This week, Neighbors “put on their undies and got down to Thundies” for the 13th Neighbor show of the Thunder Road residency, taking place 5 years ago today featuring Ricky, Lyle, Mike Miksis, and Zack Burwick.
An absolutely monstrous “Roll Stranger Dear Stranger” (or, Roll with the Changes > Stranger Part of Town > Dear Prudence > Stranger Part of Town) begins Set 1 before a Somerville Shuffle straight out of a 90s Mafia montage scene (featuring a Close Encounters tease from Ricky) rolls through Thunder Road. A Neighbor finale of Northbound and Brakeless finishes out the big jams of Set 1 before a crazy Move Along Little Jimmy > Headrush > Move Along Little Jimmy opens set 2. A first “Hey” follows with Canopy’s second appearance, while an encore of Skin it Back with Lee Ross’s accompanying saxophone takes you back to Waiting for Columbus. Zack Burwick busts out a final Ziggy Stardust on the vocals before the night ends.
Three songs made their debuts tonight, including Lyle’s original Acorn Tree, REO Speedwagon’s Roll with the Changes, and The Beatles Dear Prudence. Roll with the Changes (#1 of 3), Dear Prudence (#1 of 1), Northbound and Brakeless (#3 of 3), Acorn Tree (#1 of 2), Everywhere (#5 of 12), Working Man’s Blues (#4 of 6) and Ziggy Stardust (#2 of 2) were the 7 songs played less than 15 times by Neighbor; however, Acorn Tree is especially unique, as it now accounts for the largest show gap in Neighbor history (previously occupied by last week’s track Sneakin’ Sally Through the Alley). This show was the first time Acorn Tree was played, and the only other time the song has been dusted off by Lyle was at the Vilar Performing Arts Center in Beaver Creek, CO on April 11, 2024, a show gap of 234 and a date gap of 1,773 days.
Much of set 1 of this show has been released on the “Rick’s Picks” series, including Everywhere, Why I Like You, and Working Man’s Blues on CD#1, and Roll Stranger Dear Stranger, Whiskey, and Move Along Little Jimmy > Headrush > Move Along Little Jimmy on CD #9. Roll Stranger Dear Stranger and Somerville Shuffle were both released on video, courtesy of Patrick Hayden.
You can view the full setlist here: https://neighbortunes.net/setlists/neighbor-june-4-2019-thunder-road-somerville-ma-usa.html
You can listen to the show on Mixlr here:
Set 1 — https://soniabegonia-live.mixlr.com/recordings/872665
Set 2 — https://soniabegonia-live.mixlr.com/recordings/872700
You can download tracked and tagged .mp3 files of the mixlr stream here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1bOY7VfYD3Npn4c7nsPXJ0gaqSqlOHQry
You can watch video of Roll Stranger Dear Stranger here (courtesy of Patrick Hayden): https://youtu.be/F6O3S5O3c2c?si=6V2BZQIUSkKz9vLy
You can watch video of Somerville Shuffle here (courtesy of Patrick Hayden): https://youtu.be/dqR2DnbYPb4?si=09cfjKGYFWJmyvfy
Views from the Hot Air Balloon 