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Back from Chicago

Hi, all,

I was in Chicago last week, and played hooky from what I was ostensibly
supposed to be doing to go hear OtR at the Park West.  I had a good time,
although I wish I had thought to set up some kind of listee meeting place or
secret sign or something, because I got there before my friends did, and
wandered around for a while, wondering if I "knew" anybody there already.  I
asked the sound guy if he would announce over the P.A. system to have any
listees wave, but he said they would only do that if it was an emergency, and I
didn't think I could claim that.  So if you saw a tall guy with glasses in a
light sport jacket wandering around, sipping on a Guiness (a ridiculously
overpriced Guinness, I might add), that was me.  :-)

It's been about 10 years since I was last at the Park West, and I wasn't keen
on all the tables they had put in down front.  Last couple times I was there,
the main floor was open for dancing.  That would have been nice last Friday,
but maybe they figured OtR for just a sit-down crowd.  They sure crammed the
seats together down there, too.  There was literally no space between each seat
and the one in front of it.  I saw some people curled up in a row with their
knees up at their chins.  Still, there was some wiggle room, and by eliminating
the aisles (fire code violation, I'm sure), I could get some leg room.  I sat
down and chatted with some nice folks down front, one of whom said he recently
joined the list, but hadn't said anything yet.  So if you're there, dude,
thanks for being friendly and jump in.  :-)

The opening act, Sons of the Never Wrong, were great fun.  An acoustic quartet
(although I think the upright bass player was only with them as a guest
collaborator), they played funny and clever songs with energy and flair.  All
three of them sang, the guy played guitar, and the two women switched off on
several instruments.  One of their songs was about the Oort cloud, and a
fast-thinking light board operator turned a spot on the mirror ball, which made
a great visual joke in counterpoint to her lyrics about lonely stars and comets
and the like.  She got the scale a little wrong, saying the comets were outside
the *Universe*, rather than the solar system, but her heart was in the right
place.  Other songs involved ex-boyfriends, feminism, and family.  Great bongo
playing.

OtR started playing around 10, and played for a bit over an hour, I think.  I
didn't keep a set list, but I think it was pretty similar to what people have
been saying about other shows (typical OtR).  Goodbye was the finale, then they
did three encores, Give Me Strength/If I'm Drowning, The Body is a Stairway,
and Anyway (continuing the long OtR tradition of ending on a downer).  The
World Can Wait started off the set, and really kicked butt.  Karin really
poured a lot of energy into it.  I was *very* impressed with the "new" songs,
with all the electronic accoutrements.  A drum machine!  Who would have ever
expected to see a drum machine at an OtR show?  It worked.  And Dale had this
cool gizmo that was kinda like a theremin, only for percussion.  He said there
was a laser that measured how high your hand was above the sensor, and as you
moved that hand up and down, it would affect the sounds you were creating with
your other hand's striking the pads.  Fascinating.

I was really surprised at how much from Eve we heard.  Sleep Baby Jane, Birds,
and My Love is a Fever all showed up.  I was very impressed with Dale's work on
Baby Jane, and to credit his modesty, his response to my compliment was to talk
about how hard it was to just do what Brian used to do.

There was very little banter with the audience.  A little chat before When I
Go, band introductions, and Karin told a funny story about a prank the Cowboy
Junkies played on them the last time they played the Park West.  Were any
listees at that show?  Karin said that the Junkies, without warning, hired two
female strippers to come out during Goodbye and flank Karin while doing their
thing.  Other than that, they pretty much just played song after song.  

The bass player provided solid support in the back without drawing attention to
himself, disguising how well he was doing.  Jack was very good, although from
where we were sitting sometimes the high guitar notes were just painfully
piercing.  During the end of Baby Jane, he just stood stock still while playing
that same note sequence over and over and over again.  It was very funny.

That's about all I can think to say; they sounded very good, although
overall the energy level felt low somehow.  Many individual songs,
however, were simply gorgeous.  When I Go was mesmerizing.  My Love is
a Fever was very sultry and bluesy again, and like I said, I loved the
electronic influence on Stairway and Strength.

Fiat lux,
-- 
Don Smith                    Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment
dasmith at rotse2_physics.lsa.umich.edu        http://xte.mit.edu/~dasmith/

"Standing on a well-chilled cinder we see the fading of the suns and try
to recall the vanished brilliance of the origin of the worlds."
				     - Georges Lematre

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