[People in line for the concert]

UNIDENTIFIED MAN:

I love his style.  Very entertaining.  Just a very enjoyable guitar player.  My kind of guitar player.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN:

Yeah, he always puts on a great show, so I'm sure tonight will be fabulous.

[ANOTHER] UNIDENTIFIED MAN:

And uh, I hope he blows my head off!

RADIO ANNOUNCER

Hi, I'm Karen Gordon and this is Hot Ticket.  [theme music plays].

He's been dazzling North America audiences with his guitar work for over 20 years.  He's done six tours of Australia and 13 of Europe.  He's a Grammy nominee, a seven-time winner of Guitar Player magazine's reader poll, he's sold millions of records and, as you'll hear, he's a pretty funny guy.  His name is Leo Kottke and he's live from Winnipeg tonight on Hot Ticket.

CONCERT ANNOUNCER:

This is a really great night here...would you please join me in welcoming, for his very first performance at the West End Cultural Centre, Mr. Leo Kottke.

[Applause]

[Leo plays "William Powell"]

[Applause]

[Leo plays "I Yell At Traffic"]

[Applause]

[Leo plays "Ojo"]

[Applause]

LEO:

It's probably time I said something.  I try to speak actually long before this.  I used to do that under what turned out to be the false impression that it didn't matter what I said.  So I know that when -- maybe you've already suspected that I don't have anything to say at this point in the set.  

But over the years it became apparent to me that you have to say something -- so I just started talking, as I have tonight, a few years ago -- and just hope for the best.  The thing that [coughs] -- excuse me -- the thing that made it seem real feasible to me was that I know how awful it gets if you don't say anything at all.  There's a real tension that grows in the crowd and it becomes hostility within a very short while.  

Some people seem to get away without saying a word but I'm not one of them and not many people are one of them.  So I began to speak, knowing that no matter what happened, even if I didn't think of anything to say after talking for 10 minutes, that it was really the height of professionalism on my part.  But then I had a real powerfully sinking feeling one night when I realized that, of all the people in the room, I'm the only one who knows how bad it gets if I don't say anything.  So the suffering you're undergoing means only that to you right now, that the question in your minds "Why is he doing this?", "Is there a point to this?"  So I just -- so, the point is you need to know that if I hadn't said anything you'd feel much worse than you do right now.  

This is called "Oddball."  It was originally called "Jane's Nut Bread" but I thought that sounded ridiculous to me.  For some reason "Oddball" didn't sound ridiculous to me.

[Leo plays "Oddball"]

[Leo plays "Great Big Boy"]

[Applause]