Front Row · A fan’s more than 30 years with Pat Metheny

October 20, 2010 Orchestrion

Orchestrion at the Hippodrome

Hippodrome Theatre, Baltimore

Pat brought the Orchestrion Tour to the Hippodrome Theatre in Baltimore on Wednesday, October 20, 2010, one of 19 North American dates that fall (tour announcement).

It was a solo show with a mechanical orchestra. The tour supported Orchestrion (Nonesuch, January 2010), and the announcement describes the rig: “several pianos, drum kit, marimbas, ‘guitar-bots,’ dozens of percussion instruments, and even cabinets of carefully tuned bottles,” all “struck, plucked, and otherwise played via the technology of solenoid switches and pneumatics,” and driven by Pat’s guitar.

Sean went with friends. These are his photos from the street that night.

The Hippodrome Theatre on Eutaw Street in Baltimore: a tan brick facade with three arched windows, a vertical “Hippodrome” sign and an iron canopy over the doors
The Hippodrome, photographed in 2012. Not from Sean’s archive: Photo: Smallbones, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Pat Metheny on stage surrounded by the mechanical instruments of the Orchestrion
The Orchestrion rig on the same tour, Grand Prairie, Texas, April 13, 2010. Not from Sean’s archive: Photo: Steve Rainwater, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (resized).