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Ark show?
So, since it seems no one else is going to say anything about the Ark show, I
guess I will. I had a really good time, despite being rather sick with this
blasted cold that just will not go away! Grrr.... Jessyka and I got to the Ark
about 3:30 or so in the afternoon, and no sign of OtR. The tech plot that had
been left for me was from August of 2001, and still had Jack included in the
lineup. So rather than just sit around twiddling our thumbs, we tried to guess
what kind of set up they would need from what Jessyka had seen them do in
recent shows. We got all set up just before they arrived around 4:10 (Linford
had told me he wanted to load in at 3:30, but I guess the drive took longer
than expected). It turns out they forgot the toy piano, and they brought their
own microphones for the piano, so probably half of what we had done had to be
redone, but that's par for the course in this biz, let me tell you. I do sound
at the Ark two or three times a month, and often I don't even get an
out-of-date tech plot!
They also brought their own sound tech from Bloomington, Indiana; a guy named
Mike. Nice guy, very competant, although he put way too much reverb in Karin's
voice for my tastes. But she must like it that way, or I guess she would have
said something. So we got them set up for sound check relatively expediciously
(no broken amplifiers this year!). They were ready to go by 6 o'clock, and
they went out to dinner with family. Jay and Lindsey dropped by, and Jessyka
headed off to dinner with them. I had to stay and get Jason Dennie, the
opening act guy set up. That was pretty easy. He plays instrumental guitar
pieces, no vocal, and does his own mixing from a rack on stage, so all we had
to do at the house board was set the levels and put a little reverb on it.
Jay was kind enough to bring me back a sandwich, so I did get to eat before the
show (which doesn't always happen). The house opened at 7:30, and a horde of
people swarmed in. I think it was a sell-out crowd; certainly it didn't look
like there were any empty seats anywhere. Nobody from the list came up to say
hello to me at the board (sniff), but I did see Burril (Hi!) out in the crowd.
The Ark houses are usually silent and attentive during the music, and wildly
enthusiastic after each song, especially with OtR. Saturday was no exception.
You could hear a pin drop when Karin paused to take a breath. They were very
welcoming and patient with Jason, who did a fairly long (~45 minute) opening
set, and K&L got on stage around nine o'clock.
They were pretty relaxed on stage, with a lot of humorous banter. Karin said
she'd been talking a lot more lately than Linford does, and she asked if anyone
in the crowd remembered when Linford used to do all the talking. She
threatened that if he didn't talk more... the audience laughed and she said
"now, I didn't even think of *that*!" She also said they'd been getting a lot
of requests from people who wanted to propose marriage at an OtR show, and her
marriage advice was "cook with love... and if you fight? Fight naked.
Everybody wins, trust me." To which Linford added that there was a disclaimer
you could wear socks if you had cold feet.
They talked a lot about someone named The Reverend Al Green, who seems to be
both a performer and a preacher. Linford said the guy has to stop every now
and then to get his joy under control. Karin admired his backup dancers and
suggested OtR should hire some guys like that to dance while they're tuning.
Jason had referred to "that famous Chinese song called Tu Ning", and Linford
joked that he and Karin were going to write a song that went like this [insert
six stings being plucked to check if they're in tune], and copyright it, so
that any time someone tuned a guitar, they'd get a royalty check. Apparently
Karin used to have a turtle named "the Reverend Al Green", and she used to
greet it loudly in her garden in the morning, and make the neighbors wonder
what kind of reverend "had been spending the night with that little white
girl".
Linford told a couple of anecdotes about writing some of the songs. "Bothered"
apparently used to refer to "tears", but they decded they had tears in too many
songs and changed it to "fears". "My Love is a Fever" actually used a rhyming
dictionary: "there they all were: thin, virgin, buckskin, moccasin, spin...".
The set was casual and enjoyable, if not breathtaking or transcendant. Linford
is now singing harmony on "All I Need is Everything". There's a powerful new
song about abuse called "She". There's a new solo piano piece that Karin's
been working on that she decided not to play at the last minute. She did "Give
Me Strength" and "Hello, Ohio", which were both intense and evocative. They've
brought back and finished "Who Will Guard the Door" from _Serpents & Gloves_ --
that was very exciting to hear. Karin had two acoustic guitars and Linford
switched between an acoustic guitar and the grand piano. A few songs Karin
sang with just Linford's piano as an accompaniment. It was really nice to see
them play with a big, real, well-tuned grand piano.
Still, the show was more functional than magical. Maybe I was too focussed on
the mechanics of putting on the show to let myself be swept away. I was
running the light board while Mike did the sound, so I was trying to adjust the
color scheme to support the mood of the song, or focus in the lights on just
the pianist for the solo pieces. Or maybe my cold was too annoying. The
audience was wildly enthusiastic, demanding three encores. And then came the
endless chit-chat after the show until we could finally load out the stuff and
get out of there. I think we left around 11:30. And then Jay, Linz, Jessyka,
and another Jess (who I think is also on the list, no? Are you there?) went to
a brewpub for a drink and conversation, (aaahhh, a Belgian Triple! Just what I
needed!) and ended up closing the place.
All things considered, a most enjoyable and fun evening. I just wish I hadn't
had to contend with the cold.
I've put some photos in a gzipped tar file at http://www.rotse.net/temp/images.tar.gz
Enjoy!
Set list follows.
--
Don Smith Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment
donaldas at umich_edu http://xte.mit.edu/~dasmith/
"Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils."
- Hector Berloiz
-=--------------------
Cast Me Away
Bothered
Anything At All
The Seahorse/Summertime
Who Will Guard the Door
Etcetera Whatever
Fever
My Love is a Fever
She
Give Me Strength
Hello, Ohio
The World Can Wait
Lucy
Orphan Girl
All I Need is Everything
Latter Days
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