JoCoShow post-mortem
Nov. 10th, 2007 10:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thatcrazycajunWell, our little group (very little, as it fell out) went to see Jonathan Coulton and Paul & Storm perform live last night.
It turned out to be just me, filkferengi and her husband Marty, and voiceofkiki, who announced at evening's end that she had "officially died of SQUEE!" from sheer pleasure. (Brian Richardson from Dragon*Con TV was there also, but as much in a recording capacity as a personal one; he and his team were shooting in Little Five Points for next year's videos. And that nice young lady joyeuse13 and her husband introduced me to, who saw the July 4th fireworks at Lenox Square with us a few months back. But that was it for people we actually knew.) I would have posted this last night, but it was after 1:30 in the AM by the time I got home, and a brief call to the Songbird in Nairobi (where it was after 9) took me to go-to-frelling-bed-already time.
My spare-ticket buyer found me without too much trouble (thank Ghu,sffilk and TracFone!) and I collected back what I'd paid for it, then we all had dinner in the bar which is attached to the Five Spot's performance space. I had nachos made with grilled chicken and barbeque sauce over potato chips, just because it sounded different than the rest of the menu, which was mostly quesadillas, salads and sandwich fare. Just as we were finishing, the crowd started taking seats for the show (it was a packed, SRO house by showtime).
And what a show! P&S opened, as we had suspected would be the case (their being slightly less "famous," and thus a tad less of a draw, than JC), with the title track from their CD Opening Band (which I bought at intermission as part of a 3-disc bargain package), setting the gut-busting tone for the rest of their set, if not the evening. Other highlights included: a new composition inspired by a recent news story about nuns in a convent that was being closed down fighting amongst themselves (picture the standard pre-fight ring introductions made by the announcer in Gregorian-chant style); their tribute to the late Robert C. Baker, food scientist extraordinaire, "Nugget Man" (for which Jon joined them onstage, in the first salvo of what was to be an evening full of cross-invasion of each other's sets, and guitar tabs for which you can find here); a set of gasp-for-breath-funny commercial jingles for famous products (you'll never look at Cheetos® quite the same way again, I promise); and funny short-short songs featuring uncannily dead-on impressions of other, more famous performers ("If James Taylor Were On Fire," "If Aaron Neville Lost A Parking Space at the Mall," and my personal fave, "If Bob Dylan Were Hiding Down A Well"), all from their latest CD, Gumbo Pants. My only disappointment was that they didn't do "My Fantastic Plastic Girl," but the truly sick and twisted folk ballad about a drunk in a bar's bathroom and his "battle" with a urinal cake, "The Ballad of Eddie Praeger," more than made up for it. Oh, and did I mention they tossed out Moon Pies to reward deserving audience members throughout the set, and gave a set of CDs, a T-shirt and other prizes to one fan in a random drawing from their mailing-list clipboard?
But this was only the warm-up act, quite literally, for the main event. After a brief intermission, Jon took the stage singing "Future Soon"...and from there on, Kiki showed she knew way more of his material than I or the others did, singing along and taking pictures until her digicam went south on her for some unexplained reason. She wasn't the only one filming, either; besides the guy from D*CTV, audience members were also catching the proceedings on their cameras and cellphones at Jon's prior request, to "crowdsource" video of the show for Yahoo! (One woman even showed up with a stuffed "Code Monkey" doll on her shoulder!) I got to hear more myself, though the acoustics, Jon's soft-rock style and the timbre of his voice sometimes made clarity of words an issue for me. Paul and Storm came back to help him with "Tom Cruise Crazy," "Mr. Fancy Pants," "Christmas Is Interesting" and his uproarious cover of "Baby Got Back," among others. Other highlights included "Flickr" (complete with the video on a screen back of the stage, which you can see here), "Code Monkey," "Creepy Doll" (been watching a tad too much Twilight Zone, have we, Jon?), "Shop Vac," "Better," "I Crush Everything," "Mandelbrot Set" (all of which but "CM" were new to me) and his finale, where he led the audience as "zombies" in the choruses on "Re: Your Brains."
Both acts got called back for an encore each; Paul unfortunately was nursing a cold and his voice was shot by set's end, so they did a very abbreviated version of "Find the Words." Jon's encore had them all on stage doing "I Feel Fantastic," then the three of them finished the evening off leading the audience in a rousing cover of Neil Diamond's hoary old pop anthem, "Sweet Caroline" (complete with "bah-pah-pahs" on the chorus to fill in the horn hook). All three also hung out after the show and graciously signed autographs and posed for pictures with their thoroughly world-rocked fans (even patiently and kindly tolerating my fanboy babble). Kiki actually got to go backstage, as she had messages to deliver to JC frompartiallyclips and lukeski, whom she has gotten to be buds with since D*C, for which I congratulate her (he muttered enviously through gritted teeth). We all took off in our respective vehicles for home about one-ish.
Lots of this stuff will no doubt be appearing on the Web in still pics and video today, if it hasn't already, so get thee to YouTube if you wanna see what you missed. A damned fine time was had by all, I think it's safe to say.
filkferengi and her husband Marty, and voiceofkiki, who announced at evening's end that she had "officially died of SQUEE!" from sheer pleasure. (Brian Richardson from Dragon*Con TV was there also, but as much in a recording capacity as a personal one; he and his team were shooting in Little Five Points for next year's videos. And that nice young lady joyeuse13 and her husband introduced me to, who saw the July 4th fireworks at Lenox Square with us a few months back. But that was it for people we actually knew.) I would have posted this last night, but it was after 1:30 in the AM by the time I got home, and a brief call to the Songbird in Nairobi (where it was after 9) took me to go-to-frelling-bed-already time.My spare-ticket buyer found me without too much trouble (thank Ghu,
sffilk and TracFone!) and I collected back what I'd paid for it, then we all had dinner in the bar which is attached to the Five Spot's performance space. I had nachos made with grilled chicken and barbeque sauce over potato chips, just because it sounded different than the rest of the menu, which was mostly quesadillas, salads and sandwich fare. Just as we were finishing, the crowd started taking seats for the show (it was a packed, SRO house by showtime).And what a show! P&S opened, as we had suspected would be the case (their being slightly less "famous," and thus a tad less of a draw, than JC), with the title track from their CD Opening Band (which I bought at intermission as part of a 3-disc bargain package), setting the gut-busting tone for the rest of their set, if not the evening. Other highlights included: a new composition inspired by a recent news story about nuns in a convent that was being closed down fighting amongst themselves (picture the standard pre-fight ring introductions made by the announcer in Gregorian-chant style); their tribute to the late Robert C. Baker, food scientist extraordinaire, "Nugget Man" (for which Jon joined them onstage, in the first salvo of what was to be an evening full of cross-invasion of each other's sets, and guitar tabs for which you can find here); a set of gasp-for-breath-funny commercial jingles for famous products (you'll never look at Cheetos® quite the same way again, I promise); and funny short-short songs featuring uncannily dead-on impressions of other, more famous performers ("If James Taylor Were On Fire," "If Aaron Neville Lost A Parking Space at the Mall," and my personal fave, "If Bob Dylan Were Hiding Down A Well"), all from their latest CD, Gumbo Pants. My only disappointment was that they didn't do "My Fantastic Plastic Girl," but the truly sick and twisted folk ballad about a drunk in a bar's bathroom and his "battle" with a urinal cake, "The Ballad of Eddie Praeger," more than made up for it. Oh, and did I mention they tossed out Moon Pies to reward deserving audience members throughout the set, and gave a set of CDs, a T-shirt and other prizes to one fan in a random drawing from their mailing-list clipboard?
But this was only the warm-up act, quite literally, for the main event. After a brief intermission, Jon took the stage singing "Future Soon"...and from there on, Kiki showed she knew way more of his material than I or the others did, singing along and taking pictures until her digicam went south on her for some unexplained reason. She wasn't the only one filming, either; besides the guy from D*CTV, audience members were also catching the proceedings on their cameras and cellphones at Jon's prior request, to "crowdsource" video of the show for Yahoo! (One woman even showed up with a stuffed "Code Monkey" doll on her shoulder!) I got to hear more myself, though the acoustics, Jon's soft-rock style and the timbre of his voice sometimes made clarity of words an issue for me. Paul and Storm came back to help him with "Tom Cruise Crazy," "Mr. Fancy Pants," "Christmas Is Interesting" and his uproarious cover of "Baby Got Back," among others. Other highlights included "Flickr" (complete with the video on a screen back of the stage, which you can see here), "Code Monkey," "Creepy Doll" (been watching a tad too much Twilight Zone, have we, Jon?), "Shop Vac," "Better," "I Crush Everything," "Mandelbrot Set" (all of which but "CM" were new to me) and his finale, where he led the audience as "zombies" in the choruses on "Re: Your Brains."
Both acts got called back for an encore each; Paul unfortunately was nursing a cold and his voice was shot by set's end, so they did a very abbreviated version of "Find the Words." Jon's encore had them all on stage doing "I Feel Fantastic," then the three of them finished the evening off leading the audience in a rousing cover of Neil Diamond's hoary old pop anthem, "Sweet Caroline" (complete with "bah-pah-pahs" on the chorus to fill in the horn hook). All three also hung out after the show and graciously signed autographs and posed for pictures with their thoroughly world-rocked fans (even patiently and kindly tolerating my fanboy babble). Kiki actually got to go backstage, as she had messages to deliver to JC from
partiallyclips and lukeski, whom she has gotten to be buds with since D*C, for which I congratulate her (he muttered enviously through gritted teeth). We all took off in our respective vehicles for home about one-ish.Lots of this stuff will no doubt be appearing on the Web in still pics and video today, if it hasn't already, so get thee to YouTube if you wanna see what you missed. A damned fine time was had by all, I think it's safe to say.
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no subject
Date: 2007-11-10 06:42 pm (UTC)One quibble. Neil Diamond is definitely pop. Classic-rock anthem, see also, "Stairway to Heaven", "Boehmian Rhapsody", "Top Gun Anthem", "Hotel California" (especially the Hell Freezes Over version)... .it's the percussion. Or if you want to get literal about it, "God Save the Queen" by Queen off Night at the Opera, or Hendrix' "Star Spangled Banner"... both of those are pure guitar, but still.
Don't give a damn
'bout any trumpet playin' band
It ain't what they call
rock and roll
("Sultans of Swing" is another good one :)
But, yeah. Coulton rocks. And I love how he markets...
Oh. If you haven't seen it, go look up the Code Monkey vid with the World of Warcraft characters. Code Monkey is this big gorilla, and the manager and the lady are these two dinosaur looking critters... must see.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-10 07:21 pm (UTC)all of which but "CM" were new to me
Dude, you need to get the complete Thing-a-Week set and listen to it.
Did he do the song he was composing online on video this week? I think it's called "My Beige Bear".
no subject
Date: 2007-11-10 11:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-10 07:41 pm (UTC)Sorry.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-10 11:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-11 12:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-11 12:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-10 11:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-11 12:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-12 02:15 am (UTC)And you don't know what a good time I was having, right about then! *evil grin*