This show will henseforth be known as the Lancaster Disaster. Not through any fault of the band. They were great as always, but we had such a horrendous time getting to the show resulting in a very unfortunate position at the back of the venue that it was hard to really appreciate the concert to its fullest extent. Turns out I am apparently now spoiled to the point where I just don't enjoy a show as much if I'm not in front. That probably makes me a horribly entitled sounding individual, but it is the truth.
We left our house at 9:30 for what should have been a 6 hour drive to Lancaster. We were traveling via Newark to pick-up Rebecca. Original ETA 1:30. But we hit traffic at the exact same spot on 95 S that we got stuck in getting to the Apple Store last week. Except this time we actually needed to stay on 95 instead of getting off at the first exit. So we sat, and sat and sat some more in the traffic. We crept slowly toward the GW Bridge watching our arrival time get further and further in the future. 2 and a half hours later we finally got free of the traffic and arrived in Newark. This put our arrival time in Lancaster about 6:40, well after the advertised 6:00 doors.
And then we hit more traffic on Rt 78 and absolutely crawled down Rt 222 in PA eventually bringing the arrival time back to 7:37. For a show we had intended to be at by 4. We weren't even sure what time the show actually started and pretty much until we walked in we were afraid we were going to miss the beginning. Apparently when I said last week that the Apple Store was my most stressful pre-concert experience, the universe took that as a challenge and was determined to top in.
We walked into the venue about 10 minutes before the band hit the stage. I will be eternally grateful that the band didn't start the show until 8:00 despite the early doors. It was the only thing that saved us. We were at the back of the main floor and chose a spot off to the right, with an almost semi-descent view and slightly away from the noise of the bar. Over the course of the evening we were able to move closer as people left, for which I was also grateful because the crowd at the back of the room was roudy, loud and mostly abnoxious.
(Note: This recap is probably gonna be pretty whiny sounding . I apologize in advance.)
They started the show with Puppet Head. For the first couple of songs I actually had a pretty decent view of Marty over the keyboard which doesn't seem to happen that often at a rock show. It went away though as we shifted further right to avoid a tall guy.
Flans thanked their crew for working all day to fit their stuff on the stage. He said they should call this show the Too Much Shit To Fit Show.
They started talking about the new album and how they were going to be playing a bunch of new songs from it. Linnell announced that the next song would be a world wide premiere. Flans said he would be standing on stage reading their rave reviews while they sang the song. Linnell chimed in that the review was just the lyrics to the song and said what an unusual way that was to write a review. Then Flans piped back in with, "These are the best lyrics I've ever read off of a piece of paper!"
"Oddly enough this is going to be the best we ever perform this song. It doesn't usually work out that way," Linnell joked. And then they started When Will You Die. Which is my favorite song on the new album and one of the ones I was most looking forward to hearing. It was slower than it is on the album (it kind of has to be since the recording was so sped up.) And it was amazing to hear it for the first time. But I have to admit I was disappointed not to be able to be up front to properly rock out to it and the sound mix back where we were was really not great. I couldn't hear Dan's guitar and it was the instrument covering for the lack of horn players so it left some blank space in the song as far as I heard it. The vocals were excellent though and the self referencial verse quite as adorable as I was hoping. (For anyone wondering, the first "Dan" is Dan and the second is Danny, who made a quite adorable face at his name.)
Marty started up Clap Your Hands and this time it wasn't a fake out, they actually played it. Flans did a funny routine before the song proper started where he had the lighting guy turn more and more of the spot lights on Marty until every light on stage was pointed at him while he jammed.
They went through Birdhouse and Twisting. Pretty much from that point of the show forward I couldn't hear any of the between song banter at all because the people around me were talking so loudly through everything. In particular, there was a guy off to my left who was yelling his conversations at a decible that prevented me from focusing on anything else. Not sure why he even bothered to pay for a ticket if he was going to pay such little attention to the show.
Several comments were made about the air conditioning on stage, or the lack there of. The poor guys were sweltering hot. They didn't make it five songs in before the sweat stains started spreading across shirts and Dan kept repeatedly having to towel off his hands between songs. It wasn't as bad in the audience but it was certainly hot and got hotter the closer we moved to the front.
During Never Knew Love Flans screwed up the verses. He sang the first line of the first one right but then sang the entire rest of the second one. So on the second verse he sang the first one instead.
They moved into the Avatar segment with Flans somewhat unsuccessfully trying to get us to do Sea of Hands at first. His second attempt went better and he made some jokes about all the beautiful faces in the audience. But then he declared he couldn't see any beautiful faces and had the lighting guy turn all the lights on us.
I actually couldn't hear another word the Avatars said because the abnoxious guy next to me picked that moment to have his loudest conversation yet. Gary said they were having a conversation about the fact that Blue Avatar was visible on the screen twice because you could see his image on the screen again in the camera in addition to the puppet. Apparently this reminded them of The Blair Witch Project but they couldn't think of the name of the movie. I'm not sure exactly how this went since I couldn't hear it.
Then the Avatars premiered Spoiler Alert which was hard to hear but sounded pretty great. Flans was standing behind the camera operating the puppet with one hand and holding a flashlight with the other pointed at a lyrics sheet. That amused me quite a bit.
They just did the one song with the Avatars and then went back to regularly scheduled programming. Which, in this case, was Alphabet of Nations. They went to announce the name of the song and instead of saying it, just started the beginning of the song.
There appeared to be some brief confusion between Linnell and Dan at the start of the next song over what they were playing and who was playing the keyboard. But it was Doctor Worm so Linnell went for the accordion.
Flans made an exaggerated point of introducing Dan on the keyboard before the start of one of the songs and Dan looked a little embarrassed.
They took up positions for Cloisonne with some requisite jokes about the bass clarinet. Flans make an exaggerated point of introducing Danny at the keyboard this time and he took a bow with a little flourish. The song sounded just as wonderfully bizarre as it has at all the performances so far. This time Linnell got into the outro with the clarinet with some improv that sounded a bit like a dying goose. It was wonderful.
Next, Memo to Human Resources. Then Danny started making these immitation drum roll gestures at Marty and Marty started up the beginning of We're the Replacements. Woot! My curse is broken! For the last year or so they have played this song at every show I wasn't at but never the ones I was. But no more! (I have heard it before but I don't remember it.) Linnell mixed up the words a little bit but it was wonderful none the less.
Flans announced that the next song was a drinking song which of course meant Drink! There were scattered people around the room doing the "drink, drink" call backs. It was nice to see that there were a few people in the rowdy crowd who actually cared.
They started She's An Angel with a suitably trippy electronic beginning. I think that might be the first time I have seen the Song of the Day has been performed on its day which was kind of cool.
Flans made some sort of joke before We Live In A Dump that I have forgotten but it was amusing as I recall.
Flans talked about the children's music and teased that they were going to perform a medley of them. But they just did Meet the Elements.
They did Withered Hope, much to my delight and Linnell messed it up quite hilariously in the second verse. He sang the first line wrong then sang the second line wrong and just gave up singing and just shook his head. Then he tried to come back in singing the final line of the verse but he did it at the wrong time. Which he realized and said, "And again" before singing the same line again at the right time. It was amusing. As was the little dance he did away from the keyboard.
Damn Good Times featured a pretty phenomenal Dan Miller solo. He was rocking back and forth while playing and you could see the sweat flying off his face. I felt bad for him but it looked pretty epicly rock n' roll. Flans actually inserted the band intros into the song before the solo. He had us scream for Marty, then did a terribly amusing intro for Danny.
Flans: "His name is Danny Weinkauf and he's come from New York City to hear you say Danny Weinkauf. When I say Danny, you say Danny Weinkauf. Danny!"
Crowd: "Danny Weinkauf!"
Flans: "Thank you!"
They closed out the main set with Johnny and I was kind of shocked the set was done already as it had only been an hour. While they were gone some asshole jumped up from the audience to rip the setlist off of Linnell's keyboard and nearly knocked the entire thing over. I couldn't see that clearly from where I was but it looked like the audience had to catch the keyboard and the mic stand before it toppled into them. We didn't see what happened next but heard from friends up front that the jerk was kicked out. Good thing!
Victor and Scott spent a couple of minutes resetting the keyboard and mic and getting a new setlist. And finally the guys returned to the stage. I was a little worried they wouldn't come back after the incident, but Flans was able to joke about it. "We'd like to thank our lawyers. And the guy who jumped up on stage. We may not be in New York but we are from New York."
The played The Guitar and Istanbul. Flans basically let the audience sing most of his part in The Guitar. He was singing, but about 4 feet away from the mic and just let the crowd do all the work. And it sounded amazing as everyone just carried the song. He came back in to do his last chorus. For the last little bass riff in the song Danny played it while hopping around the stage spinning in repeated circles. Ridiculous and awesome.
Dan did a great intro to Istanbul but didn't go all out with the crazy speed guitar at the end. I was wondering if it was because he was having trouble with his fingers slipping off the strings from all the sweat. They did a sort of "fake" fake ending where they played like they were going to do the fake end but ended up just finishing.
I wondered if they would come back for a second encore at all because they all looked so miserably hot but they did and played You Probably Get That A Lot. Linnell seems to be taking advantage of this song to make really amusing and adorable facial expressions.
Then Flans announced something about a minute and twenty five second song and I thought they were going to play Judy again but he totally faked me out. He said something about playing the first half of the song entirely for us the audience but that then they would have to think only of themselves because that was the only way to perform a blazing guitar solo. And it turned out he had been talking about Fingertips. And it did in fact feature a blazing guitar solo.
They left again and I really, really didn't thing they be back. They turned out all the lights on stage and I thought, it was so hot, they were totally done. But the crowd was still pounding and hollering and much to my surprise they actually did return to play Whistling in the Dark in complete darkness.
The audience tried to demand a fourth encore but Backstage started up over the loud speaker and I knew they were done. We went up to the front to say hi to my friends up there but too late to get a setlist. Marty came out and slid his sticks out across the stage for whom ever could grab them. One one my friends snagged one of them and had him sign it. I rather prefer my personally hand delivered ones :-)
And with that we headed back to New Jersey. 10 hours in the car for an hour and a half show. I'll never say it wasn't worth it but it was not the best experience I've ever had. And we got stuck in more traffic on the way back to Rebecca's house. It was just a cursed travel day. Show number 70 was certainly an adventure.
EDIT: In my haste to get this recap posted, I realized I have forgotten to include a whole bunch of stuff. Rather than try to go back and insert it at the proper points I'm just going to add it all here.
At the start of Cloisonné, when Flans introduced Danny at the keyboard, he joked that they were like Genesis, every member of the band plays keyboard. Then he compared them to the Outlaws. "They have three guitar players, we have three keyboard players."
At the end of Spoiler Alert, the Avatars screamed and the blue one yelled, "This is real! This isn't a movie."
Towards the end of the show, there was someone in the crowd that kept yelling a request (I couldn't hear what it was.) Linnell commended the person for their approach of addressing the request to a specific member of the band. He was speculating that the person thought if they could get one member of the band to start the song the rest of the band would follow. "Hey, could you ask your friends up there to play this song?" (Or something like that.)
Before When Will You Die, Linnell asked everybody how it was going and got a lot of "wooo"s from the crowd. Then he asked everyone on stage how it was going and Danny went "woooo."
Linnell joked later on that the crowd was just going to "wooo" at everything they said, after they did so at something totally random. Then later he said "Fuck yeah" about something which got a big "wooo" and he thought it was pretty funny that "fuck yeah" got the biggest "wooo" of all.
That's all I remember at the moment. I'll add more if I think of it.
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