April 26, 2006
Some Days My Life Is Stranger Than Others
I got an email two days ago from some Ann Arbor friends of mine that they were going to the Lansing Lugnuts minor-league baseball game on Tuesday night. I deferred giving an answer until late yesterday, just in case work required me to stay late, but I set my VCR to Stun and made it to the game almost on time. I found free parking only a block away from the ballpark and waited for the other five of us to show up. We got our tickets ($9 box seats, first base side). Normally you wouldn't want to be facing the West as the sun sets, but it was only in the low 50's, so we'd take what sun we could get. The game was already through the second inning when we sat down, but neither the Lugnuts nor the Cedar Rapids Kernels had scored.
Literally tens of people were at the game. No one was out on the lawn past the outfield fence. People were concentrated, such as it was, along the infield foul lines. The low attendance was probably why one of the promotions guys came over and asked if any of us would be willing to participate in a contest, since they needed people 21 and over. A veteran of Minor League Baseball viewing, Mike asked, "What horrible thing are you going to have us do now?" We really weren't interested in doing the bat race or the "Sit on balloons and pop them" thing we saw at a Southwest Michigan Devil Rays game last year. This time they were going to use those water balloon slingshot things to shoot rubber chickens in the air and a pair of us would try to catch them in those big plastic trashcan things. Joe said he'd do it. Assured that I'd have a partner in humiliation, I said OK. Playing catch is OK, even if the object being caught is ridiculous.
They took us down by the visitors' dugout while we waited for the next inning break. Our guy handed us off to a guy named Brian. This one was about my age and wearing the head of a chicken costume, the kind where you can see the person's face. Some guy named Garibaldi got up to bat, so I made a bad joke about how his jersey should have more red in it. He gave sort of a chuckle, while Joe mimed that Brian clearly had no idea what I was talking about.
We headed out to third base while the girls with the slingshots set up near home. We had something like 30 seconds or a minute to catch as many rubber chickens as we could. I chased one that didn't fly nearly far enough, but Joe stayed back and struck first. I backed up and layed off the ones that weren't close, and I got a couple. I was so intent on tracking one that I didn't realize how close Joe was and I apparently robbed him of one (Sorry, Joe, but all's fair in rubber chicken catching. No, they literally said "there are no rules"). Even though the last chicken flopped off the side of my bin, I had more than Joe at the end, so I got the fabulous prize: A Miller Lite/Lansing Lugnuts t-shirt. Truly, my cup runneth over.
We got back to our seats and the game moved along rather quickly. With such a pitchers' duel, talk wandered. Somehow we made it to the fact that there's and Enigma machine for sale on eBay (minimum bid: $100,000), and how it took Alan Turing and the rest of Bletchley Park to create a mechanical computer to crack the Germans' Shark cipher, but the Japanese codes Magic and Purple didn't pose much of an obstacle to American codebreakers. At this point Craig asked, "Why do I know this [stuff]?" Me: "Because it's awesome?" Mike: "There's a reason only one of us had to abandon a wife this evening."
The Lugnuts put a run up, finally breaking the scoreless tie, and a middle-aged guy with a garbage can came around to pick up trash. He noticed my friends' Michigan attire and started ragging on us, misreading our disinterest as "interest". He said, "We got some Michigan trash over here!" and wanted us to sing the Michigan State fight song, which he had a copy of in his reflective vest. When we declined he said, "That's OK, Michigan folks can't read," to which I responded, "Well, at least we can do math." Joe refrained from asking, "How's that degree working out for you anyway, Skippy?"
After the Lugnuts got a leadoff hit in the seventh, the Kernels made a pitching change, which didn't do them much good. The Lugnuts executed the squeeze play well enough. The pitcher picked up the bunt, failed to check to see if his throw would make it in time, and flipped it to third about a month after the runner was safe. The Lugnuts used their rally to put up another pair of runs and that was it for the scoring. After the game ended, they played the Lugnuts' fight song. Some lyrics:
Go Nuts, Go Nuts, Go Nuts, Go Nuts
Lugnuts, Lugnuts, Lugnuts, Lugnuts
Go Nuts, Go Nuts, Go Nuts, Lugnuts
Go Nuts, Lugnuts!!
Then, in a weird and surprising move, the next song to come over the PA? "Bohemian Like You" by the Dandy Warhols. Huh?
April 24, 2006
The Agony and the Ecstasy
Spring, when a young man's fancy turns to thoughts of playoffs. Both the Red Wings and Pistons go into them this year as #1 seeds in the Western and Eastern conferences of their respective sports, the first time that's happened. The Pistons took care of business against the Bucks last night, and I wouldn't expect them to have too much trouble with the rest of that series.
The Wings have a little trouble on their hands. Edmonton matches up well with them and their defensive scheme is giving us fits. The trap press they're using to clog up the neutral zone is denying the Wings the ability to set up an attack. The bounces at least went their way in Game 1, letting Maltby get a wonderfully ugly goal late in the third period to send it to overtime. A shot rebounded off of goalie Dwayne Roloson and Maltby redirected the rebound with the area of the shaft of the stick between his hands right back into the net.
Once they made it to overtime, I just felt sure that the Wings were going to win. It was a certainty. They'd find a way. They'd carried play in the third period, so they'd continue that way in overtime. For the most part, that's what happened, but the first overtime ended with the score still tied. In the second overtime, it was Maltby again getting the goal, this time a less awkward-looking one.
Sunday's game was even slower than Friday's. The trap press kept the middle of the ice shut down. Manny Legace had a mental lapse and let the game-winner through, though the Wings were the better team for much of the game. It was a matter of a pair of bad turnovers in our own zone that killed us. Yzerman almost tied it up, but Roloson's toe made it just far enough out there so that the puck clanged off the post. Edmonton won 4-2 after an empty-net goal right at the end.
I don't want to get into freakout mode, but Edmonton could be very Calgary-esque (ca. 2004). They have a hot goalie and a solid/annoying defensive scheme. They have only one player that the offense seems to center around, but a lot of solid role-players. The Wings are getting frustrated, the other guys are getting more confident. However, I think that if we win the next game, we take the series. If we can be the team they have to catch, it becomes a lot more difficult for them to keep pace, plus it restores a lot of confidence to our team. They don't have to deal with questions of how they – the #1 seed in the whole NHL – have dropped two in a row to a team that just squeezed into the playoffs, and Mike Babcock doesn't have to answer questions about his job security. I also think that, even though the other teams in the field are arguably more talented than the Oilers (Dallas, especially), we match up better against them.
April 21, 2006
Back To Me
$2.95 per gallon. Are we really at that part of the year already? Summer doesn't even start for two months. Good thing that this should be my last show for a while; probably my last trip across the state, too, at least until mid-May. It took $45.50 to fill up my tank, replacing what I'd burned over the last 415 or so miles. Bug season is also back, my windshield and bumper tell me.
This, however, isn't really an optional show. I've been waiting for this night since I got Failer, back in October of 2003, and it seems even longer than that. Kathleen Edwards has come to the Ark in Ann Arbor.
The line went almost to the end of the block when I joined it, so I felt a lot happier to have paid the $1 "facility charge", $5.50 "convenience charge", and the $4.05 "order processing fee" to Ticketmaster a couple of days ago to secure one ticket at will-call. The only other Kathleen Edwards fans I know are either students or are out of state, so I knew I'd be at this show alone.
The last time I went to the Ark, coincidentally, I was also alone, and in a rather less fine mood. It was just after the Engineering Job Fair in late September, 2004. I was underemployed, out of school, and I'd been very politely told to "go to our website" about a dozen times, rather than anyone actually trying to schedule an interview. I'd bought tickets to Sarah Harmer's show at the Ark, just so that I'd have something to look forward to.
Josh Ritter was up first. The Idahoan with the mop of red hair played his acoustic mostly-folk well. I might yet buy his album if I can find it for less than $16. He took a few swipes at the president which were appreciated by an Ann Arbor folk club audience.
Sarah played a beautiful set, leading off with "Greeting Card Aisle", then moving on to more upbeat material, giving me the musical equivalent of comfort food. She played "Aroudn the Corner", "Basement Apartment", "Tether", "Almost", "Pendulums", "Came On Lion"; really, most of All Of Our Names. During a brief solo/acoustic mini-set, by request she did a couple of songs from her Weeping Tile days. She played an excerpt from "South of Me", on the basis that she'd written it near here, and an achingly beautiful take of "Dogs and Thunder", which I'm going to post here for the moment.
So Kate York just finished her opening set. I think I'm going to purchase her CD. Even given that I'm a sucker or $10 music, it was still a nice acoustic show, though she's a talker. She was trying to convince us that, even though her songs are slow and sad, she's really a happy person. A Nashville songwriter, she's doing her own signing now. Not camera thin, I don't know if she'll get the mainstream support she deserves from the Nashville establishment, but hopefully the press will continue to take notice (she's one of Paste's "Artists to Watch" this month). Her setlist:
The highlights were "What Love Was", "Will I Always Love You", and "So Long". Between "The Right Way" and "Will I Always Love You", she was thanking us for being so attentive and talking about how it's good to get out of Nashville and go to places "where people care about music". Paraphrasing, "Music is just everywhere [in Nashville]...open mic nights. They'll probably have one at Wal-Mart. I'm serious, there was an open mic night at the hardware store down the street from my house." She also wanted us (and the sound guy) to know that "girls love reverb". If I had a paid LJ, I'd make that a poll question. "Do girls really love reverb? Yes/No?" She also quipped, "Not all my songs are about doom and gloom. This one's about anger and frustration." She was a good opening act.
I'm sitting here, waiting for Kathleen to come on, thinking. The Ark and the Blind Pig might have the exact same listed capacity (400), but they're almost polar opposites. The Pig is the diviest dive that ever dived, at least in Ann Arbor terms. The floor actually sinks a little near the bar. Nothing really looks newer than 1988. I'm not sure if the floor is painted black, or if they just don't like cleaning. The Ark has padded seats and subscriptions. There's a rail in front of me for a drink. The acoustics and speakers are calibrated for folk, while the Pig relies much more on raw power. There's also no smoking in the seating areas of the Ark, while you'd be forgiven at times for thinking the Pig was on fire. The energy in the two places couldn't be more different, but they're both terrific venues. The Ark may not be rowdy, but it's attentive and it puts a surprising number of people surprisingly close.
I was hoping we'd get a whole-band show, since that's what they got in Toronto a couple days ago, but it's just Kathleen and guitarist/keyboardist Jim Bryson. Kathleen starts strumming out an almost percussive string of eighth-note chords on her acoustic. Jim joins in, adding a little color with his electric, but keeping out of the way. She starts in with the opening words to "Old Time's Sake", but the song sort of stays within itself until the second chorus, when it just opens up and blooms. Really, I wrote down "(blooms)". The setlist:
I can't call this an acoustic show. Minimalist, maybe? Whatever. "In State" was interesting with so much of the background removed, especially without drums and organ. After it was over, she went to introduce Jim to the audience, but he'd disappeared beneath the slide guitar and claimed that he'd been setting up the puppet show. Kathleen explained to us that they'd been touring with Bryan Adams (yes, with a "B") on Canada's east coast and that it's amazing what boredom will do to guys. There was a T. Rex, a magical wizard, all sorts of puppets. She also apologized for not coming here to Ann Arbor before, especially since a Zingerman's stop is mandatory every time they pass by. They were on tour supporting My Morning Jacket, going to a Detroit show, and she believes that Zingerman's prevented Jim from getting into a fight onstage with the drummer. Their mutual threats might have been put to the test had they not already been to Zingerman's.
"Summerlong" was a lot like it sounded on the album, just without the organ part. "Hockey Skates" was an appropriate song to play in Ann Arbor, at least for me. At Tuesday-night trivia they used to not even bother asking before getting me my drink order. It was more drawn out, turning some eighth-note vocals into quarter notes on the beat. Tuning was a bit of a problem, though, as the temperature in the room had changed since the guitars had been set onstage, so many times throughout the show she had to fill time while they were getting their tuning straightened out. After "One More Song The Radio Won't Like", she asked if there were any other Canadians in the room, which got some cheers and one guy screamed out "Windsor!" "Windsor? That's like the %$#hole of Canada!" she replied. She apologized to the people from Windsor, but continued (paraphrased, obviously), "Everywhere I go, it's either 'Windsor!' or 'Toronto Maple Leafs!'. I could do without that. Not Windsor. The Maple Leafs. I'm a Red Wings girl. You know why? I'm from Nepean, Ontario. You know who else is from there? [Audience member: "The Captain!"] That's right, Steve Yzerman. The motherf---ing Captain. (Deadpan) I slept with him once. [Other audience member: "Just once?"] OK, twice."
She commented that this was a highly inappropriate segue into her next song, a new one she wrote about what happened to a Toronto woman last summer and how her family's pain played out in the media. It's a slow, sad song about violence against women. Jim took his break during this one.
Changing things up a lot, she introduced "Westby" as "I wrote this song about waking up in a hotel room in Windsor". She stopped and asked if that guy really was from Windsor and was mortified when no one answered. His friend, at the concession stand, opened the doors and let the tension out by letting everyone know that they guy was in the bathroom. The chords she was playing were the right key for "Westby", but the rhythms sounded much different, very U2, when she said, "I like playing this song because it makes me feel like The Edge." It was almost like a quiet "I Will Follow", really. Jim returned and they tore through the song, ending with an impromptu chorus of "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For".
As she ran backstage to use the restroom, Jim said that seeing concession stands at these places always reminds him of being a hockey goalie as a kid, looking up behind the glass, wishing he was there. "So the moral of the story is that it's sometimes better on the other side of the glass. Hockey sucks! Popcorn rules!" Kathleen returned quickly, and they played "Six O'Clock News" and "What Are You Waiting For", really rocking the latter.
Jim took out a pair of mallets for the next song, which turned out to by "Pink Emerson Radio". He used them to play what I think was a vibraphone, though I didn't get a clear look at it. He put them away as they traded lead vocals on "Somewhere Else", as it was a song that he wrote and she recorded. On "Back To Me", they made about as much sound as you can get from two guitars, closing the main set on a high.
For the encore, she came back and tried to tell Jim that she'd changed her mind; they'd be doing the "second song we discussed", and started tuning for that, but he didn't hear her, so she had to go back to plan A. It was a new song, written about her father. When her first cat died, he told her a story about his days growing up a poor farmboy in Saskatchewan. The song is the best ballad she's ever written, I'd say. It's a story within a story, her father's told her about the day when he was shooting rats with his rifle. He missed and hit the barn cat, who fled into the fields. It came back the next day, missing an eye and with its brain exposed. His own father told him that he had to stop the cat's suffering, so the kid took the cat, took his rifle down from the shelf, and ended it with one more shot. Framing it all is the story of his own last days, dying in a hospital. It's really something and I can't wait to hear it again.
She didn't play any fast songs during the encore. Jim came back for the last pair, though. They played "Mercury", ending it as a slowcore jam. The last song, she introduced as "border patrol", by a guy who "can't decide if he's Canadian or American", Neil Young's "Only Love Can Break Your Heart". She invited people to stick around to say hi after the show, but it was almost 11:00, I'd forgotten to bring the Failer sleeve or my Harp magazine for her to sign, and I had a two-hour drive ahead of me.
I hadn't eaten since noon, so I hit Jimmy John's on my way back to my car, parked in the free garage near the Union. I sat there, looking at the setlist, and I was surprised to see only 15 songs on it. Lots of time was lost to tuning/banter, since they'd taken the stage absolutely no later than 9:15, and many of the songs were played at a slower tempo. I didn't even realize until this morning that they hadn't played "Independent Thief", my favorite song of her's, until this morning. Maybe that was the right move, since the organ part is critical to it. The set itself was really, really good, so I didn't realize how few songs had been played. It was a good evening and time well spent.
April 12, 2006
State By State
Here's my version of the states-you've-visited meme:
AL: Looped down below Chattanooga on the interstate for this one, so it doesn't really count.
AR: The '93 floods weren't too bad in West Memphis, but there were some new ponds.
CA: Charles Woodson is in the endzone, I'm in Row 12, and this is the best vacation of my life.
CO: My parents got lost on the mountain in Vail and had to go over moguls, so we've never been back.
DC: Chris and I stood on the roof of the hotel and listened to the radio traffic out of Washington National Airport.
FL: We learned about the "splash zone" at the Miami Seaquarium when I was almost 5.
GA: We learned about layovers at Hartsfield.
IL: The quickest way to Gino's from the University of Chicago doesn't run through the heart of the South Side.
IN: Fort Wayne abjures lane markers on their interstates, or maybe they're just really lazy about painting them.
IA: The world's largest truck stop is on I-80.
KS: Rode Adam's coat-tails to victory in Manhattan at KSU, saw several trees, no giant spork.
KY: 90 is the new 80 on I-75, at least when you're trying to get through Kentucky.
MD: There's no party like a Lutherville party, because all other parties are better.
MA: Why doesn't our library have murals by John Singer Sargent?
MI: I flew a seaplane.
MN: Sjeng Schalken was on our flight from MSP to Palm Springs/Indian Wells.
MO: There really weren't two closer buildings for Div II in 2001?
MS: They love their Confederate soldiers in Oxford.
NJ: The Famous King of Pizza in Brooklawn has yet to be recognized by the UN.
NC: My aunt's cat was eaten by a bear shortly after we left, even though she lived in Raleigh.
OH: The liquor stores in Bowling Green all close before 9:00PM on Saturdays.
PA: I have a different place you can put that Slurpee, Davidson, and it's not on this windshield.
TN: I was shushed at Graceland for not being reverent enough.
TX: Audioanimatronic Lyndon Johnson is freaky.
VA: Eric ripped Steve Case a new one at the Q&A.
WI: I missed the last exit to Illinois.
WV: A Ford Escort with 5 adults in it may struggle up the mountains.
ON: I pegged the speedometer at 140 on the 401.
Nassau, Bahamas: A surprisingly depressing place, what with the poverty and people trying to sell you tanzanite.
April 13, 2006
Your Cultural Reference Points May Not Coincide With Mine
Ben Folds played the Wharton Center at Michigan State on Monday, the 10th. My sister's friend works in the ticket office there, so she got the three of us sweet third-row center seats. As is her mien, my sister took way too long getting ready, so by the opening act had already started playing by the time we got inside. Maybe they told everyone who they were at the beginning, but they didn't mention it at all while we were there. It was just one guy on guitar and one on drums. The guitar guy took the lead vocal, with the drummer harmonizing most of the time. It was pretty good, slightly rootsy, guitar rock. The internet tells me that it was probably singer/songwriter Chris Mills with Gearld (sic) Dowd on drums. The highlight was his song "I Wish I Was A Bomb" and story about how they're trying, but they ended up as the random old guys at a Swarthmore frat party a couple days ago. The set was under half an hour, so they ended up doing yeoman's work as an opening act.
Ben & Co. didn't really waste any time taking the stage. After Chris Mills's set had been cleared away and the sound techs had done their work, the theater went dark and some cuss-filled bluegrass song came over the PA. The Not-Five walked out as it finished. I was in the act of standing up when I realized that no one was going to join me. You lose points for that, Michigan State. And you're supposed to be a party school. Tsk, tsk. The setlist:
| Album Count: | |
| Songs For Silverman: | 7 |
| Sunny 16 EP: | 2 |
| Rockin' the Suburbs: | 8 |
| The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner: | 3 |
| Whatever & Ever Amen: | 2 |
| Ben Folds Five: | 1 |
| Other: | 4 |
OK, so maybe "Give Judy My Notice" is too much of a midtempo ballad for you, but this shouldn't be a sit-down show. "Theme From 'Dr. Pyser'" should get you on your feet, especially when Ben breaks into "Miserlou" at the end. It's frickin' incredible. "Gone" finally did it, getting people out of their seats, and the singing let me know that people at least know Rockin' The Suburbs. Things livened up on that song as it crashed along. Now that drums and bass were again in the line-up, I couldn't hear if the audience still was doing the backing vocals on this song.
Ben then told a little story about how he was over at the local Meijer and he was taking a few pictures when some guy came up to him and said that he couldn't. "Why?" "I'm sorry, it's private property and you can't take pictures." It was the marketing manager on his day off. Apparently there were some secrets that they needed to protect. High security yams or something. "Jesusland" is very close to me. Seriously, I live there. "All U Can Eat" is from the Sunny 16 EP about all the people who really can't be bothered to care about anyone else, like that guy in the SUV with the peace sign who gives you the finger on the freeway. The people around me got the handclaps right for "Annie Waits", so I guess Rockin' the Suburbs really is their Whatever & Ever Amen.
Immediately after "Annie Waits", Ben declared that he had to pee and left the stage to his bewildered bandmates, Lindsay Jameson (drums) and Jared Reynolds (bass), who were trying to banter and fill, but failing. They should've taken the opportunity for a drum 'n' bass jam. Ben came back after a minute, saying that he had been kidding and that they had a real rock star to bring out. Local cabbie Rick Shaw, a white-haired sixtyish dude with some serious mutton chops and a mustache, came out to the stage with his harmonica and played a couple of instrumental jams with them. I guess he's a local celebrity or something.
Rick left the stage and Ben said, "I wrote this next song with Dr. Dre" and began a re-interpretation of that gangsta classic, "B!tches Ain't Sh!t". It was sung, not rapped, to typically Folds-ian accompaniment, sounding more like "Trusted" than any other song in his canon. Each band member took a verse. Lindsay's English, so his verse sounded like the Streets. The song ended with Ben conducting the audience in the final hook.
"Losing Lisa" was pretty good, but "You To Thank" and "Trusted" are two of the better concert performances off of Songs For Silverman. "Still Fighting It" was a good one to sing along to, and with the quiet beginning you could tell that a lot of people were.
The rest of the band departed and left Ben alone at the piano. I'd only seen his solo, piano-only gigs before, so I was wondering if this was the only part where he'd play Ben Folds Five material. It proved to be inaccurate, but he seemed to confirm it when he started playing "Brick". People at least knew the words to that one, and it was a riveting performance. The song was out of his lineup as late as Thanskgiving of 2002, but I guess he's made his peace with it. He followed it up with "Gracie", off the new album. I love "Lullaby", if only for the line about taking a flight with Uncle Richard and James Earl Jones. "The Last Polka" turned out to be the only song from Ben Folds Five that would be played; it's not in my top five from that album.
Ben started teaching the audience the horn parts for "Army" as the rest of the band stole back onstage. I was a trumpet, as is only appropriate. MSU underwhelmed we with their singing and knowledge of how great "Army" is. "The Ascent of Stan" kind of bores me on the album now, but the live version is superior. "Narcolepsy" has always been sweet live. I was faked out by the opening notes of "Landed", which are very similar to beginning of "Philosophy", so I got really excited for a moment, then slightly disappointed, then happy again 'cause "Landed" still rules.
The main set ended with a much-loved trio of songs from Rockin' the Suburbs. I always want to do an extra set of hand-claps on "Zak & Sara", so I messed that up. "Rockin' the Suburbs" was the big energy song where Ben ended up playing something on every instrument. He assisted Lindsay with the drumming and took Jared's bass for a solo and put Rick Shaw back on stage. "Not the Same" is another one where Ben leads the audience; this time with three-part harmony. I took the root note, my sister was on the fifth. The song fades away at the end until it's just Ben conducting the audience. The Wharton Center has great acoustics, but this one wasn't as loud as the State Theatre show I attended a few years ago.
The encore consisted of another EP-only song, "There's Always Someone Cooler Than You" and "One Angry Dwarf & 200 Solemn Faces". OAD rocks, but many audience members were 8-10 when it came out. Which, by the way, is kind of scary. I wanted to go home and put in my Sessions At West 54th DVD.
Ben played 27 songs, none of the three that I really, really, really wanted to hear ("Philosophy", "Underground", and "Kate"), but I finally started hearing the best parts of Songs For Silverman. For the last year, it's been an album I rarely listened to. It's still better in bits and pieces (a lot of the songs have a samey, minor-key feeling), but it's sounding like a better album all the time.
I'm still trying to get over the audience. It was like going to a U2 concert only to find that nobody knew The Joshua Tree, just All That You Can't Leave Behind.
April 10, 2006
The District Sleeps Alone Tonight
Warning: Lots of pictures
In which I walk around Washington, DC with a digital camera.
April 7, 2006
It's Like A Habit I Can't Break
For my upcoming birthday, my sister got tickets for me to see Guster and Ben Folds with her at Michigan State. I was especially excited because Andrew Bird was going to be opening for them. On Thursday, I went to the show with her. Whoever was selecting the pre-show music has good taste. They played both Wilco's "She's A Jar" and Neko Case's "Deep Red Bells" just before Andrew took the stage, prompting my sister to tell me that I know way too much. She didn't have too long to expound on this, as Andrew took the stage as the song ended. His setlist:
It wasn't his best work, not by a long shot. The Grand Rapids show in November was infinitely better. I put a lot of it down to the absence a drummer/keyboardist/loop guy, like Martin Dosh had been for the GR show. Andrew meandered in and out, almost getting lost in his violin soloes. He tended to just go on safari in the middle of a song. My sister agreed that he was obviously very talented, musically, it's just that – as an opening act – the show was kind of a mess and he didn't have anyone to keep him on track. The worst part was that he tested the audience's patience for almost an hour, much longer than your average opening set. And this was a true MSU crowd; fratty and pre-drunkened. It wasn't a good introduction to potential fans.
Guster came out not too long after Andrew was done. Here's their setlist:
"I Spy" is kind of a slow song to open with, but it's from a couple of albums back and just about every fan knows the words. "The Captain" being new and "Backyard" being slow and not that good stalled things a bit, but "Demons" is a sure-fire hit with the crowd. "Diane" is a decent follow-up and "The New Underground" didn't slow things down. "Happier" is another crowd favorite, and what happens during "Airport Song" is sort of a password among fans. Both performances were terrific. Road member Joe Pisapia stepped up to the mic afterword and began delivering an oddly familiar poem, which I quickly realized was just the opening verse of "Two Points For Honesty". After he'd finished, the band kicked in for one of the best songs on Lost & Gone Forever.
After "Two Points", it was story time. They were hitting up Chipotle for some McDonald's-owned Mexican food when they ran into a fan, who had "the worst tequila breath ever" (band starts playing "Tequila") and asked them, "Hey, you gonna play 'Two Points'?" Ryan was worried that he'd been too dismissive of the guy, but all he really wanted to do was eat his food. First thing after getting to the auditorium, Adam went in to use the bathroom and promply hit his head on a tampon machine. He had to go to the health center to get five staples in his head.
They played "One Man Wrecking Machine", what should be the lead single off of their soon-to-be album Ganging Up on the Sun, then a trio of songs from Keep It Together: "Come Downstairs and Say Hello", "Red Oyster Cult", and the title track. I could take or leave "Come Downstairs" and "ROC", but I really like "Keep It Together". Following it up was, "Great Escape", a song that always sound much better, more intense live than on Goldfly. "Manifest Destiny" was new, so I don't have a lot to say about it, but "Fa Fa" was well done to end the main set. They decided they'd let Adam do the encore, since he'd had his head wound, and they'd just stay onstage. The remaining band members did a bit of an improv song, set to music sounding a lot like REM's "It's A Free World, Baby" about the tampon machine mishap. The first song of the encore was the new "Hang On", followed by "Amsterdam", and closing with their near-hit "Barrel of a Gun".
That they played nothing off of Parachute was disappointing, but they hit the big ones from Goldfly and Lost & Gone Forever. The new material was pretty decent, but I'll reserve judgment until later. My first impression is that they're continuing their move to a more conventional pop sound. They remain a great band to see live.
April 5, 2006
Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)
Power just went down at work for 35 minutes. Our backup generator gave up the fight after about a second, so we all stood under the emergency lights. Finally the generator was coaxed back to life. No word yet on why this happened.
UPDATE: It took a few days, but we found out that a car hit a pole a block away, taking out our power. Then the generator had some overheating issues, despite the load being within limits. Not cool, generator. Not cool.
April 4, 2006
The signed poster:
April 3, 2006
Favorite, or This One's For All The Ukrainians
On Saturday night, Dave, Stephen, and I converged on the Temple Club in Lansing to see Neko Case. We were guessing that the building used to be an old Masonic temple that's since been converted to other uses. The last time I was in a Masonic temple, I was in my high school jazz band playing a gig in the basement of our local lodge. We snuck off during a break in our set to look at the thrones upstairs while a Phyllis Diller impersonator performed.
We didn't get to see the inside of this one for some time. I got there right when doors were scheduled to be opened, but progress through those doors was slow. Instead of issuing actual tickets with the online booking, names were placed on a list, which required someone to check each and every entrant's name, so they would only let in about fifteen people at a time. It took half an hour for us to get inside, but we were still able to get into the fourth row of standing people. The inside of the club looks a lot like Clutch Cargo's in Pontiac, with a balcony running around the main floor. I parked myself in front of the microphone I guessed would be Neko's and we stood there.
Just after 8:00, the High Dials started their set. Not counting Destroyer, it was probably the best opening set I've seen in six months. They started off with two good, tight rock songs off their new album, War of the Wakening Phantoms. You can download a few tracks here from their website. From their old album came a couple of songs that hung together based on some tight harmonies between the lead singer and the bass player. They closed their show with the (Indian) bass player plugging in his sitar for a song, closing it with solos for it and the guitar. Dave: "Will you be docking them points for that sitar solo?" Me: "I kinda have to. But not many, because it was good."
Barker/Wallace Opening Act Criteria:
They were a little chatty, they used Neko's name more than once for applause, and they had a couple of solos. On the other hand, couldn't we just take those solos to be part of the outro for the song? Plus, they were actually good. Good trumps everything else, really. Overall Grade: A-.
Whoever was in charge of the PA music for the interbandium was exceptionally lazy. They just put on Illinois by Sufjan Stevens and let it play. It does let me say that the intermission lasted no longer than 21 minutes, since they started with "Concerning the UFO Sighting Near Highland, Illinois" and ended with "A Short Reprise For Mary Todd, Who Went Insane, But For Very Good Reasons". During that time, Neko came out to help with the setup and started tuning her guitars, which led to stupid people believing that the show was going to start, despite the fact that some of the other band members weren't at their instruments and roadies were onstage. There was audible disappointment when she left the stage. Whispers flew as people asked each other why she left. I was all, "Hello, you dorks. She probably went to take off that bulky sweater she was wearing. You should encourage this." I tried to make a $5 bet with Steve that "Favorite" would be the first song, but he wasn't having any of that. Neko came back sans sweater (See?) and we could see that she was wearing a Destroyer t-shirt. Q: Does that count as meta? She said hello and started the show.
Favorite
The bass in the mix didn't have quite the same punch as when I saw her at the Majestic Theatre in Detroit last June, but this time I was 10 feet away instead of 70 and she hit everything perfectly. I love the lines in the song "Last night I dreamt that I hit a deer with my car / The blood from his heart spilled out onto my dress and was warm / He begged me to follow but legions of sorrow defied me / Oh lord! And I said Amen" and the harmonies there. They were in pretty good shape on Saturday, since Kelly Hogan was singing backup.
If You Knew
Kelly really helps to make this song complete. The harmonies that fill it out, the echoes on the chorus, they help it come together. And then everything else drops away when Neko goes for the high notes. I had such a great view of that on Saturday. The three people in front of me were all at least six inches shorter than me.
Fox Confessor Brings The Flood
I kind of wondered when we'd get to the new album. The end of this song catches me unaware most of the time. It just kind of quickly trails off. After the song is over, there's a contingent to my right demanding "Deep Red Bells", which she assures them she's going to play.
That Teenage Feeling
This is another song where the interplay between Neko's and Kelly's voices is so key. Best line: "I don't care if forever never comes / 'Cause I'm holding out for that teenage feeling."
Set Out Running
Diving all the way back to Furnace Room Lullaby, we get "Set Out Running". It's one of the few songs tonight that can simply be categorized as country music. It also makes me think that they could almost do "Porchlight", if they could settle for two-part instead of three-part harmony.
Outro With Bees
Introduced simply as "Here's a short one", "Outro With Bees" is the first song we get from Blacklisted. I like that she's pulling from so many albums instead of just rolling through Fox Confessor. She'll eventually hit nine of its tracks, but it isn't like she's checking them off, one by one. Some guy, further back, asks for "Deep Red Bells" and he assures him (through the mic this time) that it's coming.
Star Witness
"Star Witness" may be the best song on Fox Confessor and it swirls around the vocal hook in the chorus. It's terrific live and I hope it becomes a staple of her shows.
Dirty Knife
She introduced "Dirty Knife" as a story her grandmother used to tell her and facetiously said it's "for all the Ukrainians out there", which met with a good amount of applause, surprising her. The Ukrainian chorus is pretty cool in this song.
At Last
I can't really tell which song came next, this one or "I Wish I Was The Moon", since I wrote them one on top of the other on my setlist, but I think it was this one. "At Last" is almost a fragment of a song, coming in at maybe a minute and a half, so I didn't really know if they were going to play it. I think it would be the perfect song for a TV show to use.
I Wish I Was The Moon
This is my favorite song on Blacklisted, so I'm really happy they played this one. I like it a little slower than the tempo they take, but it's beautiful to hear. The first two verses are essentially a cappella, but it builds off of that until it peaks with the line "How will you know if you've found me at at last? / 'Cause I'll *be* the one *be* the one *be* the one with my heart in my lap".
Maybe Sparrow
"This is a song about a bird". It's also another song made much better by the presence of Kelly Hogan. Neko played this at the Majestic Theatre without her, but it really soars with the harmony part added. The song itself makes me think of the one Calvin & Hobbes Sunday strip where they find the dead sparrow on the ground.
The Needle Has Landed
I was wondering how they'd handle the hammered dulcimer part at the end, since I didn't really see them going ahead and bringing one on tour. It was replaced by banjo, it turns out, which makes sense.
Cover
I think I've heard this song before, but I can't place it. I thought one of the lyrics was "Honey take it out of here", but Google comes up empty on that one.
Deep Red Bells
My dad called me up the other day, saying that this might be the last time I see her in a venue this size. He'd heard Neko on NPR the other day, so he thought she'd be getting bigger. I think songs like this might keep her on the club circuit. It's a creepy, catchy song about an anonymous victim of the Green River Killer. They took this song at a higher rate of speed than on the album, but it worked well. The girls to my right started singing.
Hex
This is a cover of a song by Freakwater that also appeared on Neko's The Tigers Have Spoken, also featuring Kelly Hogan. It's the most languid song of the night, kind of floating along.
The Tigers Have Spoken
With this one, she played all three originals off of The Tigers Have Spoken. However, she didn't introduce it like she did before: "This is a sad song. It's about tigers."
Furnace Room Lullaby
This song is the one that first led me to her music. I'd heard of her, but then I rented The Gift (starring Cate Blanchett). In the previews, they showed part of the video made for this song and it made me seek out more of the music. It's always a powerful song, especially live.
Hold On, Hold On
In a just and equitable society, this would be a huge radio hit. It has the Sadies' trademark surf-guitar-for-country, Neko cranks up the volume and the tempo, and it just flies. I listened closely on Saturday, trying to figure out a line from the chorus. I'm now almost certain that it goes "That echo chorus lied to me; with eggs, hold on, hold on, hold on hold on", not the "That echo chorus light the beat; with it, hold on..." that the internets would have me believe.
------------------------Encore Break------------------------
Wayfaring Stranger
Someday I want to hear the rest of the audience come in for the chorus on this song, like on The Tigers Have Spoken. Yes, I know that it's kind of a bonus track from some seminar on singing that she did in Toronto, but it would be amazing to hear that. The banjo solo here was locked in combat with the sitar for Solo Of The Day. Survey says: Banjo.
Look For Me (I'll Be Around)
This song is Michigan-appropriate, since the Spinners did what is probably the best-known version. Her's is slow, menacing, and creepy. She introduced it as "Here's a song about a stalker." Earlier, some guy in the audience had known way too much about her instrument, so it became a joke that he was stalking her guitar. She joked here that having a guitar stalker isn't so creepy, since it's not like he's going to be looking in her bedroom window all, "Ooh, I hope she left it out! Look, it's the case right there!"
Soulful Shade of Blue
There's a difference between a live recording and a live performance. "Soulful Shade of Blue" really goes up another notch when it's played live. Me: "What would Buffy Ste. Marie do?" Dave: "I don't know, I'm thinking about what Wim Wenders would do."
John Saw That Number
This song is so much better live. The floor beneath the club began flexing under our feet as everyone got moving for this gospel tune about John the Baptist. I thought handclaps might break out, but not quite. It was a great way to end the show. I wanted to hear "Thrice All American" again, but she said she was shaky on the words.
With the show over, we headed over to the merch table to check out the offerings. I wasn't to thrilled about the men's t-shirts they had, so I decided to get one of the tour posters to hang in my cubicle. While waiting in line, a large African-American gentleman asked me to step aside. Trailing in his wake was Neko. She bumped against Dave and apologized, so he wins at life. She signed my poster "Love, Neko", so it's totally like we're dating now. She rolled it up for me and I applied the rubber band.
That show was terrific. The crowd was warm and adoring, Neko & Co. looked happy to be there. The tour was only on its fourth night, so everything was still reasonably novel. Everything just kind of came together.
