The incredible gap in effort between Gold Dust Wolan and Rhiannon

[Hawkeye]

With each passing tour Stevie keeps making it more and more obvious that there are just certain songs she's more willing to put effort into then others on certain tours. And it's usually rarer or newer songs that get a great Stevie live vocal and performance, She usually will sell a lesser known song (moonlight, New Orleans, ghosts are gone, fall from grace etc.)

Rhiannon is the easiest To get away with. One year, the entire tour they need to try just for fun. To see how much they can get away with, Do nothing but play that guitar riff over and over for 3 and a half minutes while a broom spins in the middle of the stage with the The bat wings attached. I think a good 40 to 60 percent of the audience would be satisfied And then Stevie can save her voice more and rest her legs so she can extend gold dust woman another 4 minutes to include a second dance and a fourth runthru of the chorus.

But there are exceptions. Every single year since Say you will I don't think Stevie can top herself on gold dust woman intensity and every year she does make it just a little better, or at the very least a little longer. The above paragraph is an exaggeration clearly for both songs but not by much. And it doesn't even bother me that much. It's great that Gold Dust woman almost gets rewritten every other tour this millennium. I thought for a couple tours it was gonna stall at never ending baby baby baby's and a slow droopy last minute with the spelling cape. Then the crack head dance was added as was the same tour the best musical interlude by the other 4 members of the band since the mirage tour making it such an incredible live song this decade for more then just 1 reason.

But then on this last tour the musical interlude during Stevie's dance do any really get better but it does get more fast rocking and intense. I think we can thank the foo fighters for this inspiration. And then Stevie takes the intensity of her vocal on he baby baby baby's which was much needed because I was starting. To really dislike that ending. But she took that places that aren't even an exaggeration to say were as good as the 70s Stevie especially late into the tour. Ending with the chorus again is an awesome arrangement idea also. I wasn't serious about doing it another time tho. It's just every year I think Stevie is is too old to top the previous tours gold Dust woman she surprises me.

But on the flip side every year I say "no way can Rhiannon be played verbatim as it was the previous year sure enough it is right down to the crazy comparison that Stevie will dance to gold dust woman for upwards of 1 and a half to 3 minutes, or even head bang to edge for different lengths of time, but Rhiannon is held to a standardized 3 spins since 2001. Not that I even care about how many times she spins, but it's so standardized that we never get treated to 3 spins but bless her heart she never tries to f**k us over with just 1

And honestly I 98 percent don't care that she's willing to change one song every tour and up her game, while the other one is scripted to a T with only changes in how loud she yells Take Me with you to the skyyyy after the all th sames. Rhiannon had its days of glory of incredibly different and yet equally awesome live performances from 75 to 80, and if Stevie truly is only capable of giving 110 percent on some of a 19 song set and only 75 to 85 on the other half, id rather we get great performances of the never played stuff and Rhiannon has been captured enough already. It's just that maybe they can spread the wealth one freaking tour and do a condensed gold dust woman and give Rhiannon a modern day ass kicking like gold dust woman gets. Complete with long guitar solo and long piano jam. And stevie looking and sounding like she does at the end of moonlight but instead belting out the ending of Rhiannon. And if thats not possible for a full tour, at least do it like that at the classic east show! (I realize it's too late to influence west, not that I expect to, just that slight feeling we all have that some of th inner circle at least read and report back **** from this board.