4 for 4, and GBS is still quite yum!

[annathepiper]

Ah, the lingering afterglow of viewing my favorite Newfoundlanders in concert!

Updated to include actual writeup from my web page, 5/15/03

I don't know if you can be said to be a veteran of Great Big Sea Shows after four of them -- but I can say this. So far every one of them has had in common a great sense of anticipation that has built for me the closer I've gotten to The Big Day, culminating in a burst of energy expended by both the B'ys and their audience, and leaving me with a wonderful post-show glow of contentment. Tonight has been no exception.

Before we all set out to the show, I busied myself getting my Band-Ogling garb (purple sparkly shirt, black shorts, multi-colored velvet hat, and brown feather barrette in the hair) together, with a short divergence into playing a few GBS ditties on my guitar. Not like I need much excuse to try to play GBS on any of my instruments, but well hey, I was particularly in the mood. And I learned much to my amusement that playing "Lukey" at full speed is in fact harder than playing "Mari-Mac". I waffled about whether or not to wear my flaming bowling shirt, and opted for the purple sparkly instead on the grounds that since it is sleeveless, it's much comfier for Putting One's Hands in the Air, Waving Them Around Like One Just Doesn't Care, and, in general, Having a Dance. Paul, however, did wear one of his flaming bowling shirts.

Those setting out from the Murkworks were expected to be myself, Mimi, Paul, and Cyn, but Cyn called from Bothell to let us know that she was going to meet us downtown. So Mimi and Paul and I rolled out at 4pm sharp to head downtown and meet the others at the Pike Place Brewery, for we had opted to do that again this year as we had done last year before the St. Paddy's Day show. While Mimi and Paul parked the fan, I went in to make sure that Cyn was in fact in Pike Place Brewery, and I found her in there holding a table for eight for us.

Shortly after I joined her, we were joined by Fred, the redoubtable U.S. Navy Sailor, on whom we had not laid eyes for a full six months, and his brother Chris who we had remembered from last year's show as well. Fred was wearing his flaming bowling shirt, but sadly, he was not wearing any of his utilikilts. Chris, however, was wearing a kilt. A brown one. Chris, however, was not approached about throwing any boxers up onto the stage; receiving razzing about that was entirely the province of Fred.

Fred further reported that he and Chris had decided to kill time in Lark in the Morning, and while they were in there they spotted Darrell and had obligatory Startled Fanboy Reactions. Fred repressed the urge to fall down and worship Mr. Power, and also repressed the urge to blurt, "LOOK! THERE'S BOB!" when they spotted Mr. Hallett as well. What Mr. Power was purchasing in Lark in the Morning remains a mystery outside the province of the Murkjammers; however, it is very uplifting to know that Lark in the Morning has in fact been patronized by the B'ys, which may well have just gotten it a few more Coolness Points to set it against Dusty Strings!

Monica, Mimi, and Paul arrived next, bringing with them another OKPer, she who posts under the moniker of Mel in Seattle. It turned out that Monica had met Mel at the Mountain Music show at which GBS had performed this afternoon -- into which Monica had gotten pretty much by emailing the DJ and asking, "So... what's a girl got to do to get into this?" He told her to email her the day before and he'd see if he could get her in, and lo and behold, he did, and Mel as well. Monica reported that she had in fact gotten to talk to Alan and Séan both and had shaken their hands, and furthermore that Alan remembered her and her friend Kerry who had been pregnant when we attended the St. Paddy's Day Show. What Monica has to say about Mr. McCann's handshake, however, I'm going to leave to Monica's report. ;)

While we were settling in and ordering beer and food, two more people I didn't recognize showed up, who turned out to be two friends of Mel's: Dave and Amy. She was going to drop their tickets off at Will Call and asked Mimi to keep an eye out for "a short guy with glasses" -- then acknowledged that that wouldn't exactly be helpful, and added that his name was Dave. Then, however, she had the brilliant idea of pulling out her copy of Sea of No Cares and propping it up against her glass as a form of reservation card, and proclaiming, "Now he'll know I'm here!" However, they managed to find her okay, so we wound up with ten people at the Brewery, and lively conversation was had by all. (We did, however, shoot down Fred's suggestion that we should actually sign a pair of boxers for him to wing up on the stage!)

For the benefit of those who had expressed worry about people being pulled to the front of the line at other venues in the eastern half of the U.S., that didn't happen here. We weren't exactly right in the front, but we weren't that far back either, and nobody came past us to get ahead of us, so far as I could tell. Once in the line, however, we met up with the rest of our party: Dana, who was coming to meet us after getting off from work (and who became the third of our party wearing a flaming bowling shirt), and the aforementioned (and no longer pregnant) Kerry. Tickets were handed out, a bit of waiting was done, and into the Showbox we went.

Shirts and CDs were being sold, and because I do in fact want a new GBS shirt, I stopped to look. However, I was much dismayed to discover that the so-called ladies' shirts looked pretty darned dainty, and all the so-called men's shirts were, like my current GBS shirt, all way too big for me. I'm going to have to see if I can put in a request at the Swag Shop for smaller-sized basic T-shirts! I wound up not buying anything, though Dana scarfed herself a copy of Sea of No Cares.

The obligatory gathering at Stage Bob occurred, while Mimi and Paul opted to go make themselves comfortable at one of the tables. A couple other OKPers joined us, and much to my amusement a guy walked up to ask what the deal was with the flaming bowling shirts in our party. We explained to him that this was because Bob Hallett is often wont to wear such garb -- which, I might add, somehow had escaped the notice of Paul. (Dana, at any rate, decided that we obviously must form the Cult of Bob, but somehow I suspect that some of the good folks who post over on the Powder Room have beaten us to it!)

Pretty much just after 7pm, the show got underway with the opening act: a performer named Ashleigh Flynn, who Monica noted was apparently originally from Kentucky, though she introduced herself as being out of Portland. I did not catch the full names of the two gentlemen accompanying her, but noted that Michael was her drummer and a guy named Greg played the mandolin! Twice she described these two gentlemen as her "big band", which was cute, and I was also amused by the exchange between her and an audience member who yelled "Portland rocks!"

I had a bit of a time seeing and hearing her mandolin player, though, because there was a tall gentleman right in front of me, between me and the stage. So I kept having to lean to the left and right to see around him, but once I did that, I had a fairly good view of what the mandolin player was doing. He had a pretty fancy little instrument, as well as what looked to me like an octave mand (though it could have been a bouzouki; as I have observed before, the line between these is often very blurry). Unfortunately, however, I had a hard time actually hearing him play his little mand, since the mix of sound was such that Ashleigh's guitar mostly drowned him out from my vantage point. I could make him out better when he played the big mand; when I could make him out in general, he seemed to have a pretty solid little set of mandolin solos to his name.

I took a brief detour into the ladies' room during this set, and the only reason I mention this as relevant is because they had a Sea of No Cares poster on the wall. One must wonder whether they had the same poster in the men's room; I'm personally inclined to believe that the Showbox understands GBS's audience. ;)

Ashleigh's set turned out to be about 45 minutes long, and what I remember about her commentary included her mentioning a literary bent for one of her songs, which she described as having been "found" in Toni Morrison's book Beloved; when she asked the audience if we'd read it, she got a pretty notable cheer. She mentioned one of her songs being about love, and added, "may it rest in peace." And the last ditty she and her guys did stood out for me mostly because I did in fact catch the words "great big sea" in the lyrics. I'm fairly sure that they had nothing to do with the B'ys, but this made it obvious to me where my mind was at the time!

For about the next 15 minutes or so, stage ninjas descended upon the equipment, making off with Michael's drumkit and leaving Kris', which had been behind it, exposed to better view. Most notable among the stage brigade was, of course, Danny, whose identity was confirmed by Monica for me: he's a somewhat heavyset guy with long curly dark hair. And he can apparently play a pretty decent guitar! He played several bars on one of the B'ys' instruments and elicited several whoops from the audience, several of which were from me, as I decided he obviously needed a few small cheers every time he picked up an instrument and played with it.

Then the lights went down, the familiar S.O.S.'ish introduction started -- and out came the B'ys, opening with "Ordinary Day".

I whipped out my handheld computer to start taking notes on the Set List, and got a few funny looks from the other OKPers who had shown up. What can I say -- I wanted to remember the Set List! And not that I think there was any doubt, but yes, it's official. I'm a geek. But I'm a geek with a complete Set List! Which is as follows:

• "Ordinary Day"
  
• "Chemical Worker's Song"
  
• "Stumbling In"
  
• "When I'm Up"
  
• "Goin' Up"
  
• "Clearest Indication"
  
• "The Night Pat Murphy Died"
  
• "Boat Like Gideon Brown"
  
• "Penelope"
  
• "Old Black Rum"
  
• "Feel It Turn"
  
• "Consequence Free"
  
• "I'm a Rover"
  
• "Everything Shines"
  
• "Scolding Wife"
  
• "General Taylor"
  
• "Sea of No Cares"
  
• "Lukey"
  
• "Mari-Mac"
  

Encore #1:

• "Boston and St. John's"
  
• "I Fought the Law/I Wanna Be Sedated"
  
• "Run Runaway"
  

Encore #2:

• "Excursion Around the Bay"
  
• "Fortune"
  

And just because I'm thorough this way, What the B'ys Were Wearing:

Darrell: Had a hard time seeing him from my vantage point, but it looked like a basic black shirt and jeans.

Alan: I thought his shirt was sort of shiny black, but in some lights it looked purple, so it's anybody's guess. He had on another shirt under it, which was patterned, but I didn't get a close look. I did spot his Celtic knot necklace though.

Séan: A yellow and red jersey with a number 6 on it, and fatigue pants. We were close enough to Séan, at Stage Bob, that I could see a tag on the lower left front of Mr. McCann's jersey, which looked like it had the letters "AE" on it. (It must be noted that I noticed Séan's clothes the most, probably due to the fact that a) he and Bob were best in my line of sight, b) the fatigue pants were unusual enough to catch my eye, as I'm fairly sure the other B'ys were all wearing jeans of some sort, and c) the aforementioned tall gentleman who had obstructed my view of Greg the mandolinist was also obstructing my view of Mr. Doyle. Sigh!)

Bob: He was not wearing the fireball bowling shirt he'd had on the last two shows I attended, but he was still wearing a black bowling-lookin' shirt, with red trim on it.

Random Notes and Observations about the Songs:

• I'm not entirely sure but I think I heard Alan yell out the "Great Big Sea from the tropical island of Newfoundland" line in the middle of "Ordinary Day". Hard to sing along with this one -- I ran out of breath fast!
  
  
• Easier to sing along with "Chemical Worker's Song", though I couldn't exactly hear myself trying to sing harmony. ;) Live, at least tonight, the harmony didn't sound as multi-layered as it does on the studio cut, and the bodhran was not as present, but on the other hand that was some tight harmony they were putting out anyway!
  
  
• I don't know "Stumbling In" well enough to sing along with all the way yet -- the bridge, I'm good on, and most of the chorus, but it's not there yet. Clearly, I shall have to listen to this one a few thousand more times.
  
  
• Tried to sing along on "When I'm Up", too, but that's another one that takes a lot of breath, so you pretty much have to keep the choruses and the designated Audience Jumps In bits. And harmony? Forget it! ;) However, Alan's closing notes were particularly fine, as he dressed them up a bit more than you hear either on the studio version or on Road Rage.
  
  
• "Goin' Up" opened, as I recall, with Alan making faces at us as we all started recognizing the chords they were playing, and they performed it more or less similar to how it's done on Road Rage, audience participation and all. Though this time it was with an exhortation for the "biggest kitchen party in the United States of America". ;) Also, Kris on whatever bongo-type drums he had back there (I wasn't certain of exactly what kind of drums they were) was a nice added touch on this song.
  
  
• Alan introduced "Clearest Indication" by describing it as a song about trying to find direction... and what can I say, I'm partial to this one, after spending a lot of time recently trying to learn it on the mandolin. Sang it right along with 'em, too!
  
  
• First Séan song of the evening was "Paddy Murphy" -- and which he introduced by mentioning the St. Paddy's Day show from last year as the last time they'd played the Showbox. I think he was trying to make up for not having done this ditty then, because he belted it out with considerable verve! And this time around, it was "All the Seattle girls got loaded drunk!" I also caught, as he was working out his pipes on the little intro bits, what might have been faces made between him and Alan.
  
  
• Onward to "Boat Like Gideon Brown". Alan introduced this talking about digging up new trad material in Newfoundland -- go figure! I hadn't realized "Gideon Brown" was trad! He mentioned, though, as expected, that it was a song about envying your neighbor's boat. He did not mention, much to my disappointment, that "envying your neighbor's boat" was not a euphemism for anything else. ;) I believe it was during this intro, however, that Alan also told us that when we come to "see them" in Newfoundland, we can stay at Darrell's house!
  
  
• And then "Penelope" -- which was a bit odd, performed live, as there were in fact no horns on the stage, so Bob had to play the horn bits on the accordion!
  
  
• For an amusing switch, it was Séan that introduced "Old Black Rum", describing it as a "protest song" against the evils of the Old Black Rum. Snicker. A bit more audience participation than the Road Rage edition -- a couple more rounds of us all screaming "Will I live for another day, HEEEEEEY!" at the beginning. Naturally, being partial to this one, I had to try to sing along with it as much as possible!
  
  
• "Feel It Turn" was Séan's next song -- and I've grown partial to this one too, having discovered that it's one of the ones I can play pretty well on the guitar now, since none of the chords are too terribly evil and the changes are slow enough to be pretty easy. I need to learn the fancy alternate G and D I've seen in Jane in Virginia's writeup of the tabs, though! Played with trying to sing harmony at the end -- low harmony, though. Wanted to see if I could hear myself. I could a couple of times, but it's still pretty hard to hear yourself when you're surrounded by several hundred pepole all hollering the melody at the top of their lungs. ;)
  
  
• Alan introduced Kris during the intro for "Consequence Free" -- and asked him if he had a girlfriend in Seattle. Kris must have shaken his head (I didn't see) because Alan then described him as "single in Seattle", and then they all jumped into "Consequence Free". I noted that both Séan and Bob played this ditty with capos. Bob had his capo on his second fret on his bouzouki, which leads me to the natural conclusion that I am going to have to try his riffs in the key of D and see if they're easier to finger -- because I'm here to tell ya, folks, doing it in the key of E is HARD!
  
  
• For the intro to "I'm a Rover", Séan told the audience that this song was for the ladies, and, "Raise your hand if you're a lady!" More or less straight up performance of this, though I kept getting thrown off by them sneaking extra measures in between the verses. This is what I get for being a music geek!
  
  
• Alan introduced "Everything Shines" by telling us that "not twenty-five minutes ago" he had been on the phone with his girlfriend in St. John's, and informed us that there were 31 centimeters of snow on the ground in Newfoundland. Alan further reported that he had earlier this very day been walking around down by the waterfront in shorts, and concluded dryly that "there is now tension in the relationship!"
  
  
• Next was a song I'd been waiting for all evening -- "Scolding Wife"! Which Alan introduced by saying that since it was trad, they couldn't take responsibility for having written it. And damn but it was fine to hear all four of them taking their turns at their verses. Not surprisingly, the audience roared when Séan did his line about being thrown naked on the floor. ;) It must also be noted that for this song, Kris was the one doing the accordion drones!
  
  
• I had in fact started to wonder if they were going to have "General Taylor" in the lineup by the time Séan started in on it, because they'd rearranged the Road Rage set list just enough that I had no idea what was coming next. But Séan started it up and was in fine form, and there can't have been a quiet throat in the house. Everybody sang along with him. Unsurprisingly, Alan delivered the "Séan McCann, the shanty man!" line at the end. However, it did not lead into "Lukey", but led instead into...
  
  
• "Sea of No Cares" -- well, duh. This had to be in there somewhere. ;) I sang, cupping my hand against my ear just to hear myself better; it's pretty easy to harmonize on the chorus of this ditty, but it helps if you can actually hear what you're doing!
  
  
• I had been wondering if they were going to do "Lukey", too. I mean, what's a GBS show without "Lukey"? Fortunately this was not a question I had to answer this evening, for "Lukey" came next, and Alan did his usual magnificient job getting the audience all hyped up. Vocally, the "a ha me boys, a riddle aye days" seemed a bit less held out to me than I'm used to, and Alan did a couple odd things syncopating bits of the verses -- but that was all good, because I was also quite pleased by the instrumental tradeoffs on the second bridge. We got "there's no bass like an Outer Cove bass!" from Alan re: Darrell. We got Séan banging away on the bodhran. We got Kris banging away on the drumkit. And it was all a great glorious burst of fun.
  
  
• And, of course, "Mari-Mac". Which veritably sizzled, at least in terms of the energy that burst out of all of the B'ys. I saw Alan with his feet planted wide, playing that guitar of his like he was trying to call up lightning from the strings -- and Bob's fiddle did its usual damn fine impersonation of being on fire. Others have commented that this was one of the songs that Kris' drumkit seemed to overwhelm the B'ys for them, and at least from my vantage point this was in fact the case; I had a hard time making out anything but the drums by the last couple of verses. On the other hand, Mimi and Paul reported that from their table they could hear everybody just fine, so it seems to be an issue of where you happen to be in the crowd. Mimi reported also that she sang along with Séan and managed to do all of the lyrics (go Mimi!), but noted that this performance of it was significantly faster than any of us in Three Good Measures are used to. Me, I was content with just belting out "MY MOTHER'S MAKIN' ME MARRY MARI-MAC! Well I'm gonna marry Mari, for me Mari's takin' care o' me, we'll all be feelin' merry when I marry Mari-Mac!", which was about all I had the breath for.
  
  
• After that blazing performance, it wasn't any surprise that their first encore started with "Boston and St. John's". I'm sure the B'ys needed to get their breath -- I sure needed to get mine! What totally came out of the blue, though, was Alan then proceeding to belt out "I Fought the Law" and getting us all to sing along with him (and commenting as he did that this was an encore and they could sing ANYTHING THEY WANTED), and then BOB SINGING "I WANNA BE SEDATED"! Those of us at Stage Bob went nuts. And then they roared into "Run Runaway", which was positively delightful, as I certainly couldn't remember them doing that one live before.
  
  
• Second encore -- "Excursion Around the Bay", no surprise there, but hey, it's Tradition! And "Fortune" to wind us all up, and Alan introducing everyone.
  

Other Random Notes and Observations:

• Séan, this time around, was very lively. He bounced and danced and smiled in a very laid-back sort of way, a lot of the time. More than once, he went back by Kris' drumkit, with his bodhran, and banged along with him. Once, however, he actually leapt up onto the dais where the drumkit was set up, and leapt down off of it back to his usual place -- apparently, Mr. McCann was trying to channel his inner Rock Star. ;) Once I thought I saw him looking my way -- and Dana claims that she was making goofy gestures behind my head, trying to get his attention. I have no idea whether this actually worked, but well hey, if it got Séan actually looking in my direction, I'm for it!
  
  
• Bob's fiddle had a lot of rosin on it. There was white all over his strings.
  
  
• Alan did his usual Wandering All Over the Stage, which naturally had to be met with my usual Screaming Like a Maniac every time he came to our end and smiled out at us. ;) Did he look at me? Who knows! But as Cyn has observed, Mr. Doyle has the gift of making everybody in the audience feel like he's looking straight at them.
  
  
• This was Dana's first Great Big Sea show! And at one point she tapped me on the shoulder, and blurted to me in amazement, "How many instruments does Bob play?!" What I said to her was "Lots!" What I should have said to her was "All of them!" Or, alternately, Mr. Doyle's answer to that, which was as I recall "75!" Dana also reports that she does indeed approve of Great Big Sea live.
  
  
• Paul remarked that oddly enough, this crowd was "a lot different" from the crowd who had attended the last show he'd been to at the Showbox. Given that the act at the time was Gwar, the apparent result of this was an older crowd, a lot less leather, and a lot less unusual colors of hair. ;)
  
  
• It is a trifle difficult to properly dance about when you have a handheld computer you're trying to hold steady in your left shorts pocket, which is too small to contain said computer. Note to self: next time, wear shorts with bigger pockets. Or get a smaller handheld computer. (Remember what I said back there about being a geek, folks?)
  
  
• In regards to the tall gentleman who was blocking my view of Mr. Doyle, I must note to his credit that he did try to hunker down a bit at various points during the show. I remarked to Monica that perhaps we could get him a chair, and see if we could confuse the band again by presenting them with someone setting at the stage two years in a row. She suspected they'd catch on, though.
  

At the end of it all, the show was over pretty much before ten -- because, as it turned out, the Showbox had lined up two shows tonight and GBS was the earlier show. So Mimi and Paul and I decided to go ahead and head home, while Cyn and Monica and Fred and the others lingered behind. I have the suspicion that they are going to come up with more Encounters with the B'ys stories, but if they do, I will not feel put out. Tonight's show was thoroughly enjoyable!

A very contented, and very tired,

Anna the Piper, closing at 12:44am

Misspelling of Ashleigh Flynn's name corrected 8/24/04