I’m sitting here this morning writing this while wearing the new t-shirt  I got last night at the Plaza Live in Downtown Orlando.

During the Vietnam War, the US government required men to register for the draft.  I suspect that many of these folks and their loved ones were and still are fans of Arlo Guthrie and his song “The Alice’s Restaurant Massacree“.  He stopped by last night on his Alice’s Restaurant 50th Anniversary Tour to entertain a full house.

Arlo Guthrie

Sarah Lee Guthrie (his daughter) opened for him and she’s a wonderful talent too.

Sara Lee Guthrie

“Alices Restaurant” is a favorite tune of mine and one of the first fingerstyle songs I learned to play on the guitar.  It was a special treat to see and hear him perform this and many other songs.  It was also special to hear him and Sarah Lee talk about their life, family, and friends.  Here are a couple of things I learned:

• In the Alice’s Restaurant movie, Arlo, Officer Obie, Judge James Hannon and his seeing eye dog all portray themselves.  Relations between Arlo and Officer Obie were frosty at first, but they became good friends.
• The Alice’s Restaurant song is 18 1/2 minutes long which is the same length as the famous gap in Nixon’s Watergate tapes.  Arlo suggested that Nixon listened to the song and that’s why he had to erase that section.

Arlo Guthrie and his band

Photography notes:  These were all made with a Sony RX-100 III point and shoot camera.  I took this one because I’m never sure what the camera policy will be at the Plaza – it seems to vary.  The Sony only has a 24 – 70mm equivalent lens, but we had seats up front.  I used it wide open (f/2.8) in aperture priority with the spot meter.  I manually varied ISO between 800 and 1600.  The shutter speeds varied between 1/60 and 1/200 seconds.  I shot in RAW and used DXO Optics Pro to process the RAW files.    This SW is excellent at removing noise and preserving sharpness – even with the smaller sensor in this camera.  The camera’s auto white balance did OK, but I used the eyedropper to set it based on Arlo’s gray shirt.

Lynn and I really enjoyed the concert.  And I like my new t-shirt too. We need more songs about social consciousness, activism, and protest.  There’re certainly enough subjects to write about.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go support your favorite artists and make some photos!

©2016, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved.