July 2004 Archives

('cause it's gonna take time...a whole lotta patience and time...)

A great capper to a great week of music. And appropriately enough, back where it all started...JOISEY!

Ever since I got involved with a certain Jersey girl, the Casa de Fleur has essentially served as Road Trip Base - South for many of our musical outings. Trips to New York, trips elsewhere in New Jersey, trips to Philly. Even trips to Maryland, DC and northern Virginia. Yes, it's a sickness.

But in all those years of abusing my mother-in-law's domicile for our musical traveling purposes, I'd never flown solo before. Maybe we'd gone down there for ME to see a show (including one famous episode where we went to see separate shows our first Thanksgiving down there) but there were always at least two of us (sometimes three, if we dragged a friend along). I'd kinda hemmed and hawed at the idea of finding someone else to stay with, but Princeton Junction is a mere 20 miles from Sayreville (boy, does that get misspelled a lot) so the fix was in - I'd stay there, and to avoid a guilty conscience, I'd throw in installation of some new Venetian blinds in the living room. The deal was done.

For some weird reason - must have had something to do with spending EIGHT HOURS on line, baking in the sun, before the show started - I wasn't all that awake when I got up the next morning. Kinda slugged around the house for a while, eventually packed up and started towards Princeton a bit later than I was expecting. The original plan was for me to get there, spend an hour or two socializing and having dinner, then leisurely roll over to the venue and catch the show. An accident on the Mass Pike changed all that, and after traffic cleared up, it wasn't a question of how fast I could get there, but how big a speeding fine I was willing to pay. Fortunately, no fines were needed and I got there just in time to gobble down some food and head to the show. There really isn't much better than having homemade egg rolls waiting for you at home. Of course, accompanying the mountain of egg rolls were three or four pork chops, a gi-normous pile of sticky rice, and repeated imploring to "eat more!" My mother-in-law must have had me confused with the New England Patriots. All of them. Though in her defense, I do get that a lot.

The show was at a newly-reopened venue called the Starland Balroom. Apparently this used to be a huge hangout for hometown boy Jon Bon Jovi, and according to a Jersey native, was also "Guido central" that at one time went by the name of the Hunka Bunka. Yeah, I like the new name better. Despite thinking I was there late, doors hadn't opened, so I got to wait in line and take in my surroundings, peoplewatch and eavesdrop after grabbing my ticket from a friend. Unfortunately, not much interesting going on, except for opening band members schmoozing with the girls in line around me. Doors finally open, no fuss whatsoever about the taping gear, say hi to a few other tapers I recognize, set up and once again cross my fingers that the battery will hold up. The 90-minute test from the night before wasn't particularly stressing - I calculate that the battery should run my gear for at LEAST four hours - but lo and behold, it makes it the whole way through the show. And this was no ordinary, two hours and thank-you-good-night, but two full sets, plus encore, clocking in at a meaty 2 hours and 56 minutes. The first set alone was nearly as long as the previous night's show, and the second set MINUS the encore eclipsed that by 15 minutes. Probably the longest show I'd seen with the new lineup - just a huge pile of music. Good stuff for the most part - the band is obviously still having fun, there are new jams in old songs, new toys (Ben has a new keyboard, I think) and new tunes (unfortunately, an uneven cover of Freebird, which the band apparently learned for a Lynyrd Skynyrd tribute album). But a great way to end the week, and nice to have just a 20-minute ride home after the show. Up the next day, installed some blinds, and then back home for some rest and relaxation...

(Tell me, doctor, where are we going this time/Is this the 50's, or 1999/All I wanted to do - was play my guitar and sing/So take me away, I don't mind/But you better promise me, I'll be back in time/Gotta get back in time)

I was delighted to find out that I had three weeks of vacation this year, which afforded me the chance to take some extra time off. But after taking Monday to go down to New York (which, incidentally, was supposed to be to go to a show on Martha's Vineyard), Tuesday for the show, and Wednesday for the drive back, I was back in the office Thursday. Well, Thursday morning, anyway - because BT was playing a free show at the Paradise in Boston that night. The same Paradise they hadn't played for THIRTEEN YEARS. The same Paradise where they'd had their gear stolen the last time they played there (which probably explains why they hadn't come back...well, that and Clearchannel's virtual stranglehold on the Boston market...but let us not speak of such things). The only problem was, unlike the Knitting Factory show, tickets weren't given out ahead of time, so people had to line up to get a chance at getting tickets. So I left work at around 1pm and jaunted down into the city, just because I could, arming myself with a cooler of drinks, some snacks, a folding chair, and a pile of quarters to feed the meter. I got to the venue to find all of two people in line.

[Apparently I never finished this draft...I found this 3.5 years later. From what I remember, we hung out all afternoon, I took a walk down to the bookstore in Kenmore Square to get a book - that's a DAMN long walk in the scalding heat, and eventually the doors opened around 6ish. I met the local Pilsner Urquell promoter, who gave me access to the upstairs balcony so I could tape from there. The best place to tape at the Paradise is down on the floor near a HUGE pole in the front, but I'd never run there before, and I was a little gunshy about trying it solo without anyone else to protect my gear.

So up to the balcony I went, and was mostly surrounded by VIPs all show. The sound was fantastic, the band was still about 30 feet from me thanks to the 'Dise's layout, and we all got rocked in close proximity for a little over 90 minutes. A little disappointing to have the show be so short, but given that I was basically going to see three shows in five days (the 17th was in New Jersey) I was more than happy to see my favorite band in my favorite venue.]

(time keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin'...into the future...)

Another week, another tour to follow. Them's a lot of abbreviations...for the uninitiated, this blues-rock triple bill extravaganza consisted of the North Mississippi Allstars, Big Head Todd & the Monsters, and (duh) Blues Traveler. Despite them being one of the bigger acts on the radio while I was in high school/college, I'd never actually seen Big Head Todd live, and the North Mississippi Allstars being from...north Mississippi, I'd never managed to catch them, though I'd heard good things from a number of taper friends and trading partners. But in general, unless I go see a band, I just don't have time to listen to them, with all the stuff piled up on my desk (I really should write another entry like this one...) so in this case, I went in blind. But after my last trip to Meadowbrook, I was really looking forward to going back.

Almost completely blind, as it was, thanks to the enormous amount of water falling from the sky on my entire drive up there. I think I saw an ark float by. And oddly, the rain was always the hardest when I was driving through a town - Salem, Plymouth, etc. I made better time on the highway but it was like the rain knew I was speeding to try to get there in time (I was anticipating a hassle at the gate, since in their infinite wisdom they printed "no recording devices" on the ticket, at the sign at the venue, and on the web site, despite the pro-taping policy of all three bands). And of course, when I pulled into the parking lot with my big bag of electronics to carry into the venue (no short walk, by the way), it was still raining like that which is engaged in intercourse with a maternal unit. Fortunately, after a similar situation a year or two ago, we've always had an umbrella in the back of the car, so I managed to stagger my way through the raindrops with said umbrella, a 15-pound bag over one shoulder and a four-foot tripod in a lacrosse stick bag over the other. Fishing the ticket out of the bag was quite a challenge as well - I'm sure I gave the ticket-taker quite a chuckle, trying to shift my weight without toppling over. And I was very grateful to find that the bands had alerted security that taping was allowed, being hardly in the mood to be toddling back to the car to leave my equipment in there.

Once again, the show was general admission seating, and despite the weather, I'd still managed to get there before the opening act went on. And because of said weather, the seats were rather sparsely settled, allowing me to set up more or less where we had sat for the previous show. I went a few rows forward so as to escape some of the chatter from the aisle behind us, and to get a bit closer to the sweet spot (often 2/3 of the way from the stage to the soundboard in larger venues rather than right at the soundboard...many tapers swear by the "FOB [Front Of Board] or die!" mantra). Had to set up rather quickly but I did manage to get everything running in time to catch the ever-so-brief opener set by the North Mississippi Allstars. My first impression...where's the other guy? Their web site has four members in the picture on the front, but only three took the stage - Luther, the guitarist and lead singer, Cody, the drummer and Luther's brother, and Chris, the bassist...but no Duwayne, who also plays guitar. Still, these guys put out a LOT of sound. Some good grooving blues-rock, and versatile at that - toward the end of their set, Luther and Cody switched places and held up admirably, while Chris held down the low end, just grinning and playing the highest bass I've ever seen - he had it WAY up on his chest. And then after 37 minutes, it was over. Although they're playing FIVE shows in Massachusetts in August, they're all on islands or way the hell down Cape Cod. Weird to think that it's quicker to go to several states than it is to go to Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, or Wellfleet. Though I can't blame 'em for wanting to play some beachfront gigs over the summer.

Big Head Todd came on, and with barely a word of acknowledgment, just got right down to business - lots of good, solid guitar work, a touch of familiar tunes from my college days (Midnight Radio, Bittersweet, Broken Hearted Savior), and some guy behind me who was a bit overenthusiastic about every single song. His entire interaction with the band and the crowd around him consisted of two things: the loudest, most annoying whistle imaginable, and a hoarse, raspy, leather-lunged "YEAH!" So to recap: FWEEEE! YEAH! FWEEE! YEAH! FWEEEE! YEAH! FWEEE! YEAH! FWEEEE! YEAH! It was like a hick-hop version of Rob Base and DJ EZ Rock.

Now for some REAL time machine stuff - back in the very early days, Blues Traveler and the Spin Doctors were all good friends, often playing gigs on the same street in New York City. According to stories, one day, the members of one band went down during set break at their show to visit the other band, and guested with them until it was time to resume their own show. Eventually the two got to such a point of comfort with each other's material that they could end up jamming from one band's set straight into the other's, completely switching venues in the process! At some point they started just booking shows together rather than braving the streets between sets, and would go so far as to have three or four full-band segues during a single show. They managed to successfully pull off the feat during the first HORDE tour with a few other bands (Aquarium Rescue Unit, Widespread Panic), then reprised the olden days a couple of times on a 1994 European tour, but as the bands grew in popularity and became more concerned with the technical aspect of the show and how one band sounded on another's equipment. So what does this have to do with the rest of the concert?

"Right about now we'd like to call out Blues Traveler to sit in on this one with us." The band took their place at their kits behind Big Head Todd's setup, and then both bands - nine people in total - launched into a cover of Led Zeppelin's "Fool In The Rain"...quite apropos. After about five or six minutes and a few verses, the bassist turned and wandered off-stage, unplugged and started watching. Big Head Todd himself stepped back to let Chan and John take solos, clasped his hands in front of his head, bowed ever so slightly to the crowd, and waved as he walked off to a swell of applause. Then four stagehands descended upon the Monsters' drummer, carefully unplugging the various drum mics and other cables without getting whacked by an errant drum stick. And then - in perhaps the biggest roar of the night - the stagehands each grabbed a corner of the riser that the drummer was on, and simply wheeled the guy off-stage while he continued to bash on his skins. They came back and did the same to the keyboardist, who instead of playing, elected to stand up and pretend to surf as he was trundled across the stage, again to the audience's great amusement and loud approval. In the meantime, Blues Traveler had descended deep into a free-form jam, and continued to morph and evolve it while the stagehands returned and pushed BT's keyboard and drum risers up into position. When the band finally all returned to the same page and slowly merged into the drum-and-bass driven rhythm of "The Path", I knew I'd seen what few others had over the past ten years, and felt lucky to be witnessing it.

The rest of the show essentially consisted of four long segues over the course of an hour and 45 minutes - the first song stretched ino three more, followed by another five-song string, a quick two-hit segue with the first song ("All Hands") left unfinished, and then four more tunes, including the end of "All Hands" before sending the crowd home happy with the end of "Run-Around", which they'd begun over an hour previous. It would have been a perfect night if my battery hadn't run out - AGAIN - in the middle of "But Anyway"... fortunately I'd brought my spare and used it for the last ten minutes. That bad batt has now been banished to the bottom of my bag (holy alliteration, Batman). They ended up not even playing an encore because they'd run so long during the regular set (including a 15-minute-plus "Mulling It Over" with Luther from NMAS on a badass guitar. Also happened to run into some old Blues Traveler friends that I hadn't seen for at least six years or show (one of them had gone to see BT at Madison Square Garden with me and caught Popper's hat when he tossed it out into the crowd after the encore - that's how close we were), and although I was flying solo, I did have company since that bunch of friends showed up (or stopped by to say hi, at least!).

Thankfully, other than a wrong turn onto 93 North (<-- dumbass), the drive home was perfectly uneventful. Did about 85 the whole way and rolled into bed around 1:45...oof.

(When last we left our intrepid heroes, they were hurtling towards the Knitting Factory in a New York taxi. We join them now, already in progress...)

We were about a half-hour late getting to the Knit, but fortunately, doors opened a bit late as well; we only ended up standing in line for five minutes or so after giving an extra pair of tickets to friends we had picked them up for. Got to chat briefly with Gina (Blues Traveler's personal assistant/office manager/band mom extraordinaire) and say hi to Tad (BT's bassist) before the line started moving. Once inside, the tapers congregated in the middle of the room, having already been shot down at getting up into the balcony - VIP only, apparently. It would have been the ideal place to tape as we would have been well out of the way and thus avoid incurring the wrath of the general manager of the venue. The seven of us decided to simply set up shop in the next best place - smack-dab in the middle of the floor, like we always do. To conserve space, we go with two stands, mounting four pairs on one and two on the other, and assemble our bags as compactly as possible. No good - wrath incurred. We can't be taking up this much room, and we have to move, and we have to do it now. Despite a spirited discussion of the physical impossibility of objects taking up less room in a different location (and, no doubt, some muttered suggestion about where certain objects should be located), he basically yelped and stomped until he decided to just banish us to a corner and let it go at that. We moved and set up shop again against the left wall (which never got that crowded - we had about five feet of empty space behind us the whole show) and right next to a huge fan that at the time wasn't moving, but got turned on shortly into the show, probably by Mr. General Manager. The mic stand was slowly swaying precariously the whole show - there must have been 10 or 15 pounds of mics, clamps, T-bars and cables on top of the poor thing - but we managed to not have anyone come barreling through the section (what we in the business call "wook bowling") so it stood up the entire show. What did NOT stand up the entire show was my 6-volt battery that I use to power my rig (preamp, A/D converter, and deck). At first I thought I'd just not fully charged it back in Central Park and then used too much while taping Guster, but I think it may have bitten the dust prematurely, as it simply won't take a full charge now. So I've got all of an hour of the show on tape despite the show only running 90 minutes or so (as did all of the free shows).

But the funniest thing about the show - although we didn't realize it at the time - was that it was a complete reversal of the first show Viv and I had seen together. Back in October of '97, we had our first date at a Blues Traveler show, but since we had bought our tickets prior to meeting, our seats weren't next to each other. In fact, they weren't even in the same section. Thanks to BT's fan club seating (a moment of silence, please... Ok.) I had second row seats. Viv and her friend Matt had seats somewhere behind the soundboard, I think (read: not second row). So although we got to hang out before the show, get to know each other and make nice, when the lights went down, we were twenty-odd rows apart. And now at the Knit, the roles were reversed - now that I tape, I'm never way up front at a show, but we were in so early and the place was so small (~350-400 capacity!) that she had to get her Tad on and stand in front of him the whole show. It was kinda unique for her as well since she's usually back with me, but I got to watch her having fun down front, see her clapping after every song, and even get to "whoo!" into the microphone during the encore when John Popper held it down to her.

Great to see a show in such a small place - which is the point of the tour. The place was definitely packed but not overcrowded. And LOUD. Busted out the ear plugs for the first time in years and glad I did. Also my first show in NYC since the smoking ban went into effect - nice not coming out stinking like an ashtray. Saw a lot of old friends, met some new ones (including one guy I'd been trading with via the BT list for ten years, but had never met!) and in general had a great time at the show once we were properly situated. The show itself wasn't a knock-down, drag-out affair, but that wasn't what I was expecting in the first place. On our way out we barely got to say our goodbyes, as it was off to Penn Station to...miss the train by ten minutes. So at 11:52 at night, we had to wait around for another 50 minutes before we could catch the next one home. Oy. Special thanks to my brother-in-law for trundling us home from the train station at 2 in the morning. And then...craaaaaaaaaash (into the bed, not the car).

(more time machine stuff...yeah!)

Gordon Gekko would be proud. Greed IS good.

Ever since Viv and I have been together we'd been dreaming of a day when we'd get to see Guster and Blues Traveler on the same bill. When Gina from the BT office was asking around for suggestions of bands to play on HORDE in 1998, I tossed out the name of Guster, and was surprised to hear that they were on the list of bands they were considering. They ended up making the bill, but played the west coast for a half-dozen dates. Since we weren't quite yet into the road-trip mode that we are these days, we had to pass, ruing our decision when we found out that John Popper had upheld his tradition of sitting in with every band - including Guster on "Fa Fa" - at the last stop of the festival in Portland, Oregon. Word came down later that year that BT had asked Guster to open for them at a pair of shows they played at Roseland Ballroom over Thanksgiving, but were turned down when Guster decided to do their own two shows that weekend. So apparently we were doomed never to see our ideal pairing, even though the overlap between the crowds might have just consisted of the two of us.

Enter July 13th, 2004, and the strangest pair of shows attended in one day.

The Guster/Ben Folds/Rufus Wainwright tour, which we had practically lived on for the past week plus, rolled into New York for the first of two dates at Summerstage in New York. Viv originally hadn't planned on going because tickets were $45 and we weren't anticipating the tour to be quite as good as it was. She also wasn't anticipating going on tour with ReverbRock.org for three weeks this summer. But once she answered the call of duty, and the schedule came down, she had to be in NYC by the 14th, so why not go down a day earlier and enjoy a couple of shows with the co-founder of Reverb, who also happens to be the wife of Guster's guitarist? Makes sense.

In the meantime, Blues Traveler had signed themselves up with Czech brewer Pilsner Urquell for a promotional gig called "Picture Yourself In Prague". Basically, the band got to play six free gigs in tiny clubs around the country, where fans would take pictures of themselves enjoying the beer, and the taker of the best picture gets to go to Prague with three friends, tour the brewery and see a BT show there as well. Pretty cool stuff. And as luck would have it, one of the free shows happened to be in New York, at the Knitting Factory, the same day as the first Guster Summerstage gig. And so the travel plans were hatched.

Unfortunately, we dawdled and hemmed and hawed and ultimately decided that spending $90 for 60 minutes of Guster was a bit much (though we've paid more, and those of you who are reading this are probably NOT shocked, because you know what freaks we are. In the nicest, most loving sense of the word, of course). So we did what any normal, wallet-respecting human beings would do: we simply listened from outside the venue.

For those of you who have never been to Summerstage, basically, it's in the middle of Central Park. And although they try to make it look nice and natural, in reality, it's a chunk of Astroturf with a big friendly iron-wrought fence around it and large security people with crossed arms and stern stares. Oh, and large advertisements for beer companies. A true oasis and refuge in an otherwise chaotic city. Ahem. Anyway, despite its lack of blending in, it's still in the middle of a public park, so it's quite possible to just sit there and enjoy the show if you're not interested in actually seeing what's going on. And me, being of the heterosexual persuasion, and Guster not being of the Radiohead-esque stage show persuasion, it turned out not to be that bad of an idea.

The twist was this - to get into the Knitting Factory show, we had to be at the venue at noon to pick up the free tickets. So after taking the train into Penn Station and getting a cab to the Knit, we picked up our tickets and then had six hours to kill until Guster went on...and I was carrying my full taping bag, which probably weighs in the neighborhood of 15 or 20 pounds. But I'm a good sport, so we walked around for a while trying to find our way back to the neat little neighborhood we'd driven through on our way to SoHo. After maybe 20 minutes of not finding it, we decided to hop the subway uptown and ended up eating at an Italian place in Central Park west. Walked clear across Central Park to the eastern entrance (where Summerstage is) and circled the venue a few times before settling near the Naumburg band shell on the western side of the venue. I had iditotically forgotten to charge my rig's battery the night before, but fortuitously, I spied an electrical outlet inside the shell. Viv decided to take some more laps around the venue to see if she could find anyone to talk to, so I was left on my own, sitting next to a large black bag, plugged into an outlet in the middle of the biggest park in New York. A slightly surreal experience, to say the least. I was half-expecting the energy police to show up and bust me for stealing electricity, but instead, I met James.

James is apparently a Central Park regular, since had several other friends who wandered by over the course of the next hour or so. He came up into the bandshell, pulled out a pair of roller skates - not roller blades, actual two-by-two-wheel roller skates - and asked me if I minded if he practiced. Not at all, I said, and he proceeded to treat me to quite a show of skating. Long, looping strides, short choppy ones, some spins, dips, and even what looked like some tap-dancing moves. We barely spoke; he had a Walkman on and appeared to be adjusting his skating routine to whatever music came on through his headphones. He'd go out on the ledges to the side of the bandshell, down the rickety steps and back up again, and even disappeared - apparently trusting me with his bag and shoes - for a good 10-15 minutes as he took his own spin around the park. Truly one of those "only in New York" experiences. He came back, Viv came back, I packed up my bag and wished James well, and we wandered off in search of a spot to sit and listen to the show.

It was then that I got the wacky idea of trying to tape the show. Fished out the mics, hooked them up, attached them to a clamp I'd bought for those occasions when I couldn't mount them on a stand, and searched around for something to clamp to. The fence...nowhere to put the bag. The bench...too wide. The faceplate of my preamp...perfect. Well, not perfect, but pretty much the only option. The V2 (my preamp) has a metal casing and is basically known for being bombproof in the field, so I definitely wasn't risking any harm, though I did risk an endless parade of really quizzical looks. A few people figured out what I was doing and passed rather quietly, two asked me what band was playing and then didn't understand my softly-spoken answer (which I'm sure showed up on the tape), one even snapped my picture (while I gave the toothy smile and thumbs-up), but most walked by completely self-absorbed, chatting away and loudly dragging their feet. But probably the most indicative noise on the whole tape was the birds thrashing around in the bushes in front of and behind us, and chirping their fool heads off. That and what's sure to be a good deal of wind rumble, as it was breezy and I didn't have my windscreens with me. Still, quite an adventure.

About 45 minutes into the hour-long set, Viv took one more walk around to see what she could see, leaving me (literally and figuratively) to my devices. Turns out that directly behind the seats, outside the venue, a good-sized group of freeloaders had gathered to enjoy the show like we had. One difference, however, was a sizeable security contingent patrolling the area to ensure the peace (and the lack of consumption of alcohol, drugs and other undesirable items). She came back with the conclusion that if we'd tried to tape from there, they wouldn't have been too happy. I had actually seen a few security types walking by, but they were low-level guys who were probably just day hires or only looking out for rampant drug use and the like. Then everything began to spin out of control... (end "Behind the Music" voice)

As we had been walking around the venue pre-show, we noticed that they were doing work on the roof of the bandshell where James and I had been hanging out. There was scaffolding running the entire height of the structure, which had been carefully closed off by the crew when they left an hour or so earlier - they physically nailed plywood over the opening that had permitted them to enter the area. But while Viv and I were content to sit outside and listen, a couple of meatheads decided it wasn't enough, and scaled the plywood walls to get inside the enclosure. Up the scaffolding they went, and while it provided a few minutes of viewing fun, security of course took notice rather quickly. They came around, the police were even called in, and they got off with a stern talking-to. The security members who'd gone rushing to stand around and watch the police handle the situation hadn't noticed me on their way there, but on the way back, I suddenly found myself surrounded by three rather burly security personnel.

Them: You recording the show, sir?
Me (resisting the urge to retort "No, I'm baking a cake."): Yes, I am.
Them: You're aware that that's not allowed without the artist's permission?
Me: The artist does allow it; I've done it about eighty times over the past seven years.
Them: Well, nobody inside is doing it per the artists' request, so I'm going to have to ask you to break down and stop.
Me: Ok, fine.

I'm paraphrasing here, but that was the general idea. And of course, the entire conversation was captured on tape, so I can come back and edit this later to reflect it more accurately. But the funny thing was this - venue personnel were asking me not to record a show at a venue I wasn't even in. Legally, all the venue has a legal right to do if they catch you recording, is kick you out (interestingly, in New York, they also have to refund your money). But I was ALREADY OUT in this case. Sitting in a public park. I could have been making a nature recording that just happened to have a concert in the background. According to New York state law, it's limited to "any person admitted or seeking admission to a theatre in which a performance is to be or is being presented". So I could have told The Man (actually, The Men) to take a hike and he couldn't have done anything to me...heh. However, since it was the last song of their set, I pretended to break down and hand-held the mics for the rest of the song. Then we jetted to the exit and caught a cab downtown to the Knitting Factory.

To be continued in part 2...

(let's do the time warp again...let's do the time warp again...)

At the end of this show, all I could say was "Ow." Not because it was a bad performance, but because I had a shooting pain running through my left shoulder/arm and neck. Somehow, in the process of standing more or less stock-still for twelve hours over the past ten days, I'd developed some nasty limitation to the movement of my left arm anytime I tried to raise it above my waist to pretend to clap (to avoid suspicion, of course...the more you look like you're having fun at a show, the less the chance you're doing something you're not supposed to. Except drugs, I suppose. Let's move on.)

After the traffic debacle of the previous night, we made the decision to park on the street before we got to the venue rather than past it, to facilitate the getaway. Since the show was on a Sunday, it was easier to get in quicker, and we decided to patronize the Barking Crab, a local landmark seafood restaurant at the city-side end of the street (the street that the Pavilion is on ends way out on the end of a pier). Found a great unmetered parking spot, facing out (obviating the need for a post-show U-turn), dropped the car there, and after a 5-minute walk and 10-minute wait, we had a seat. The tables at the Barking Crab are shared - at least on the deck - and our water-side seat placed us next to an out-of-towner smashing...no, OBLITERATING crabs with a restaurant-provided rock. Now THERE's a marketing opportunity they've missed: "Come bash seafood senseless with authentic Boston rocks!" Seriously, the thing was so big, it looked as though it might have flattened Wile E. Coyote in a previous life, and after accidentally getting a few drops of crab juice on his companion (thankfully, we were outside the blast radius) the poor guy wasn't quite sure how to wield it for the rest of his meal. After plowing through a few plates of appetizers (none of us felt like ordering an overpriced entree when we weren't starving) and about ten minutes of being ignored by our waitress, we decided it was time to head venue-ward.

Turns out we had timed it perfectly - gates were just opening up and there was a swarm of people gathered round, anxious to get in and... wait for another hour, overpay for stale, pre-cooked food, warm beer, and bask in ever-so-earnest attention from tent-dwellers shilling the venue's sponsor's mouse pads in exchange for signing up for a checking account or wireless ball-and-ch...er, phone plan. Suffice it to say, this is behavior I never really understood. I did my weird "no, I did NOT just visit the proctologist" walk around for a while, saw my brother's best friend Joe and his girlfriend (Joe's girlfriend, not Joe and my brother's girlfriend. Not that he has a girlfriend. My brother, not Joe. Ah, screw it, Joe and Joe's girlfriend. Wait, I have a brother named Joe. This is confusing. New paragraph!)

Our seats were better than Thursday's - while we'd been a good bit right-of-center then (thus having to put up with people's need to pass in front of us, and my mics, on their way out of the aisle), we were dead center. Unfortunately, our neighbors were not as considerate. We were forced to endure a flock of "Daddy's little girls" in the luxury box directly behind us, gabbing and squealing their way through Rufus' set (not that I was that intent on listening, but rarely have gums been flapped so irritatingly). Thankfully, they disappeared during the first intermission and didn't return until halfway through Guster, only to resume with the squealing and the gabbing and the OH MY GOD SHUT THE HELL UP. One kind soul next to us even turned to (politely) register his displeasure with their behavior, which of course made him a target of their derision for the rest of the night. They even had the unmitigated gall (is gall ever mitigated, by the way?) to invite a few other similarly-aged male idiots to dance around and make nice with them (and make annoying with the rest of us). On one particular occasion, security came by to kindly return them to their seats, and one of the guys jumped over the barrier, landed on the seat behind me, and scampered off, narrowly avoiding stepping on the bag I had my gear hidden in. I *just* missed grabbing the back of his shirt, which surely would have ended up with him taking a face plant in the back of our row. Which truly would have been a shame, of course.

The show itself wasn't bad, when I was able to concentrate on it, but the Oakdale sets had been so good that just about anything would be a letdown after that. Guster brought the horns back for the same tunes and then everyone jammed together on a wholly unsatisfying Boy With The Arab Strap (straight from the "Hey, let's all mangle a cover tune together" school of thought...Ben's piano and Dan/Chris' horns were entirely wasted in the effort and mostly lost in the mix) and closed with one last All The Way Up To Heaven with Ben. Ben's set was considerably slower than it was in Connecticut, and even compared to Thursday night's set, due to his desire to vary things as much as possible. We did get one more Kate (for Kat, who was ecstatic to hear it again), one last drummers' duel, one last Fair with Guster, and a surprise Not The Same, ALSO with Guster. They had covered it a few times in 2003, and I'd heard Ben play it by himself, but hearing both together was a nice treat. The encore closer of One Angry Dwarf sent everyone home happy, and then after some chitchat with Guster office folk, we made the short trek back to the car and made a relatively easy escape. Back home to rest and relax for a day or so...

(another pre-dated entry...do not adjust your television sets, your calendars, or your abaci...)

The Oakdale is one of those places that Viv and I had always planned on going back to see a show there, but for one reason or another, never had. We saw Blues Traveler there back in 1998, a couple years after it reopened as an indoor theatre (it's been around for 50 years, but until 1996 was an outdoor tent/theater in the round). I'm not sure the venue staff was used to those damn hippie shows there, but we had a great experience there and were always looking forward to going back. So when Guster announced their tour plans in May and one stop was in good old Wallingford (such as it is), we jumped on tickets quickly. We apparently misremembered the fact that they don't pipe the on-stage music into the bathrooms (we'd been joking for a while about recording in the bathroom and what the ensuing info file would look like: "Taped in the men's room, stall 2, XY configuration") but otherwise it was as nice and upscale as we remembered.

The walk in was much easier than on Thursday once I realized that the trick to walking while fully-packed was just to walk slowly and slightly bow legged. If I were stealthing in Texas, I'd be all set...but then again, if I were stealthing in Texas, I'd get me a ten-gallon hat and be done with it. The concert hall wasn't open when we got there, so we moseyed around the lobby a bit. The HUGE lobby. The "who needs a concert hall, we could hold a show right here in the lobby" lobby. The last time we were there, there were actually two cars parked in the lobby. Well, not real parking, mind you, just some local dealership advertising, but that didn't stop me from making the requisite "über-VIP parking" jokes, probably much to the dismay of my companions. This time, I happened to notice the large signs: FOOD above the food vendors, DRINKS above the drinks vendors, and WOMEN above the...ladies' room. Guess you can't buy women in the state of Connecticut. Not that I need any, of course. Hi honey!

Doors opened maybe 5 or 10 minutes late, after which we bow-legged our way to our seats. Thanks to jumping online the minute tickets went on sale, we'd been able to score fifth-row seats, but they were way off to the right side of the venue. Not great for sight lines, but *excellent* seats for recording. Usually it's best to be smack-dab in the middle for the full "in stereo where available" experience, but if you're that close, the sound will often blow right by you (imagine standing in front of a car with its headlights on - if you're 20 feet away, you'll be bathed in light, but if you're standing next to the bumper, you're between the beams). We were directly in front of the right-hand speaker stack and the sound was nice and full. Very happy with the tapes, as I nailed the levels as well, and setting up was easy, as the only human within a 50-foot radius was a catatonic bluehair usher on the other side of our section, so unloading and wiring up surreptitiously was comparatively easy.

As for the show, it was quite enjoyable. Guster had the leadoff set and brought out the "Guster horns" for Red Oyster Cult and Fa Fa. A good pick-me-up after Rufus stumbled, bumbled and fumbled his way through Come Downstairs & Say Hello and then dragged his sparkly-flip-flopped ass offstage halfway through. They wheeled Ben's piano on for a surprise rendition of Backyard, which elicited a grinning, jumping (but silent - thank you) fit from my wife before finishing up with a repeat of Thursday's peppy, samba-tempo All The Way Up To Heaven. Ben upped the ante with easily his best set of the four I saw over the week and a half. Don't get me wrong; I liked all of the sets I saw (and plan on seeing him when he comes to Boston next) but this one was the perfect melange of great setlist, great playing and all around humor (including one inspired episode combining the fact that the Oakdale looks like a giant barn from the outside, it's next to an abandoned Citgo station, it was the site of Brian's first concert [Air Supply], and that "Rock This Fucking Bitch" would require an extra beat as requested by one leather-lunged concertgoer to our left: "That's 5/4 time, my man...you'd have to add an extra beat in there; that's math-rock"). He finished with the one-two-three punch of Steven's Last Night In Town followed by a drum/percussion duel with Brian (the man is multi-talented), a Jimi Hendrix tease (!) followed by Fair with all of Guster, and the nerd-rap of Short Bus Benny followed by the manic, ivory-pounding frenzy of One Solemn Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces. Good stuff all around. Seeing as how nothing could top that and we had a 2.5-hour drive ahead of us, we stuck around until Guster played their perfunctory "One Man Guy" with Rufus and then left while the Sparkly One was still slurring through his performance. Best show of the weekend.

(bad word deleted)
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Why? Because (entire post deleted) when this idiot hit refresh in the wrong window. And I was *thisclose* to finishing my witty, wordy review of the Guster/Ben/Rufus show at the Oakdale on July 10th. Faaaaaaaaaahk.

Rewrite coming. *sigh*

(pre-dating some of these entries so they make more sense chronologically...these haven't been sitting here for a week, faithful readers...)

The first of two nights at FleetBoston Pavilion for this trio. For some reason, they decided to give Guster the hometown closing slot on THURSDAY instead of the Sunday show. Why not? I don't know. Or as a guy I went to college with would then bellow, "BECAUSE THAT WOULD MAKE SENSE!" (Thank you, Nick Taranko, wherever you are...)

So. One of the realities of stealth taping is the whole stealth thing. I.e., you have an obligation to somehow hide everything from the roving eyes of ushers and roaming hands of security at the door. Being male makes this a bit harder, as we have no bags to stash stuff in, no boobs to distract the male door security, and *ahem* considerably less room in the basement for storage purposes. In New Hampshire I was pretty sure we'd be ok so I spread the wealth among the various females that accompanied me to the show (thanks, ladies). But in Boston, not being a no-name town on the edge of Lake Winnepesaukee, I had a hunch that security would be on higher alert, due to the everpresent danger of a scuffle between the Bloods and the Crips, or the Jets and the Sharks, or what have you. ESPECIALLY at the wuss-rok extravaganza that this show happened to be.

At any rate, in my paranoia, I made the decision to put my gear in the basement and pawn off the smaller goods instead. The only problem is, during an earthquake, the basement...hmm. This extended metaphor doesn't work. Let's just say that during the lengthy perambulation from the parking garage to the venue, there was some migratory behavior in the Southern hemisphere which ended up potentially making me look like I was OVERJOYED to be attending this particular show. Fortunately, I had had the forethought to dress as innocuously as possible (khakis and a polo shirt) to make it seem like I couldn't possibly be doing anything so untoward as smuggling contraband into the show, and when the security member saw that my hands were empty, he waved me through and instead concentrated on finding incendiary devices in the postage-stamp-sized purses of my cohorts. Once we got in and found our seats, I was left to my own devices, only to find that a) we were early and the lack of fans afforded me very little coverage to, er, unload, and b) the unloading procedure was complicated by the fact that the deck had somehow gotten lodged between the two undergarments I had on (what, you think the deck was...? oh, ew. really...) and wasn't coming out without a fight. YOU try removing a Walkman from your undercarriage while sitting in the middle of an empty row of seats. Eventually the row filled up, I was able to extricate my electronics, hook up and roll.

The show itself was pretty good, and the crowd was the loudest I'd heard since the Guster DVD shoot last year. Ben Folds was apparently sick at the last show we saw, but was feeling much better for this one, as evidenced by the multiple sit-ins - Ben and Rufus did the same "Careless Whisper" together (Ben's set was a bit slower and draggier than in NH despite his improved health, though), Guster sat in on a couple different songs with Ben, Rufus came back out for "Come Downstairs & Say Hello" with Guster, and then Ben joined Guster at the end for an upbeat "All The Way Up To Heaven" and an eardrum-endangering "Bridge Over Trouble Water", featuring Brian on "vocals". Rufus still fails to convince me, though...he got more comprehensible as the shows progressed, but his style just didn't mesh as well with the other two bands.

The ride home was irritating, to say the least - the major construction still going on in the Central Artery area made a 30-minute trip into an hour-plus trip, plus it was POURING the entire time, and people feel the need to make left-hand turns from the right lane, right-hand turns from the left lane, merge without signaling, and all of the other things that make driving in Boston so wonderful. Note to self: avoid parking garage beyond FleetBoston Pavilion in the future to make the getaway easier...

A mini-epilogue I forgot to mention to our weekend with the Aussies - on Tuesday, they came down to our apartment because they had never seen it, and also because they wanted to see how the new furniture (formerly my grandparents') fit into our place. Reviews were strongly positive. In order to put all of this furniture to its full use, we had dinner - I grilled up some burgers and dogs. And while communing with nature as its meat sizzled on the fire, I watched the squirrels scurrying around in the huge oak tree next to our house...one of which slipped off the branch it was spying on me from, fell twisting to the ground with a distinct THUD, and went scampering back up the tree as fast as its little claws would carry it.

I'd been looking forward to my semi-yearly trip to Blues Traveler at Red Rocks a couple of months ago when my mother mentioned to me, "Now, I know you usually go to Colorado over the 4th of July...". Uh oh. Not a good start. Turns out she'd scheduled a family reunion for that weekend with the knowledge that my family from Australia would be coming to visit (short detour: my uncle went over to Australia as part of a teaching program after graduating from college, met another American teacher while he was over there, got married and decided to stay there despite him being from Long Island and her being from West Virginia. They have two sons around our age.)

I put off the decision for a while, knowing that BT had a July 3rd show planned at a little club in Denver, thinking I could take some time during the week, since they'd be around for a while. But then came the bombshell - my relatives from Long Island would be visiting.

Now, some of you may be pulling out your maps, almanacs and globes, comparing the distance to Maine from Australia and from Long Island, and scratching your heads. Well, you'd be right to do so, except for the fact that my Long Island relatives don't go anywhere for anything. Case in point - they didn't even come up for the rehearsal dinner when we got married. They breezed in, went to the wedding, and breezed out the same day. So for them to be coming to Maine for a WHOLE WEEKEND was really an earth-is-moving event. So that basically made the decision - no Colorado for me.

Except that the Long Islanders cancelled a month later. LOVING them at this point.

Still, we had a nice family weekend anyway. Got to go home and basically act like a child again - played some Super Nintendo, watched some slides/home movies, learned how to use the reel-to-reel and taught my uncle how to record to his laptop, played some pinochle (and won), and even played a new game with my brother called Settlers of Catan (which we promptly dubbed alternately "Settlers of Chris Kattan" and "Settlers of Tawny Kitaen"). It's a cool strategy game that involves a board of various hexagonal pieces each representing a resource, and you place settlements on the board at the intersection of the hexes. Everyone starts with two settlements and two roads (at the ends of which you eventually build more settlements), and you build up your civilization based on dice rolls and the resources in the hexes your settlements border. Eventually you can build cities, which can manufacture commodities, giving you an advantage over players who just have settlements, and so on. At its most basic, a game lasted an hour and a half, and when we went with one set of add-ons, the game lasted over four hours. Definitely a game different from any I've ever played before.

But of course, having Australian cousins just isn't complete unless you have the obligatory run-in with Americans who aren't expecting Aussie accents. We went down to a town park called Fort Williams, which used to be a harbor defense post for the Portland area until it was decommissioned in the 1960's. On the grounds of the fort are the remains of a large mansion that was built for/by a retired colonel in the early 1800's, and we happened to run into a couple that was honeymooning in the area. My mother offered to take a picture but couldn't figure out their camera, so she called on Andrew, who is a gadgetry whiz. They heard his accent and while we were walking away, one of them wondered aloud if he was from Australia, except they weren't sure because he hadn't said "mate". So just for a laugh, he gave them the old "G'day, mate! Toss another shrimp on the barbie!" rundown. And just as we were getting out of earshot, he rolled his eyes and said in a slightly louder-than-normal voice, "They're not shrimp! They're PRAWNS!" Apparently no native Australian has ever used that phrase. And don't get them started on the Outback Steakhouse or Foster's...

I really need to start writing more of my own reviews of the shows that I go to... Obviously I go to most of them with Viv, but we have different experiences. Ideally these won't be song-for-song reviews but kind of general overviews. Especially once things get heavy in a couple of weeks.

I saw a show at "Meadowbrook Farm", now known as Meadowbrook Musical Arts Center, three years ago. Kind of a dumpy place back then - no pavement, no ROOF, just white folding chairs on a dirt field with a grassy slope in the back. Well, my venue's all grownsed up. Now it's a nice pavilion with real seats, plenty of leg room and a roof - and good sound! The open-air venues are nice because there isn't as much boxy reverb as in bars/clubs. This was a GA show so we got dead center seats at the back of the first section...ideal for taping. People around us were a little chatty for Ben Folds' set but they settled down for Guster and Rufus.

Ben's set was quite impressive - I'd only ever seen Ben Folds Five, and even then, just once, at the Tufts Spring Fling about five years ago (with, of all bands, the Cherry Poppin' Daddies and the Sugar Hill Gang). Wasn't impressed then but I think it was the general atmosphere - they were very low-key and played more slow material, and compared to the other two acts they seemed even MORE blah. But last night was a different story. One episode in particular featured a speaker popping or short-circuiting, letting out a huge BANG - the first time, Ben stopped, said "Whoa! What the fuck?" and kept playing. It happened again, even louder, and pretending to be shot, he toppled off his stool, and fell twitching to the ground. Got back up, started a different song and came back later. I didn't recognize a lot of the music but a very entertaining show (including some interplay between artists - Guster came out for two songs, "Give Judy My Notice" and "Fair", while Rufus sang with Ben on a cover of George Michael's "Careless Whisper").

Guster's set was good but didn't blow me away. Of course, eighty-something shows makes me a little more critical of the guys but the crowd was REALLY into them. Everyone had stayed in their seats, mostly sitting, for Ben's set, but in what Ryan later termed a "great experiment in crowd mentality" (or something to that effect), a few people got up from the front row to dance in the very front, which was an open area maybe 10-15 feet deep in front of the first row. Then came the flood of people from everywhere, and that filled up for the rest of the show. Most everyone was standing for Guster's entire set - even for Come Downstairs & Say Hello, which is the prototypical "everyone sit back down" song.

Rufus...well...not a big fan. Ben was the one who claimed to be getting really sick that day, but in all honesty, it sounded like Rufus' nose was plugged the whole show...whenever he breathed in during the middle of a song, it was very loud and shrill, and through his mouth, and right into the microphone. He's got a great, powerful voice, and a very intense performance, but the vocal tic just bothered the hell out of me. His banter, compared with Ben's and Guster's, wasn't on par, and even bordered on insulting at times, calling the locals "log-choppers" and "lake people". He had a few good stories - one about getting slammed by Bea Arthur (of all people) and another one about his mother calling him late at night to tell him to take a baked ham from catering with him on the tour bus - but for the most part they interfered with and overlapped with his songs, which really detracted from the overall flow of the performance. For comparison's sake, there was a bit of seat-drumming at the end of Ben's set to get him to come out for an encore, and some thunderous seat-drumming (appropriate, no?) after Guster's set, but just some polite clapping after Rufus's.

I'm looking forward to the next three shows of this tour - Ben mentioned he was feeling under the weather so he didn't come out and play with Guster or Rufus, so that's something to see, I'm sure. It may not quite be the "Guster rebirth" for me that it is for Viv, but it's good to see them on an equal billing with other similarly-minded artists that are able to interact to such a degree. I'm feeling lucky to catch them towards the end of their tour together rather than the beginning, when they were still working the kinks out and figuring out how to play together.

Next stop, FleetBoston Pavilion, next Thursday...