before Anni and I got to see him and the Rant Band perform any of its songs on the Left Coast.  Four of the best -- the title song, "Arms and Legs," "The Great Escape" and "Flowers," the greatest anti-war anthem written in the past 50 years -- appear on the new live album.  They toured the East Coast and the U.K. several times, but their gigs with a string quartet were something special.  The quartet kicks off the set in the Mott the Hoople song "Sea Diver," and they are prominent in "Waterlow," but they strike hardest in the intro and the outro of the show's closer, "All the Young Dudes," yet another rendition of that classic recorded for the ages.

A typical Rant Band set has 22 to 24 songs.  Ian and his wife Trudi wisely trimmed it to 15 songs -- cramming the maximum 75 minutes on one CD -- by leaving out concert staples like "Cleveland Rocks," "Once Bitten Twice Shy," "All the Way from Memphis," "Roll Away the Stone," "Saturday Gigs" and probably a few rarities as well.  That's fine with me.  I would have loved to own "Boy" with a string quartet, but that Hunter-Ronson epic runs nine minutes.  I can't think of one song I would have omitted from "Live in the UK 2010," let alone two, to make room for that.  Well, I probably could, but that would just be selfish.  This record stands as a fabulous introduction to Ian Hunter and the Rant Band.

The hi res mp3, whatever that is, that we've been playing is O.K.  But I imagine that the CD will sound even better.

[anni]

Yes! Success! I printed out the PDF/scanned the print/saved as jpeg/saved to photobucket/post it here. Sure there's an easier way but it's unknown to me. ENJOY!

[anni]

Brian buys two copies of every Ian Hunter album immediately upon release to support Ian and Trudi. We usually keep one copy in the house and the other in the car, but we've learned over the past two decades that that's just extravagant. So we have decided to give away our extra "Live in the UK 2010" CD to the first person who asks for it in this thread.

Don't be shy! If nobody posts here by midnight Friday, September 5, we will have to find someone less deserving than a reader of the Montrose Peace Vigil message board to accept our gift.


And Michael Picasso (one of my faves even though it always makes me cry) will tear your heart from it's home. With the strings, it's perfection. Remember...I warned you.

[Jeanne]

am I first to reply for the Ian Hunter cd? Pick Me, pick me!

[anni]

And the prize goes to the amazing Jeanne L. Congratulations, Jeanne.

Brian adds: The CD's are supposed to be mailed on September 2. We'll give Jeanne her copy as soon as we can. Thank you for your post, Jeanne!

[anni]

Well here's me, impatiently waiting for our new Ian Hunter and the Rant Band Live, 2010 CDs. What time IS it?

[anni]

Just in time and on time, too. Did my strong concentration yesterday help our new records get here, today? Who cares? They're HERE!

[Jeanne]

i'm really looking forward to listening to mine tonight. I feel like such a WINNER! Thanks, anni and Brian for the CD.

[Brian]

Ian Hunter and the Rant Band perform "Wash Us Away" in Fairfield, Connecticut on September 5, 2014.

After last week's warm up gigs in Fairfield and Brooklyn in the U.S.A., Ian and the Rant Band are booked in the U.K., Norway and Sweden starting next Friday through October 18.  Then they play 14 shows in the right half of the United States in November.  Suddenly last Thursday, Ian Hunter's official website announced that tickets were going on sale for a lone concert date at the Roxy right here in Los Angeles on Saturday, January 10, 2015:

www.ticketfly.com/purchase/event/682571?utm_medium=bks

Needless to say, Anni and I have already bought our tickets.  Why no mention of the Rant Band in that link?  And will Ian play elsewhere on the Left Coast?  All we know so far is that he is scheduled to appear in Japan for the first time in his international performing career, which began in the mid-1960's in Hamburg, not long after the Beatles honed their skills in that German seaport.  He has three concerts set in Tokyo starting January 16.