[Chris Lawrence]

Interesting topic. I remember the NYC Ghosts and Flowers tour shows were about 70 minutes, which I thought was a little less than satisfying, but I was primarily basing that on the "Thousand Leaves" tour sets which were usually about 100 minutes, if I recall. Long songs from the album + SYR tunes + couple of obscure oldies in the encore + buncha noise to finish it off. Those were great shows, but... same 13 songs, every night, for the whole year. Seemed really insane to me at the time. Still kinda does. And yet, if you saw one of those shows you certainly felt satisfied.

Those of you who collect live shows will certainly notice that most of SY's pre-98 recordings will fit on a single CD-R. After the oddly short NYC Ghosts tour in 2000 (where the songs did start getting jammed out a little more as they went, plus they were teaching Jim new songs on the road, I think), the Murray Street + beyond gigs have all seemed like a suitable length to me, and yet, many artists of SY's stature do seem to have a 2-hour set list. I think SY accomplish a lot in their full-length sets, which are usually pretty cookie cutter across a tour, aside from the rare triple encore or whatever. I certainly wouldn't be disappointed if they played more songs, but I guess I don't feel like I'm being short-changed by most full-length SY shows I see. Are their ticket prices still pretty decent? I definitely expect more if I'm paying $50+ for a show...