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REVIEW: my crazy music-filled NYC trip in March 2007

17th Mar 07 (Sat) 4 comments

Wow… today is my “first day off” from a show since last Friday (2/9)…

Here’s how NYC “for business” played out on the “for enjoyment” sense of it…

SATURDAY 3/10
I arrived in town at 11:30am. Checked in, and then headed up to “scout out” the Lincoln Center’s Rose Theater as that’s where MASADA was playing that night. While I was there, I got word that there were two free jazz shows going on that afternoon that were sponsored by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of U.S. Department of State. It was apparently spreading jazz music to 3rd world countries, and this was the coming home show. I love jazz, and I love how sometimes governmental bodies put good money to use for the arts. It seems weird how we seem to only export bombs lately. Jazz is better than bombs, but less than food and medical aid. I guess I should just be glad that is wasn’t bombs or Christina Aguilera instead of jazz.

Anyway, the Ari Roland Quartet was the free 1pm show. Great quartet, not unlike some quartets that I like… more straight jazz, flashy but not experimental (IMO). Enjoyable, but not mind blowing. “Safe jazz,” if you ask me. Their drummer was pretty good. My favorite song was the one penned by their piano-player. The Cultures of Rhythm was the free 3pm show (both of these free shows were at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola at Lincoln Center). COR were a bit more interesting. It was a jazz quartet, but “bouncier.” And it featured djembe, drums, hammond organ and a trumpeter. Trumpet usually excites me more than safe saxaphone jazz. Anyway, this band (Culture of Rhythm) had a great vibe. Very enjoyable…

After these free shows, I was pooped… and headed back to my hotel in Chelsea for a nap. The evening show was Masada and Cecil Taylor at Lincoln Jazz Center’s Rose Theater. This was Masada’s last show ever. I drove down to Raleigh, NC, last fall to see tham at Duke. This show, they amazed even more. Masada has many incarnations (as do many of John Zorn’s projects), but the standard acoustic quartet of John Zorn on alto sax, Dave Douglas on trumpet, Greg Cohen on bass, and Joey Baron on drums is the true Masada band. Masada tunes are all written by John Zorn… he’s written upwards of 300 one-page melodic tunes. These one-page 16-bar songs become the framework for jazz improvization. While some of it becomes quite adventurous and “avant-garde,” it still remains very melodic — which can be scarce for John Zorn material. Anyway, the four members of Masada were ON that night. It was truly a beautiful hour+ of music. I’m sad that it’s their last show as this original quartet, but I’m glad that I got to see them twice. I didn’t stick around for Cecil… I had other shows I wanted to fit in…

I took the subway from Columbus Circle (near Central Park) all the way down to the Bowery… walked about a mile to get to the Stone (an avant-garde music space) and made it just in time to see the Joe Morris Trio. It was basically a guy (Joe Morris) noodling on a guitar while another guy (Daniel Levin) was noodling on a cello and another guy (Michael Evans) was noodling on a drumkit. Udon!

I was toying with the idea of heading way the fuck back uptown to Lincoln Center for the 11:30pm show for Kenny Werner‘s Lawn Chair Society. I dig the CD (and it features trumpeter Dave Douglas and saxaphonist Chris Potter), but I didn’t have tickets and thought it’d be sold out, and I knew Dave Douglas wasn’t playing in the band that night (and I had just seen Chris Potter play a few weeks earlier in Cincinnati). It was rainy and I didn’t find the subway stop where I left it last; so I walked about 2 miles to Union Center (my pedometer was upwards of 11 miles walked that 1st day — it got about half that every day afterwards). My sleepy head won out and I crashed back to my hotel in Chelsea eventually…

Oh, speaking of crashing… they had 7th Ave closed from 27th St to 23rd St most of the day on the Saturday and Sunday that I showed up because they were filming chase scenes for the upcoming Borne Ultimatum. I didn’t catch a peek at anyone famous (Matt Damon or anyone), but it was interesting to see how they blocked a major road off for the better part of the weekend. The secondary chase seemed to happen right outside my window (on 25th St)… it’ll be weird to see when that movie comes out if I recognize any of the street stuff…

SUNDAY 3/11 I had a lazy and cheap Sunday… went to the Downtown Music Gallery’s free shows (they do them every Sunday). I spend a lot of coin at DMG for avant-garde jazz; so I figured I’d take in some free stuff. At 6pm, I saw Jason Stein (sax from Chicago) and Mike Pride (percussion from Brooklyn) toy around with some sounds. It was pretty intense, and very much avant-garde. I dug it. Next up (7pm) was Susan Alcorn on lap-steel. It was mesmerizing, entrancing, but uninviting. It really zoned me out for a good 45 minutes. Very much avant-garde lapsteel. At least it wasn’t country, eh? rolleyes.gif

I was gonna catch two shows at the Stone after these free DMG shows, but I was worn out. Susan Alcorn fried my brain, or perhaps it was watching Jesus Camp that afternoon. Scary shit, that movie was…

MONDAY 3/12 Lazy Monday… I think I walked down to WTC and Statue of Liberty this morning, but I forget. That may have been Sunday morning (and then after got a shot of Johnny Walker Red at Elliott Smith‘s XO hangout). I didn’t pay for the ferry to Ellis Island… eh. Monday dinner was delightful. I caught some good thai grub with who law enforcement officers refer to as the “great-hatted bootlegger.” Keith was catching a Steve Earle show with a friend and we met up prior. Good food and conversation. Afterwards, I hussled out to the Jazz Standard (I forget what part of town). Brian Bromberg’s Downright Upright All-Stars were about 20 minutes in to their sold-out show, but the gate keeper let me sneak in to the standing-room-only part of the club. The club wreaked of pork and bbq sauce, but I guess that’s better than pork and bbq sauce and smoke… gotta love the smokin’ bans. Dave Weckl played dums for this band, and I had heard of his name before. Anyway, they played more accessible jazz (not safe, but not avant-garde). Very enjoyable stuff… I picked up their CD on the way out. I then headed to the Village Vanguard, and was gonna try to see the Village Vanguard Orchestra (a big band). They didn’t take credit cards at the door and I didn’t wanna shell out a lot of cash; so I quietly left and went back to my hotel. I was tired anyway…

TUESDAY 3/13 This was a Tonic night. I’m a big Ikue Mori fan… she is a laptop soundscape musician. Very avant-garde (‘cept her Painted Dessert is my favorite and it’s more traditional song structured). Anyway, Ikue Mori was playing a show with Briggan Krauss (on sax) and Jim Black (on percussion). It was quite avant-garde and was led by Briggan mostly. Ikue could have been there or not for all I know/care. Eh. Jim Black’s drumming was fantastic, but not drumming in the stricted sense. He played a lot of scraping movements along the cymbals… he also used a cello bow on the cymbals… he also covered his toms and snare with literally t-shirts to get a really muffled sound. It was weird, but good. The 10pm Tonic show was Ellery Eskelin (on sax), Lisle Ellis (on laptop and upright bass) and Erik Deutsch (on piano). I’ve enjoyed Ellery Eskelin’s guest spots on various jazz CDs I own. The show was good, but too dissonant for me at that point of the night; so I only stuck around for half of their set before heading back to the hotel.

WEDNESDAY 3/14 I opted out of the ambient-metal band ISIS. I love their sound, but just saw ’em a few months ago opening for Tool. I went back to Tonic instead for two bands that became the better choice. I saw Inlets and Edison Woods. Inlets was fantastic. It is fronted by Sebastian Kruger (who has played on My Brightest Diamond CDs). He is a multi-instrumentalist and has some great songs. He also has a dandy falsetto. Both his physical appearance and music sound bring to mind Jude and Sufjan having hot-n-nasty sex in your living room and popping out Sebastian as their “love-child.” So, yeah, in short, Inlets sounds like a man-on-man love-child. He washed up before getting on stage, mind you. Oh, and his EP is available FOR FREE at http://luvsound.org/. For Free. Next up was Edison Woods, which was a band much like Elysian Fields, yet maybe not as sultry. Their main vocalist/pianist didn’t have the best vocals ever, but their background vocalist had some operatic amazingness going. She should have been the lead vocalist. Oh well… the band also had cello and some brass and drums. I dug ’em… not as much as Elysian Fields, though. I’m bummed… Elysian Fields is playing at Joe’s this coming weekend. Keith, you should check Elysian Fields out. They’re Over the Rhine-y-ish…

THURSDAY 3/15 Thursday was one of the shows I was looking forward to the most (outside of the Masada show). Secret Chiefs 3 and Sleepytime Gorilla Museum at the Bowery Ballroom. I got there early enough, as I knew that SC3 was going on first, and they also had some limited edition vinyl singles that were rumored to be going quick on the SC3 board. I snagged my vinyl sets and a t-shirt. Trey Spruance (mastermind behind SC3 and Mr Bungle) was manning the table along with bassist and multi-instrumentalist Jason Schimmel (of SC3, but also in Estradasphere). My vinyl & t-shirt order total came up to a “magical number” per Trey. I just nodded in agreement and said “yeah.” I had no fucking idea what he was talking about… maybe because it was divisible by 9 or something. or maybe his brain is fried. Anyway, the artwork for the SC3 vinyl singles is kewl.

The show was anti-climatic. I mean, when I saw Estradaphere (a brother band of SC3’s) last year in Bloomington, they blew me away. Secret Chiefs 3 should have blown me away. The first three songs were utterly sloppy, though. By the 4th song, they started venturing into “known” territory and it sounded great. By the end, they had it going pretty good, but again, it was weird that it just wasn’t up to the level of tightness and musicianship that Estradasphere showed. I think Trey’s been off the road for too long… he hasn’t toured consistently since the Mr Bungle days. I think it showed. Also, they had two violinists (Anonymous 13 and Timb Harris)… I never knew A13 was a girl… but both she and Timb were good, but not as good as Timb was on the last Estradasphere tour. Other than the drums and basses, SC3 also busted out the Oud, Sas, Sarangi, Esraj, and probably even a Jalebi or two… and Trey doesn’t play any normal guitars… they’re all butchered and tuned oddly to some middle-eastern scale or something. It’s quaint.

Regardless of the seeming sloppiness at the beginning, it was still a fun evening… it was good to see SC3 play some great tunes like “Dolores Strike,” “Personnae: Halloween,” “Bereshith,” “Assassin’s Blade,” “Ship of Fools (Stone of Exile),” and definitely “Renunciation.” I only stuck around for a bit of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum’s set. They don’t do much for me on record (or live). I’d say the “Renunciation” encore and the vinyl singles (money directly into Trey’s hand) were the highlights.

FRIDAY 3/16 I saw a wonderful show at the Bowery Ballroom by Blackfield (Porcupine Tree’s Steven Wilson and Israeli popstar Aviv Geffen). I’ve posted a review in the blog as well. The opener was Jordan Rudess (of Dream Theater). I feel truly outraged at any elephant that lost its life to make pianos used by Jordan.

I think of any of the bands I saw… my wife (and others who aren’t into the avant-garde stuff) would have liked Masada, the Downright Upright All-Stars, Inlets, and Blackfield. SC3 was a bit too strange, even though she likes some of their recorded stuff.

Time for bed… biggrin.gif

~Dan

REVIEW: Blackfield @ the Bowery Ballroom (NYC – – 3/16/07)

17th Mar 07 (Sat) Leave a comment

The Blackfield show last night was excellent!!!

I showed up late (on purpose) as Jordan Rudess was opening. I had a slow subway ride to the Lower East Side, walked through the piles of snow to Leela Lounge (a tasty “hip” Indian restaurant), ate too much, then had a slow walk to the Bowery Ballroom. I still managed to catch about 20 minutes of Jordan’s set. I swear, it was painful. Nothing’s as boring as a rocker keyboardist playing piano-sounding keyboard classical-style songs for 45 minutes straight. I mean, yeah, he can play piano-board, but he still can’t write “a song” to save his life. I know I’ve griped about being bored at OTR shows. That’s mainly due to being tired and the music being slow. Jordan was truly bad, though (whereas OTR ain’t). I turned my iPod on and walked to the corner of the room to avoid it. I love love instrumental music. Jordan Rudess is just -ingly boring, though. The Dream Theater fans were eating it up like it was Chicken Pot Pie.

Ugh… I hate prog fans. No offense Steve, but I about had that reaction to you when you first started going on about PTree… “yeah, yeah, they’re a prog band.” They’re actually so much better than just about every prog band out there. Anyway, I’m glad that Porcupine Tree and Blackfield know things or two about song structure. I’m glad you pimped PT to me 4 years ago (wow… it doesn’t seem that long ago), but I couldn’t care less about the Dream Theater/Queensrÿche fans anymore… it’s just too much like watching a train wreck in a social setting.

Anyway, on to positive thoughts…

Blackfield came out. Steven Wilson was dressed like usual (t-shirt and jeans, glasses, floppy hair). Aviv Geffen (the other half of Blackfield’s songwriting) was dressed more like a rocker, dark shirt and tie, with glitter mascara and everything. The rest of the band was… the rest of the band (hired guns or friends or whatever). They played a good mix of Blackfield I & II songs (obviously). Steven also did his Cover Version I, which is Alanis Morissette‘s “Thank You.” It was just Steven singing and Aviv playing piano (no other band members on stage, and Steven not playing his guitar). It sounded great. Aviv also played a song on piano that was just him singing, too… I forget which song, but it was one of the quieter Aviv songs (maybe “The Hole in Me” than never got ‘boomed’ up like it does on disc).

Songs I know they played from I: Open Mind, Blackfield, Glow, Pain, The Hole in Me, Hello. Songs I know they played from II: Once, Miss U, Christenings, Epidemic, Where Is My Love?, End of the World. Other songs played: Alanis Morissette’s “Thank You” …and they probably played some that I’m forgetting…

I hope the filming turned out good for the upcoming DVD. I may have gotten into a few shots, as there was a guy filming the crowd some… I was in the back, though… so I doubt I’m in it too much… I bet the film crew started focusing on “shirtless Aviv” by the end… rolleyes.gif

~Dan

REVIEW: Estradasphere @ 2nd Story Nightclub (Bloomington, IN – – 10/6/06)

7th Oct 06 (Sat) 2 comments

Estradasphere‘s show last night at the 2nd Story Nightclub in Bloomington, IN was PHENOMENAL.

I arrived in Bloomington and about crap my pants with how crazy the traffic and people in town were… apparently it is a HUGE Lotus World Music Festival this whole weekend… oy… anyway, I grabbed grub at the excellent veggie restaurant ROOTS (mushroom-patty burger, fried tofu cubes with homemade sweet plum sauce, cinnamon-or-ginger-spiced sweet potato fries, and a fresh (I saw him make it) orange and carrot juice). I was too stuffed for dessert. If I ever bring the wife to Bloomington, we’re totally hitting up ROOTS again.

Anyway, I head to the venue by about 9:30pm. The band hasn’t showed up yet. They were supposed to be there at 5pm to set up. Ru’ Ro’. I lie down on the couch in the venue, and by 10pm the band finally shows up.

The 1st opener (Das Trio) starts around 10:20pm. They had some skills (at least the bassist), but they were very muddy as a group… and the songs and vocals were not memorable. I’ve seen worse bands, but I’ve seen better. I apologize if they do a google search for their name and come upon this review. They showed potential, but the songs just seemed generic.

After Das Trio’s set, I walked around town again to kill time. I got what might have been the best double shot of espresso ever. Seriously. It was so flavorful. I totally recommend the Crystal Parrot in Bloomington. Wow. Yummy.

The 2nd opener was playing by the time I got back to the venue. Floating Hand was a three-piece, growly, death-metal slow-grindcore type band. I thought they were fantastic. Unfortunately, since Estradasphere showed up sooo late, E-sphere was setting up behind Floating Hand… which caused some ill-will (to say the least) between the bands later on in the evening (FH heckling loadly during E-sphere’s first few songs — even after E-sphere publically apologized and thanked FH for their music).

Anyway, after Floating Hand, I walked around in the cool air again… came back by 1:10am and Estradasphere was finally getting ready to start. For those who don’t know Estradasphere, they’re a sibling band (shared members) to the Secret Chiefs 3, which is a sibling band to Mr. Bungle. Anyway, they’re middle eastern-influenced progressive, jazzy, gypsy-folk, classical-tinged, insanity-for-compositional structure metal band from the San Francisco Bay area. There are 6 members in this incarnation of the band… Timb Harris on violin, trumpet and good-looks; Kevin Kmetz (aka God of Shamisen) on guitar, keyboards, and most notably the Japanese banjo-like instrument, the shamisen; Jason Schimmel on guitars (electric, acoustic, flamenco), banjo, and keyboards (including melodica); Lee Smith on drums (fast, too); Adam Stacey on accordion, keyboards & synthesizer, rhodes and melodica; and Tim Smolens on contrabass (aka upright bass) and electric bass.

The near-hour long 1st set (again, starting at around 1:10am) was seemingly mostly covers and/or new compositions. They (Estradasphere) have three full-length albums (and 2 live albums with add’l material) prior to their most recent release this year, Palace of Mirrors; yet they didn’t play anything from those albums. Odd choice, but regardless, it was fantastic to see and hear. World music with some pep.

The 2nd set, after a (literal) 2-minute break, was allegedly Palace of Mirrors in its entirety. I say allegedly, because for those tracking time, it was probably close to 2:15am when the first set ended. I had a two+ hour drive ahead of me (didn’t want to stay in a hotel — too busy this weekend to get home later). I left after the halfway mark of the album… basically after the whirlwind, violin & shamisen metal-in-your-face attack(!) of the standout track from Palace of Mirrors, “Smuggled Mutation.” I’m bummed I had to bail, but I think the club (or the police) might have shut them down anyway if they passed “bar closin’ curfew.” Sweet glory… almost an hour and a half of wonderful live music (not including FH’s great opening set).

I strongly recommend Estradasphere to anyone who likes world music, and also likes (or tolerates) harder music… but, really, the harder edge is drastically out of their live show (and album) when compared to their earlier stuff (like on Its Understood or Buck Fever).

http://www.estradasphere.com/
http://www.myspace.com/estradasphere

~Dan

TRIPLE-REVIEW: Tori Amos, Radiohead, Over the Rhine (3 cities in Ohio – – Aug 2003)

23rd Aug 03 (Sat) Leave a comment

(originally posted to the old Over the Rhine Actwin list)

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Ohio is great for concerts… triple show review (8/24/2003)

Not every week do you get to see 3 of your Top 5 Artists.  This was one of those weeks for me…
Tori Amos, Radiohead, and Over the Rhine.

Here’s a triple review of OHIO shows this past week…

I. Tori Amos
II. Radiohead
III. Over the Rhine (bookstore show)

I. TORI AMOS & Marc Broussard
PromoWest Pavilion, Columbus, OH (just barely outside of downtown)
Wednesday, August 20th, 2003

HIGHLIGHTS: The opener was good.  Strong voice.  Tori was great… there were some technical problems partway through the set, but she handled it well.  Her dress ripped, too… the resulting song that came out of that one was great. :)  Song highlights were: Sweet Dreams (a Winter b-side), Mr Zebra, Caught a Lite Sneeze, Mary (another b-side), I Can’t See New York, Hey Jupiter, Bliss, A Sorta Fairytale, China, Liquid Diamonds, Girl, Precious Things, Space Dog, and Cornflake Girl… a lot of great tunes.  Plus a birthday number was fun, too… apparently this was her last show before turning 40.  She seems to be cool with that. :)  Hanging out in Columbus’ Short North was great the next day, too.  Magnolia Thunderpussy (awesome music selection), Monkeys Retreat (cool Simpsons collector stuff), and coffee for me; jewelry and art shops for Margarita… lots of glass in the Cow Town.  Seemed like the shops fancied it.  We some some excellent Chihuly pieces… my credit card wouldn’t handle purchasing them ($32k to start).  Oh, maybe next time.

BUMMER: Ben Folds not being there was the biggest bummer.  This was one of the two shows that he wasn’t going to co-headline.  I didn’t find that out until *after* I bought my tickets and booked the hotel.  Another bummer… she seemed to play too much from To Venus and Back (4-5 songs, ugh).  Oh well, she played enough other material to make up for it… :)

OVERALL: Great show… my 8th time seeing Tori, and the setlist was been vastly different every time.  That’s what I love about her touring… from day-to-day, it’s a different show.

II. RADIOHEAD & Steve Malkmus and the Jicks
Blossom Music Center, Cuyahoga Falls, OH (just outside of Akron)
Thursday, August 21st, 2003

HIGHLIGHTS: There There (with Ed on mini-drums and Jonny on mini-drums, keys, and guitar), Paranoid Android, Exit Music (For a Film), Lucky, Idioteque, Morning Bell, 2+2=5, Punchup at a Wedding, Wolf at the Door.  They seemed to stick with the newer stuff, which is fine.  But it seemed when they played any older stuff (Paranoid or Exit Music), that they were phenomenally tighter, and/or those songs lent themselves better to the live show.  The Kid A stuff didn’t seem to lend itself as well (it did last time – 2 years ago).  My favorite played was probably Paranoid Android.  We moved up to the right side of the lawn, away from the crowd, after about 5 songs.  We could see and hear (and breathe) way better.  A nice breeze cooling us off, comfy grass to sit on, a beauty on my arm, and a great band flaoting through the air… ’twas a good time.  Oh, and finally finding the only Indian restaurant in the Akron/Cuyahoga phone book was a blessing.
Different korma than our usual haunts (yummy as hell), and Strawberry Lassi (yum).

BUMMER: No My Iron Lung, Fake Plastic Trees, or Street Spirit (unless they had a 2nd encore that we missed)… also, the song “Kid A” was icky in the live performance (with a side of ICK sauce).  Steve Malkmus & the Jicks were quite boring and lame.  There were 2 or 3 Jicks’ songs near the middle-end that were *decent*.  That’s about it.  Oh, another bummer… Blossom’s parking is, like, miles and miles and miles from the venue.  A 30 minute walk post-show is a drain.   Oh, plus when we tried to check-in to our B&B at 3pm *no one* was there.  We walked in, and *no one*.  We eventually found a room with an A/C and napped until 5:30 until the proprietor finally showed up.  It was surreal, at best.  Quite disorganized B&B, but a KILLER house (O’Neill House in Akron) and a killer breakfast… yum.

OVERALL: Great lights, Thom’s a spaz, Jonny hates his guitar, Radiohead put on a great show again.

III. OVER THE RHINE and tons of books
Joseph-Beth Booksellers, Cincinnati, OH (just outside of Kentucky)
Saturday, August 23rd, 2003

HIGHLIGHTS: Hometown (Norwood) Boy, Suitcase, Anything At All, Show Me, Fever, Ohio, trivia break (Drew Vogel, aka D.V., won a framed poster), The Seahorse, and Summertime.  They also had What I’ll Remember Most, Changes Come, and Bothered on the setlist, but didn’t play them.  Suitcase was great.
Show Me was better than what I’d heard prior, and Fever was stunningly sexy (as usual).

BUMMER: I didn’t have my OHIO CDs from Paste yet.  I didn’t even have them by the time I got home late Saturday night.   I had K&L sign my Paste Order Confirmation email instead.  I crack myself up sometimes.

OVERALL: Great set, sound was a bit off, but it was a really fun time.  Song highlights were… all of ’em.  It was good to see them in a nice intimate bookstore venue.

My wife (Margarita) somehow puts up with all of the driving to concerts… yay, I picked a winner!  :)

Ohio traveller,
Dan

written in parts throughout the day, so…
pp: bela fleck & the flecktones – ten from little
worlds
pp: living sacrifice – reborn
pp: madonna – ray of light
pp: the magnolia soundtrack
np: sarah masen – carry us through

REVIEW: Over the Rhine @ Southgate House (Newport, KY – – 8/26/01)

27th Aug 01 (Mon) Leave a comment

(originally posted to the old Actwin list)
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BERL wrote:
> The show last night at Southgate was really
> fun, great sound.

yes, indeedy, petey. it sounded better up top, much
to the opposite recommendation from some folks here
(ahem… ahem)…

> Kim Taylor opened… she did great. Much looking
> forward to her CD.

eh… she was ok. better than girheuB ikkiN, nice
voice… and she didn’t smoke and scratch her head
incessantly. :P

j/k, she was pretty good. does she have a CD coming
out? i was out running my camera back to my car
during her last song.

> Bothered
> Lucy

i liked what karin did vocally at the end of these
songs… nice stuff…

> Miles

nice rendition. have they done that lately? i don’t
think so. that might have been my fav song of the
night.

> I Radio Heaven to her naked pot-farming
> TV buddy. It was a groovy version, just two
> acoustic guitars, kinda strumming along. It was
> one of the few songs of the night that wasn’t
> shifted downtempo of it’s original version.

jack was also playing lap steel along with this.
and unless you were at a different show than i…
this was not nearly the same as the album version.

dude, it was a freakin’ DIRGE. slow and moving and
droning. i liked it a lot, but i just had to really
disagree with you, though.

DIRGE was what it was. a freakin’ DIRGE.

you could see them all moping while playing it… ;)

> “Orphan Girl” is that same Gillian Welch song
> they’ve been playing for years. (Yawn) Pretty
> and all, but (yawn).

mmm… better than some other songs. i kinda liked
it.

> this all leads to “Hello Ohio”. It pretty
> much was a song about the things she just
> talked about…

she gave away half the lyrics in her talking.
where’s the surprise? i hate it when performers
do that.

overall a good show… i was sleepy after a long
weekend, but it was enjoyable.

i ate the crumbs- spilled the wine,
Dan

np: king’s x – KX4

The dirge comments prompted a discussion of Poughkeepsie, which prompted a post from a bandmember (Karin Bergquist)… It prompted this on the otr.com splashpage:

:sigh:

REVIEW: Over the Rhine @ Bogart’s (Cincinnati, OH – – 3/21/01)

22nd Mar 01 (Thu) 2 comments

(originally posted to the old Actwin list)

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rev: OtR – bogarts.
thurs, march 22rd/th/nd.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

fabulous set. mostest funnest for a while.
loved it. totally. echo megan & bink’s revs.

set. order not particular.

the world can wait.

if nothing else.

fairpoint diary.
no toy. no piano.

i radioheadven.

birds.
holy crap. loved it.

don’t be bothered. don’t be, i said.
well done. differentish.

something that (apparently) (isn’t) goodbye.
but i’m not so sure. or am i?

sleep baby jane.
it wasn’t my idea. it was karin’s first.

my love is a fever.
by firelight… hush.

all i need is e.
“crank the ‘e’ and let’s begin.”
(name that tune?) .5000 dollars if right.

faithfully dangerous.

give me strength. wild banshee mix.
aka album version. not acoustic.

moth. jesus was surprised.

when i go.

anywhere but down. name might be wrong.

the body is an escalator of skin.
escalator temporarily stairs.

little blue river/4 score & 7 yrs.

latter days.

like i said. awesome show. best in yrs.
they changed their setlist. they had fun.
standy bogart’s or not. it rocked.

did they do whatever you say? bruce? they didn’t do whatever i say, did they do whatever you say?

i still miss terri. brokenheart.
moth and e, mainly.
( :::|::|::: ) might fix it. temporarily.

jakc rocks. jack does too.
linford sticks up for him.
karin is beaut. always.
chris and dale, cool mofreekas.

nighty-nite.

someone snerdley,
Dan

np: wonderful thoughts

~ Dan Temmesfeld – dtemm@yahoo.com ~
~ zesenzestig sinaasappel schillen ~

REVIEW: Over the Rhine @ Canal Street Tavern (Dayton, OH – – 6/23/00)

24th Jun 00 (Sat) 4 comments

(originally posted to the old Actwin list)

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They played a lot of new stuff and/or older stuff that they haven’t pulled out too often… the first set was shock full of the newer stuff, and the second stuff had some of the OtR staples…

It was a really good show overall… and it’d been since December since I’d seen OtR. Good stuff. Oh yeah, it was a three-piece (K&L and Jack). Nikki Buehrig opened.

Karin’s new hair-style…she needed to be wearing a big script “L” on her shirt. :) Sorry, but that’s just the first thing that came to my mind when they came on stage…

They played a tune that Bruce said that Jan’s been requesting forever (see setlist below), but they’ve never played it for her… so maybe their next Chicago show, you’ll luck out Jan…

Setlist:

SET 1-
When I Go (K&L)
I Let It Go
Goodbye
Anyway
Show Me
Green Clouded-Tail Butterfly
If Nothing Else
It’s Never Quite What It Seems
Cast Me Away
Little Blue River
Who Will Guard the Door (K&L)
Suitcase (K&L)
Fairpoint Diary (K&L)

SET 2-
And Can It Be
June
Moth
Jacksie
All I Need is Everything
I Will Remember
Now I Know (Cowboy Junkie’s tune)
Lucy
Circle of Quiet
Latter Days

ENCORE-
Faithfully Dangerous
Go Down Easy

Somewhere in SET 2, Jack and Linford did a little jam session… I forget in between which songs. It was fun. As for SET 1, I don’t remember hearing “Cast Me Away;” so maybe they didn’t play it, or maybe I fell asleep…

The three new ones in a row Show/Green/Nothing were cool. Jack’s guitar tone on several of them were what Bruce referred to as “porno guitar.” Twas humourous. They were good songs anyway. The first two new songs at the beginning of the SET 1 were good, too… but kinda mellow. They were nice, though.

Ah… I think this show made up my mind that I’m gonna try to make it to the Sunday show in Columbus…

Have fun everybody at the Kent gig!!!

save the erf,
Dan

np: bt – movement in still life