Sellersville Theatre
Sellersville, PA
September 26, 2010
Review By: Nicole

After a non stop weekend full of shows, I was expecting Patty to be kind of tired on Sunday at Sellersville, PA – especially since she was doing two shows. But, she completely proved us wrong!

My dear sweet 2nd father Richard was not blessed with the “good directions” gene (but we stilllove him!) and wanted to leave around 11, so we’d be there by lunch. So, we hauled in the car to head over thinking we had about an hour and a half to get there, except the GPS told us we had 2 hours and 22 minutes – whoops! Add in some traffic, and… yeah. Needless to say, it took us a little longer than we expected, but we got in around 2 in time to meet Steve for a late lunch and rush over to the show that started at 3:00 – mainly because the restaurant is right next door to the venue – and there really are not many other food options in this small town!

The Sellersville Theater is small. I say that and whatever you picture in your mind, downsize it even more – it is small. It holds roughly 200 people, with 8 cabaret tables in the front of the stage in two rows, and then 20 rows or so of seats movie theater style behind. Naturally, Richard had nabbed us the very center front cabaret tables in the front row. To say we were close is probably an understatement, if we had been any closer, we would have been sitting on Patty’s lap.

They had a local band as the opening act for her both shows, which seemed to be a pain – the stage was small enough as it was, and they had to rush to get the opening act’s stuff off the stage so Patty’s crew could put up the rest of her stuff – twice! They played some covers for 30 minutes, and Patty’s crew busted butt to get her set up as quickly as possible – and she was onstage within the next 30 minutes. They taped Patty’s set list down, but took it up at last minute (we thought maybe to make a change), and never did bring it back, so we couldn’t see quite as easily what the changes were in the set.

The first show crowd was somewhat lame until towards the end of the show – I turned around to Patti multiple times and said, “This crowd sucks!”.

Patty was more energetic at BOTH of the Sellersville shows than at any other performance we’d seen all weekend. Her speaking voice was very slightly raspy, which she explained was because she had played the Fortune Williams Festival outdoors the night before. The festival is put on by Statler Brother Jimmy Fortune, and she mentioned how great it was to see the Statler Brothers and how they’d been around forever and joked, “Those boys are older than water!”. However, when she opened her mouth to sing – it was totally different.

The first show consisted of the usual set list, but condensed just a tad since she was doing a shorter set – taking out “You Don’t Even Know Who I Am”, “Here I Am”, and “You Can Feel Bad”. Since they condensed the set list, I didn’t feel like they were “rushed” during the first show like usual when they have two shows a day – it actually seemed very relaxed.

The aforementioned crowd that sucked got quiet – quickly – multiple times, in which Patty made sure to mention, and that “could scare a girl”. The crowd laughed.

Patty mentioned during the show that Todd Lombardo’s parents were there, so she had to treat him “extra special”. Todd grinned and said, “You always treat me extra special!”. (Which our Patti said, ‘GOOD ANSWER!!’ to.)

As with the other shows, “Sleepless Nights” and “Mountain Soul” sets were the most popular of the night – and once again, “Crazy Arms” was a huge hit with the entire audience. (Do I mention again how much Pete Finney rocks!???) And of course, once she said the words “Mountain Soul” – we immediately began cheering. She explained that so many fans kept asking when she was going to do another record like that, so they went in the studio and cut “Mountain Soul II”, and then started into “Bramble and the Rose”. And yes, I HAVE to mention just one more time…. I don’t know why they decided to add drums to this song in the live show, but it totally changes the entire song, it doesn’t sound like something off “Mountain Soul II”. Yes, I’ll shut up about this soon, but I sure wish she would take it back to the way it was cut. Of course, as mentioned in an earlier review, I don’t understand why Mountain Soul stuff is getting the shaft in the live shows when people are begging for it (if you haven’t read our great thread on the boards for our “Dream Tour”, click here to check it out and add your two cents!), but maybe I’ll figure it out eventually.

When she got everyone to stand for “Blame” and “That Kind of Girl” is when the first show audience started to come alive. Everyone sang along, and the band had just as much energy as Patty. Garry went over to the girls, playing guitar over there and laughing and singing along with Sydni into her mic – they enjoy the show just as much as Patty does. As they neared the end of “Girl”, Sydni and Deanie came up to Patty’s mic and surrounded her, which made her laugh, and then she and Sydni sang the end of the song together in Patty’s mic.

They left the stage, and we thought she might do her encore since it was listed, but they brought the lights and music up immediately.

They spaced the two shows out enough, and we had enough time to relax and catch up with Steve over dinner next door – where the waitress seemed surprised we were going back for the second show.

The second show is where it was at – and was probably the best show of the weekend. It’s incredible that she’d just done four back to back shows in a row, and the last one was so lively and full of energy, and sounded amazing. And, as they set up and taped her set list down, we took a peek – and that was the real shocker! She totally changed it up for the 2nd show - And not just one thing – she took out a few songs that I was floored to see gone, stuff like “You Don’t Seem To Miss Me”. And I’m not complaining, don’t get me wrong! : ) That’s been one song I’ve wanted her to take out most recently – only because I have heard it all the time since 1997, without fail. I think our jaws might have dropped when spotted it. Of course, the big delight was the encore listed in big bold letters….. “Diamond in my Crown”. I am sooooo glad I opened my big mouth for it at the Birchmere. Can we just have this as the consistent encore? Please?? Now we just had to keep our fingers crossed that they didn’t cut the encore this time!

The second show set consisted of:

The Night’s Too Long
Nothin’ But the Wheel
On Down the Line
You Don’t Even Know Who I Am
You Can Feel Bad
Crazy Arms
Why Baby Why
Bramble
Busted
Boys are Back
My Old Friend
Halfway Down
Blame
Girl
Diamond in my Crown

Again, her speaking voice was raspy and then incredibly perfect when she opened her mouth to sing.

The 2nd show had a killer crowd – they ate her up! Our entire front row was superb, and the guy next to me kept shouting stuff to her about how awesome she was, and I swear everytime I looked over he was giving her the thumbs up – I think he might have been keeping Patty just as entertained as we were by her : )

Anyway, the crowd had great audience participation – when the band wanted you to clap, they clapped. Hands waved in the air towards the end of “You Can Feel Bad”, and as usual with the great Patty crowds, everyone was totally silent when she started stuff like “You Don’t Even Know Who I Am”.

As she started the Sleepless Nights set 2nd, she mentioned how she wanted to pay tribute to the stars that she used to listen to on the Opry stage, and how as a child she had so many memories of sitting in the kitchen listening to the Opry with her mother while she mopped the floors. Before starting ‘Crazy Arms’, she mentioned the terrible flooding in Nashville and how happy she was that the Opry House was ready to re-open.

Todd’s parents weren’t at the 2nd show, and Patty mentioned that his family had been there earlier, so he was showing off today. And that he did, he sounded great! The entire band did – the only things we noticed were the drums being loud and the bass being just a tad bit loud today, which was the bass was mostly evident during “Bramble”, “Busted” and “Boys are Back in Town”.

Patty mentioned that she wanted to play a song that she had always wanted to cut, and originally heard at the Bluebird Café, by Steve Earl. Before launching into “My Old Friend the Blues”, she commented that the song could be for anyone – not just people traveling out on the road, it could be for the people at home who have their spouses and loved ones traveling, leaving them at home --- and learning just what a friend the blues really can be.

She had SUPERB audience participation for “Blame” and “Girl” 2nd show – and the guy next to me who was obviously smitten with her was in 7th heaven when she started holding the microphone out to everyone and then stopped in front of him and put it in his face. He was a blast to sit by – I don’t know if it was his first show, but he just couldn’t get enough of her and multiple times during the show I heard him tell his wife how awesome Patty was. I love her ending the shows with these – it’s just fun (especially when we can get our Patti to pop up in the front row and dance with us!).

In an effort to make sure she didn’t leave without doing that encore, we stayed up and shouting as loud as we possibly could – it didn’t take long before she came back out with just Garry, Deanie, Sydni, and Matt trailing behind her, to close out the show with one of the most beautiful renditions of “Diamond in my Crown” we’d probably ever heard. Seriously, I know I’m biased because I love this song so much, but she could have walked out and done just that song an no other songs and it would have been worth my entire trip. Absolutely incredible.

After the show we headed to the bus but Patty had already gotten on, and shortly after, already went to bed. We gave our hugs to Earl and headed back to Baltimore.

Unfortunately, that marked the last of our shows for the weekend. It was great to catch up with Steve for the two shows, since we missed him at Birchmere and Rams Head. And, it was wonderful to have so much time in with my 2nd parents, who don’t hesitate to claim me as their own as soon as I arrive. I’m wish Patty played these venues multiple times a year so we could have these great trips all the time : )

On a complete side note, I just have got to mention the whole “after-show-by-the-bus” deal, and this is of course just my opinion/vent: Folks, we’re all there for the same thing. All of us would love for Patty to come out. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn’t. If she wants to sign, has the time to sign, and is able, she will. If she can’t, she can’t. It’s just that simple. (And, just a reminder – she doesn’t owe it to any of us!) If everyone could learn the phrase “respect”, that would be fantastic. Please don’t screw this up for the people who ARE courteous. I don’t care if she’s on the bus or not, do not stand right by the bus door (people ARE coming in and out, getting in their way is not going to make their job any easier), and give them some space --- and don’t keep going attempting to look in the windows. (Does she come to your house and try to peek in YOUR windows?) Don’t ask the band and crew to ask Patty come out, and don’t ask them to get stuff signed for you. If everyone could just hang out, wait patiently, and give the band/crew some space, it would be a lot nicer. I promise Patty knows people are out there, and 9 times out of 10, Earl WILL let you know if she is signing or not. Just....be patient, be respectful, and if she signs, it's just an added bonus.