(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.
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