Great Big Sea 8/21/02 Concert Report
Aug. 24th, 2002 02:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annathepiperI seem to be lagging a lot lately on getting things done in a timely fashion; I'm writing this concert report three days after the actual fact. But!
Great Big Sea fans know -- it's very difficult not to be jazzed about an upcoming show. But when you're on Great Big Sea's Street Team and you have spent several days trudging all over portions of your hometown that you had not previously seen with your own eyes, looking for good places to leave dozens of fliers and posters advertising the upcoming concert, it's all the more difficult to avoid bouncing with excitement. Especially when you also get the added bonus of a concert broadcast on TV to whet your appetite -- though watching Great Big Sea on TV, playing in front of a huge crowd in Canada, is a vastly different experience than being right there in front of them as they play to a much smaller crowd in Seattle.
Suffice to say, as per usual, I was all about the anticipation. So were Monica and Fred and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ssha (Cyn), the other members of Three Good Measures who traditionally attend each and every Seattle Great Big Sea show. This time as well we had along Kerry, Monica's friend who is fast becoming a GBS regular herself, and jessicac (Jessica), who attended the Bumbershoot show last year and who is one of the three happy people in this picture taken with Alan at the time.
Since the venue was a different one this time around, the Paramount rather than the Showbox, this altered our usual plans somewhat: i.e., no meeting at the Pike Place Brewery for pre-show food. We wound up leaving people in line to hold a place, while I went scouting for a few blocks to see what our food situation was going to be -- and who should I wind up running into but Dana, also of the Murkjammers! Dana was on her way home from work, but unfortunately did not have the money to spare for attending the show, so although she stopped and chatted with us she eventually went on her way. Jessica, Monica, and I then hied ourselves down to Westlake Center's food court, got food, and hastened back to join the others... though as it turned out we had to wolf down our food out by the doors because they wouldn't let us bring it into the venue. During this hasty consumption of dinner, Jessica scampered off to buy one of the Sea of No Cares t-shirts so that she could wear something lighter during the course of the evening... and Fred eventually showed up, kilted, and waited with Monica and Cyn and me until we got our food finished off.
I too wound up buying a shirt, since I have been wanting another GBS shirt for some time; my first one fits me like a tent and tends to hide any shorts I am wearing entirely. So I wanted something that would make it a little bit more obvious that I am, in fact, dressed for public exposure. ;) My selection was the "baseball" t-shirt, white with black sleeves, and hopefully this'll actually be a saner fit. And, while at the swag table, I and others noted with alarmed amusement that you could in fact buy underwear with the Young Dubs' logo on it.
For those of you not familiar with Seattle, the Paramount is a theater, where they usually have things like plays and musicals performed. There was a considerable amount of uncertainty as to whether or not this show would involve seating; Lynda and Liss, the two local leaders for the Street Team, had a devil of a time confirming whether or not this would be a seated show or a General Admission one. It turned out that they were going to remove the seats from the floor for the show, so that we would in fact have room to dance. This helped make things feel more familiar despite the place being significantly larger than the Showbox as well as stylistically and acoustically different. The place is gorgeous, with lovely high ceilings and chandeliers, and it even got commentary from Alan during the GBS set. It was, on the other hand, odd to be in there without the seats on the floor. Where I was standing, the boards felt a trifle loose, as if I were standing over a covered-up orchestra pit or something.
The crowd seemed surprisingly small. Although some of this may well have been due to a larger than usual venue, we had two other major concerts going on in the area as well -- one of them being Bruce Springsteen down in Tacoma, so theories were floated that some of the usual GBS crowd may well have had to make judgement calls as to whose show to attend. While we had the usual conglomeration of fans right up by the stage, there was a great deal of space behind us all.
We were hailed by others on the Street Team while we were waiting for the show to begin:wingedelf (Vanya), Marcee, and Lynda. Lynda, happily, had offered to take the rest of my posters and fliers and send them on to others to distribute, since I was unable to take care of it all myself before show time, and Monica had brought her posters as well. After exchanging email with these folks for several weeks it was good to put names to faces. Fred and Lynda chatted some about previous shows on the tour, since Fred had seen a show in Minnesota and it turned out that Lynda had been following the tour around -- but soon enough, the show began.
Seven Nations was first in the lineup, and as soon as they started singing we realized that at least from our vantage point, the mixing had some issues. The instruments were coming through loud and clear, but the vocalists often sounded like they were turned around and singing off towards backstage regardless of the fact that they were in fact facing us. This was not nearly as much of a problem for me during Great Big Sea's set as I already knew all their songs pretty much by heart anyway, but since I was not familiar with Seven Nations' or the Young Dubliners' material, it would have been nice to actually be able to make out what they were singing.
My overall impression of Seven Nations came out to be "grunge Celtic", at least in terms of what they looked like and their choices of attire. Fred had warned us that these boys were giving alcohol to the audience in earlier shows on the tour, and that held up this time as well. Lead singer Kirk McLeod offered shots of Scotch to folks right in front of him to help them warm up their voices for the big group sing they had us doing, involving a bunch of "na na na" and "all the people"; that was the most amusing portion of their set, as they divvied up the audience into Canadians, Americans, and Others. (I note with amusement that Monica and Fred defected to the Canadian side as the Canadians were called upon to sing.)
Their fiddler Dan was also quite impressive, whether teaming up for joint instrumentals with bagpipe player Scott or dancing around on his own. Drummer Crisco, from what I could see of him, was very physically involved with banging away on his drum kit -- and if what came to mind as I watched him was Animal from the Muppets, well, this is what he gets for having longish and kind of wild hair. Besides, Animal was a good drummer!
From what I could hear of Kirk's singing I do think he had a rather nice voice, though again, the mixing issues made it difficult to properly appreciate an unfamiliar vocalist. Others around me in the audience were comparing Seven Nations to U2 and other bands of that ilk in terms of sound and feel, and although I have been very seldom exposed to U2 I can sort of buy that. There is a sort of "80's English band" feel to them.
Two thumbs up on the bagpipes, though. Go Scott!
The other thing I realized during the course of Seven Nations' set was that there was no earthly way I was going to be able to keep my velvet backpack in place with two long poster rolls in it. Said poster rolls in fact fell out as I was in the process of bouncing about in time to the music, and although they were handed back to me promptly, I had to then figure out what to do about it. Fortunately the crowd right around me was good about not stepping on things on the floor and I was able to lay my bag on Cyn's right between her and Monica and me. Had I been a cleverer bunny, I would have just left the posters in Cyn's car, but oh well.
When the Young Dubliners came out they went a bit more to the Irish trad, though they were still heavy on the rock angle as well. I definitely appreciated their rousing foot-stompers, as well as the heavier vocals since more of them sing than there are singers in Seven Nations. With the Young Dubs as well, I was impressed by the fiddle player; Chas's bow was trailing several dangling strings off each end, thanks to the vigor of his playing.
Monica fell head over heels in love with the Dubs when they did a cover of a song she recognized by a group called the Waterboys, but again, the mixing issues made it difficult for me to really distinguish the lyrics and figure out exactly what happened in the song she liked so much. I can say that lead singer Keith's voice was very distinctive, with the sort of high, pure, carrying quality I also admire in the voice of Séan McCann. That particular gentleman was also quite amusing as he inquired of the audience how many of us were of Irish descent, and made jokes about us all getting drunk enough to have a "group puke". Keith also made jokes about the tour coming to a close and how it was going to be a bit of a disappointment no longer being in a situation involving 21 guys hitting on anything that moved in their immediate vicinity.
It must also be noted that when Keith announced that the Young Dubs were going to a local Irish pub after the show, Cyn turned around and gave me a quite pointed look, to which I naturally had to ask whether that meant she wanted to go to said pub. This was a correct conclusion. Cyn announced that since she was in charge of her and my transportation, we were in fact heading down to Kell's after the show.
On to Great Big Sea!
One of the first things I noted when they came out on the stage was that Alan had on a shirt with Sylvester the Cat on it -- and specifically, the shirt which is sold locally with the caption "Theattle" on it. Alan did in fact make a big point of showing off said shirt to the audience, and we were all duly appreciative! The rest of the boys had a black theme going on with their outfits as well, with Darrell in a black shirt and khakis and Bob in a positively understated (read: sans flames) bowling shirt and black pants. It was Séan's turn to actually wear a shiny shirt this time, a black shiny shirt with his jeans, and this shirt was apparently new.
So were Séan's sideburns, for that matter. Long pointy ones that went down along his jawline and were complete and total shades of Old Star Trek, except longer.
Alan also made a big point of announcing that in the middle of September, GBS was about to launch what would be the biggest Canadian tour they have ever undertaken, and he thanked the Canadians in the audience for waiting for them. To give us an idea of the distance to cover, he added that right here in Seattle, he was farther away from home than he would be if he were in Krakow, Poland!
I did my traditional Recording of the Set List, though this time around I had a little notebook and pen with me, rather than my handheld computer, as those were more easily carried in the pocket. As a general note, though: anyone who wants to record a set list at a concert, keep a good grip on your pen. ;) I almost lost the top of mine, and only managed to spot it again in the dim lighting because it was purple and I could still make it out against the floor.
Said Set List included:
I was actually hoping for "Donkey Riding" as an opener, because I have gotten into the mode of the instrumental part of that particular ditty really setting the feel for a Great Big Sea concert starting. However, "Ordinary Day" is a fine stand-in, with the Morse code intro also giving time for the boys to come out and get to their instruments.
"Clearest Indication" was introduced by Alan and described as a song about requesting clarity, which, he told us, he needs about 48 times a day.
Séan's intro to "Paddy Murphy" this time was particularly lively: "Oh the night that Paddy Murphy died / Is a night I'll never forget / All the Young Dubliners got loaded drunk / And they'll never be sober again! / As long as a bottle was passed around / Seven Nations was feeling gay..." Furthermore, Séan advised us that this song was about a guy who died, and that if we should see any dead people wandering around, we should be nice to them.
Before "Gideon Brown", though, Alan and Séan got into some truly fine form with the banter, like unto some of the finest quotes that have been spread around the web. Alan put out what seems to be one of the traditional GBS ways to get amusement out of the audience, by asking us how many of us wanted to come to Newfoundland; naturally, we all cheered, and Mr. Doyle announced that we could all stay at their houses, since as a band present, they'd all given one another futons.
Which led quite seamlessly into Alan and Séan joking about cuddling together on Séan's futon, and watching movies. ;)
Alan then started telling us all about how Fogo Island, Newfoundland, is considered one of the four corners of the earth by the Flat Earth Society -- which led into Séan blinking and piping up guilelessly, "The world isn't flat?"
Somebody in the audience close to the center of the stage yelled out, "It's as flat as you want it to be!" With that, Séan confidently asserted that his world is flat, while Alan went over to the girl in question and asked her her name, and then pointed at Séan and told her, "That's Séan. You should get together after the show. But watch out if he starts talking about his futon..."
Séan appears to have taken over doing the introduction to "Old Black Rum", too. "This is a song about not drinking," he told us, "which we do every day... especially things that are black... and taste like rum." I had been craving me some "Old Black Rum" ever since I'd watched the concert on Trio, since they did not in fact include that ditty in the set list for that broadcast, and I'd missed it.
In between "Old Black Rum" and "General Taylor", the audience -- who this time around was proving almost as lively as the band -- pulled another surprise. Someone passed of all things a textbook up to Alan, and he was startled and amused enough that he did in fact stop the show and sign the book for the person in question, remarking to the audience that GBS's rock band counterparts get underwear thrown at them, while they get "Economics of Strategy".
"As opposed to 'Strategy of Economics'," quipped Séan, who had wandered back to sit on Kris's drum platform, and who then wandered back to his mike to look us all in the eye and add, "Today's lesson will be on... sea shanties." Cue "General Taylor." But without the "shanty man" verse this time. Dang!
And speaking of underwear -- Fred, who has still been riding on the giggle factor of the Great Big Gitch Toss, informed us that he planned to repeat the accomplishment during this show. Which he did. Right at the beginning of "Consequence Free", I saw a pair of green boxers go sailing in a lovely parabolic arc right over my head and land smack dab at the feet of Bob. Who did a marvelously stoic job of pretending they weren't there.
The intro to "Mari-Mac" seems to be undergoing a bit of a metamorphosis. During this show, we just got Séan belting out at the top of his lungs "MARI-MAC'S MOTHER'S MAKIN' MARI-MAC MARRY ME!" and all of us in the audience trying to outshout him before he starts the song. I do kind of miss "What would you say if I said..." and "that's what I thought you'd say", though. ;)
"Lukey" seems to have been moved around to be a show-closer, now. And they're performing it a bit different than they have in the past, with some more staccato "Ah ha" bits when they sing "Ah ha, me boys, a riddle aye day!" It is a small but interesting contrast when you're used to hearing the Road Rage version or the delightful version on Fire in the Kitchen; I actually prefer those versions, but this performance had to recommend it a particularly bouncy instrumental bridge. Darrell and Séan did their usual switching off between the bass and the bodhran, but Alan and Bob and Kris also got into the act this time, so everybody got a chance to play a little bit of something and get in on the fun. And I'm here to tell you, when they actually hit that closing chord right it is absolutely delicious.
We only got one encore. But what an encore! It started off with Alan doing a solo rendition of "Boston and St. John's" -- which featured some divine noises out of his guitar and some particularly wistful, sweet vocals.
"Excursion Around the Bay" and "Fortune" were the other two numbers for the GBS-only part of the encore, but then, Alan called Seven Nations and the Young Dubs back out onto the stage. And the entire lot of them sang an a capella ditty to close us off. Sadly, it was not a song I recognized -- but by the power of the Internet (all hail the Ceolas celtic music archive and its collection of links!), I was able to track it down and discover that it was a ditty called "A Man You Don't Meet Every Day". Hearing 14 guys singing this in harmony was a lovely experience indeed!
As the audience wandered out of the show several of us regrouped around the side of the building, next to the Young Dubs' tour bus. There, Jessica got the copy of their album signed by the Dubs' lead singer, who was quite sociable to us, and I had the pleasure of telling him that they'd put on a hell of a show. I also touched bases with Lynda and surrendered to her my leftover posters and fliers from the Street Team work, and we discovered that the Dubs and Great Big Sea were planning to hit Kell's while Seven Nations were going to head to another place called Von's.
Kell's it was, then, though Fred defected to the Seven Nations gathering and it was left to Cyn, Monica, Jessica and I to head down to Kell's.
There, armed with ciders and other beverages, we first spotted Bob at the table next to us. Cyn was the only one brave enough to actually turn around and say anything to him, though. But she did pick his brains about "Mari-Mac", and reported to us that he told her that she should forget everything she's ever learned about technique when playing that particular ditty. Which is an amusing thing to tell somebody who spent the first five years of her fiddle training getting technique drummed into her and who did in fact have a fiddle part for "Mari-Mac" written out for her. ;)
Darrell was spotted next, and Cyn went over to corner him as well, and from him she learned that Séan had apparently retired for the evening but that Alan was on his way. We pointed Darrell at Bob, though.
For the next little bit we just mostly hung out, listening to the guy playing guitar up on the little stage, though we were quite disappointed when he shifted from playing folk to old 70's ditties. Jessica did not approve of him doing "American Pie", though we enjoyed it a lot more when I came in on the last chorus belting out Weird Al Yankovic's Star Wars edition of the lyrics. I also wound up singing along with the guy when I realized he was singing "Rocky Road to Dublin", of which I have now realized I know more than I thought I did.
Furthermore, Jessica provided us all with shots of Bailey's Irish Creme. That was a first for me, as was being in an Irish pub in general, and I found the Bailey's quite tasty.
Monica lamented that she had to leave pretty early, though, since she had to get up at 6:30 the following morning, and I offered to walk her back to her car since we had walked several blocks from where we'd parked. Furthermore, I was waffling heavily between whether to stay with Cyn -- because I was fairly sure she was going to do her level best to corner Alan Doyle and I was rather nervously excited about the idea -- or have Monica give me a lift home. Reluctantly I opted to go home, because I knew that I was going to be having a job interview the next day and I didn't want to be totally dead on my feet.
We did, however, bring Monica's car back down to the pub long enough to pop in and tell Cyn and Jessica we were leaving, and to give Lynda Monica's extra posters. This turned out to be a good plan, as we actually managed to exchange some pleasantries with the Young Dubs' rhythm guitarist and tell him we were part of a jamming group. Informed that Monica was also a rhythm guitarist, he did a fancy little handshake with her, prompting her to exult about learning "secret guitarist handshakes".
Cyn also told me I should tell Alan goodbye. I didn't see him, until Cyn turned me around and scooted me over about a foot, at which point I finally spotted Mr. Doyle in a corner surrounded by a small herd of other fans.
Now, I had actually been telling Monica that I did actually want to ask him a question -- because I had seen a post by someone asserting to be him over on the 30 Odd Foot of Grunts message board and I wanted to ask him if he had in fact ever posted over there. However, the Dorkiness Fairy must have come along and hit me with a wand, because although I did in fact lean over to Alan, what came out of my mouth was, "Excuse me, Cyn tells me I should tell you goodbye, so, uh, goodbye!"
He gave me a bit of a blank look, and I'm sure "who the heck are you?!" was going through his head at the time. Oh well. ;)
Leaning over to get Alan's attention did have the side effect of getting another person's attention, though, as it turned out that Mel who I'd met at the April show was sitting right there, and we chatted briefly before I regretfully announced my intentions to head home and get some sleep due to the aforementioned interview on the morrow.
Cyn told me yesterday that she wound up staying quite late at that pub in the little group talking to Mr. Doyle, and so the upshot of all this is, I skipped an opportunity to talk to Alan Doyle face to face due to my need to get a JOB!
I did, however, get the job.
Maybe next time, I'll actually get to talk coherently to Alan, too.
Great Big Sea fans know -- it's very difficult not to be jazzed about an upcoming show. But when you're on Great Big Sea's Street Team and you have spent several days trudging all over portions of your hometown that you had not previously seen with your own eyes, looking for good places to leave dozens of fliers and posters advertising the upcoming concert, it's all the more difficult to avoid bouncing with excitement. Especially when you also get the added bonus of a concert broadcast on TV to whet your appetite -- though watching Great Big Sea on TV, playing in front of a huge crowd in Canada, is a vastly different experience than being right there in front of them as they play to a much smaller crowd in Seattle.
Suffice to say, as per usual, I was all about the anticipation. So were Monica and Fred and
ssha (Cyn), the other members of Three Good Measures who traditionally attend each and every Seattle Great Big Sea show. This time as well we had along Kerry, Monica's friend who is fast becoming a GBS regular herself, and jessicac (Jessica), who attended the Bumbershoot show last year and who is one of the three happy people in this picture taken with Alan at the time.Since the venue was a different one this time around, the Paramount rather than the Showbox, this altered our usual plans somewhat: i.e., no meeting at the Pike Place Brewery for pre-show food. We wound up leaving people in line to hold a place, while I went scouting for a few blocks to see what our food situation was going to be -- and who should I wind up running into but Dana, also of the Murkjammers! Dana was on her way home from work, but unfortunately did not have the money to spare for attending the show, so although she stopped and chatted with us she eventually went on her way. Jessica, Monica, and I then hied ourselves down to Westlake Center's food court, got food, and hastened back to join the others... though as it turned out we had to wolf down our food out by the doors because they wouldn't let us bring it into the venue. During this hasty consumption of dinner, Jessica scampered off to buy one of the Sea of No Cares t-shirts so that she could wear something lighter during the course of the evening... and Fred eventually showed up, kilted, and waited with Monica and Cyn and me until we got our food finished off.
I too wound up buying a shirt, since I have been wanting another GBS shirt for some time; my first one fits me like a tent and tends to hide any shorts I am wearing entirely. So I wanted something that would make it a little bit more obvious that I am, in fact, dressed for public exposure. ;) My selection was the "baseball" t-shirt, white with black sleeves, and hopefully this'll actually be a saner fit. And, while at the swag table, I and others noted with alarmed amusement that you could in fact buy underwear with the Young Dubs' logo on it.
For those of you not familiar with Seattle, the Paramount is a theater, where they usually have things like plays and musicals performed. There was a considerable amount of uncertainty as to whether or not this show would involve seating; Lynda and Liss, the two local leaders for the Street Team, had a devil of a time confirming whether or not this would be a seated show or a General Admission one. It turned out that they were going to remove the seats from the floor for the show, so that we would in fact have room to dance. This helped make things feel more familiar despite the place being significantly larger than the Showbox as well as stylistically and acoustically different. The place is gorgeous, with lovely high ceilings and chandeliers, and it even got commentary from Alan during the GBS set. It was, on the other hand, odd to be in there without the seats on the floor. Where I was standing, the boards felt a trifle loose, as if I were standing over a covered-up orchestra pit or something.
The crowd seemed surprisingly small. Although some of this may well have been due to a larger than usual venue, we had two other major concerts going on in the area as well -- one of them being Bruce Springsteen down in Tacoma, so theories were floated that some of the usual GBS crowd may well have had to make judgement calls as to whose show to attend. While we had the usual conglomeration of fans right up by the stage, there was a great deal of space behind us all.
We were hailed by others on the Street Team while we were waiting for the show to begin:
wingedelf (Vanya), Marcee, and Lynda. Lynda, happily, had offered to take the rest of my posters and fliers and send them on to others to distribute, since I was unable to take care of it all myself before show time, and Monica had brought her posters as well. After exchanging email with these folks for several weeks it was good to put names to faces. Fred and Lynda chatted some about previous shows on the tour, since Fred had seen a show in Minnesota and it turned out that Lynda had been following the tour around -- but soon enough, the show began.Seven Nations was first in the lineup, and as soon as they started singing we realized that at least from our vantage point, the mixing had some issues. The instruments were coming through loud and clear, but the vocalists often sounded like they were turned around and singing off towards backstage regardless of the fact that they were in fact facing us. This was not nearly as much of a problem for me during Great Big Sea's set as I already knew all their songs pretty much by heart anyway, but since I was not familiar with Seven Nations' or the Young Dubliners' material, it would have been nice to actually be able to make out what they were singing.
My overall impression of Seven Nations came out to be "grunge Celtic", at least in terms of what they looked like and their choices of attire. Fred had warned us that these boys were giving alcohol to the audience in earlier shows on the tour, and that held up this time as well. Lead singer Kirk McLeod offered shots of Scotch to folks right in front of him to help them warm up their voices for the big group sing they had us doing, involving a bunch of "na na na" and "all the people"; that was the most amusing portion of their set, as they divvied up the audience into Canadians, Americans, and Others. (I note with amusement that Monica and Fred defected to the Canadian side as the Canadians were called upon to sing.)
Their fiddler Dan was also quite impressive, whether teaming up for joint instrumentals with bagpipe player Scott or dancing around on his own. Drummer Crisco, from what I could see of him, was very physically involved with banging away on his drum kit -- and if what came to mind as I watched him was Animal from the Muppets, well, this is what he gets for having longish and kind of wild hair. Besides, Animal was a good drummer!
From what I could hear of Kirk's singing I do think he had a rather nice voice, though again, the mixing issues made it difficult to properly appreciate an unfamiliar vocalist. Others around me in the audience were comparing Seven Nations to U2 and other bands of that ilk in terms of sound and feel, and although I have been very seldom exposed to U2 I can sort of buy that. There is a sort of "80's English band" feel to them.
Two thumbs up on the bagpipes, though. Go Scott!
The other thing I realized during the course of Seven Nations' set was that there was no earthly way I was going to be able to keep my velvet backpack in place with two long poster rolls in it. Said poster rolls in fact fell out as I was in the process of bouncing about in time to the music, and although they were handed back to me promptly, I had to then figure out what to do about it. Fortunately the crowd right around me was good about not stepping on things on the floor and I was able to lay my bag on Cyn's right between her and Monica and me. Had I been a cleverer bunny, I would have just left the posters in Cyn's car, but oh well.
When the Young Dubliners came out they went a bit more to the Irish trad, though they were still heavy on the rock angle as well. I definitely appreciated their rousing foot-stompers, as well as the heavier vocals since more of them sing than there are singers in Seven Nations. With the Young Dubs as well, I was impressed by the fiddle player; Chas's bow was trailing several dangling strings off each end, thanks to the vigor of his playing.
Monica fell head over heels in love with the Dubs when they did a cover of a song she recognized by a group called the Waterboys, but again, the mixing issues made it difficult for me to really distinguish the lyrics and figure out exactly what happened in the song she liked so much. I can say that lead singer Keith's voice was very distinctive, with the sort of high, pure, carrying quality I also admire in the voice of Séan McCann. That particular gentleman was also quite amusing as he inquired of the audience how many of us were of Irish descent, and made jokes about us all getting drunk enough to have a "group puke". Keith also made jokes about the tour coming to a close and how it was going to be a bit of a disappointment no longer being in a situation involving 21 guys hitting on anything that moved in their immediate vicinity.
It must also be noted that when Keith announced that the Young Dubs were going to a local Irish pub after the show, Cyn turned around and gave me a quite pointed look, to which I naturally had to ask whether that meant she wanted to go to said pub. This was a correct conclusion. Cyn announced that since she was in charge of her and my transportation, we were in fact heading down to Kell's after the show.
On to Great Big Sea!
One of the first things I noted when they came out on the stage was that Alan had on a shirt with Sylvester the Cat on it -- and specifically, the shirt which is sold locally with the caption "Theattle" on it. Alan did in fact make a big point of showing off said shirt to the audience, and we were all duly appreciative! The rest of the boys had a black theme going on with their outfits as well, with Darrell in a black shirt and khakis and Bob in a positively understated (read: sans flames) bowling shirt and black pants. It was Séan's turn to actually wear a shiny shirt this time, a black shiny shirt with his jeans, and this shirt was apparently new.
So were Séan's sideburns, for that matter. Long pointy ones that went down along his jawline and were complete and total shades of Old Star Trek, except longer.
Alan also made a big point of announcing that in the middle of September, GBS was about to launch what would be the biggest Canadian tour they have ever undertaken, and he thanked the Canadians in the audience for waiting for them. To give us an idea of the distance to cover, he added that right here in Seattle, he was farther away from home than he would be if he were in Krakow, Poland!
I did my traditional Recording of the Set List, though this time around I had a little notebook and pen with me, rather than my handheld computer, as those were more easily carried in the pocket. As a general note, though: anyone who wants to record a set list at a concert, keep a good grip on your pen. ;) I almost lost the top of mine, and only managed to spot it again in the dim lighting because it was purple and I could still make it out against the floor.
Said Set List included:
- Ordinary Day
- When I'm Up
- Sea of No Cares
- Goin' Up
- Clearest Indication
- The Night Pat Murphy Died
- A Boat Like Gideon Brown
- Penelope
- Old Black Rum
- General Taylor
- Stumbling In
- Consequence Free
- Mari-Mac
- Lukey
- Boston and St. John's
- Excursion Around the Bay
- Fortune
I was actually hoping for "Donkey Riding" as an opener, because I have gotten into the mode of the instrumental part of that particular ditty really setting the feel for a Great Big Sea concert starting. However, "Ordinary Day" is a fine stand-in, with the Morse code intro also giving time for the boys to come out and get to their instruments.
"Clearest Indication" was introduced by Alan and described as a song about requesting clarity, which, he told us, he needs about 48 times a day.
Séan's intro to "Paddy Murphy" this time was particularly lively: "Oh the night that Paddy Murphy died / Is a night I'll never forget / All the Young Dubliners got loaded drunk / And they'll never be sober again! / As long as a bottle was passed around / Seven Nations was feeling gay..." Furthermore, Séan advised us that this song was about a guy who died, and that if we should see any dead people wandering around, we should be nice to them.
Before "Gideon Brown", though, Alan and Séan got into some truly fine form with the banter, like unto some of the finest quotes that have been spread around the web. Alan put out what seems to be one of the traditional GBS ways to get amusement out of the audience, by asking us how many of us wanted to come to Newfoundland; naturally, we all cheered, and Mr. Doyle announced that we could all stay at their houses, since as a band present, they'd all given one another futons.
Which led quite seamlessly into Alan and Séan joking about cuddling together on Séan's futon, and watching movies. ;)
Alan then started telling us all about how Fogo Island, Newfoundland, is considered one of the four corners of the earth by the Flat Earth Society -- which led into Séan blinking and piping up guilelessly, "The world isn't flat?"
Somebody in the audience close to the center of the stage yelled out, "It's as flat as you want it to be!" With that, Séan confidently asserted that his world is flat, while Alan went over to the girl in question and asked her her name, and then pointed at Séan and told her, "That's Séan. You should get together after the show. But watch out if he starts talking about his futon..."
Séan appears to have taken over doing the introduction to "Old Black Rum", too. "This is a song about not drinking," he told us, "which we do every day... especially things that are black... and taste like rum." I had been craving me some "Old Black Rum" ever since I'd watched the concert on Trio, since they did not in fact include that ditty in the set list for that broadcast, and I'd missed it.
In between "Old Black Rum" and "General Taylor", the audience -- who this time around was proving almost as lively as the band -- pulled another surprise. Someone passed of all things a textbook up to Alan, and he was startled and amused enough that he did in fact stop the show and sign the book for the person in question, remarking to the audience that GBS's rock band counterparts get underwear thrown at them, while they get "Economics of Strategy".
"As opposed to 'Strategy of Economics'," quipped Séan, who had wandered back to sit on Kris's drum platform, and who then wandered back to his mike to look us all in the eye and add, "Today's lesson will be on... sea shanties." Cue "General Taylor." But without the "shanty man" verse this time. Dang!
And speaking of underwear -- Fred, who has still been riding on the giggle factor of the Great Big Gitch Toss, informed us that he planned to repeat the accomplishment during this show. Which he did. Right at the beginning of "Consequence Free", I saw a pair of green boxers go sailing in a lovely parabolic arc right over my head and land smack dab at the feet of Bob. Who did a marvelously stoic job of pretending they weren't there.
The intro to "Mari-Mac" seems to be undergoing a bit of a metamorphosis. During this show, we just got Séan belting out at the top of his lungs "MARI-MAC'S MOTHER'S MAKIN' MARI-MAC MARRY ME!" and all of us in the audience trying to outshout him before he starts the song. I do kind of miss "What would you say if I said..." and "that's what I thought you'd say", though. ;)
"Lukey" seems to have been moved around to be a show-closer, now. And they're performing it a bit different than they have in the past, with some more staccato "Ah ha" bits when they sing "Ah ha, me boys, a riddle aye day!" It is a small but interesting contrast when you're used to hearing the Road Rage version or the delightful version on Fire in the Kitchen; I actually prefer those versions, but this performance had to recommend it a particularly bouncy instrumental bridge. Darrell and Séan did their usual switching off between the bass and the bodhran, but Alan and Bob and Kris also got into the act this time, so everybody got a chance to play a little bit of something and get in on the fun. And I'm here to tell you, when they actually hit that closing chord right it is absolutely delicious.
We only got one encore. But what an encore! It started off with Alan doing a solo rendition of "Boston and St. John's" -- which featured some divine noises out of his guitar and some particularly wistful, sweet vocals.
"Excursion Around the Bay" and "Fortune" were the other two numbers for the GBS-only part of the encore, but then, Alan called Seven Nations and the Young Dubs back out onto the stage. And the entire lot of them sang an a capella ditty to close us off. Sadly, it was not a song I recognized -- but by the power of the Internet (all hail the Ceolas celtic music archive and its collection of links!), I was able to track it down and discover that it was a ditty called "A Man You Don't Meet Every Day". Hearing 14 guys singing this in harmony was a lovely experience indeed!
As the audience wandered out of the show several of us regrouped around the side of the building, next to the Young Dubs' tour bus. There, Jessica got the copy of their album signed by the Dubs' lead singer, who was quite sociable to us, and I had the pleasure of telling him that they'd put on a hell of a show. I also touched bases with Lynda and surrendered to her my leftover posters and fliers from the Street Team work, and we discovered that the Dubs and Great Big Sea were planning to hit Kell's while Seven Nations were going to head to another place called Von's.
Kell's it was, then, though Fred defected to the Seven Nations gathering and it was left to Cyn, Monica, Jessica and I to head down to Kell's.
There, armed with ciders and other beverages, we first spotted Bob at the table next to us. Cyn was the only one brave enough to actually turn around and say anything to him, though. But she did pick his brains about "Mari-Mac", and reported to us that he told her that she should forget everything she's ever learned about technique when playing that particular ditty. Which is an amusing thing to tell somebody who spent the first five years of her fiddle training getting technique drummed into her and who did in fact have a fiddle part for "Mari-Mac" written out for her. ;)
Darrell was spotted next, and Cyn went over to corner him as well, and from him she learned that Séan had apparently retired for the evening but that Alan was on his way. We pointed Darrell at Bob, though.
For the next little bit we just mostly hung out, listening to the guy playing guitar up on the little stage, though we were quite disappointed when he shifted from playing folk to old 70's ditties. Jessica did not approve of him doing "American Pie", though we enjoyed it a lot more when I came in on the last chorus belting out Weird Al Yankovic's Star Wars edition of the lyrics. I also wound up singing along with the guy when I realized he was singing "Rocky Road to Dublin", of which I have now realized I know more than I thought I did.
Furthermore, Jessica provided us all with shots of Bailey's Irish Creme. That was a first for me, as was being in an Irish pub in general, and I found the Bailey's quite tasty.
Monica lamented that she had to leave pretty early, though, since she had to get up at 6:30 the following morning, and I offered to walk her back to her car since we had walked several blocks from where we'd parked. Furthermore, I was waffling heavily between whether to stay with Cyn -- because I was fairly sure she was going to do her level best to corner Alan Doyle and I was rather nervously excited about the idea -- or have Monica give me a lift home. Reluctantly I opted to go home, because I knew that I was going to be having a job interview the next day and I didn't want to be totally dead on my feet.
We did, however, bring Monica's car back down to the pub long enough to pop in and tell Cyn and Jessica we were leaving, and to give Lynda Monica's extra posters. This turned out to be a good plan, as we actually managed to exchange some pleasantries with the Young Dubs' rhythm guitarist and tell him we were part of a jamming group. Informed that Monica was also a rhythm guitarist, he did a fancy little handshake with her, prompting her to exult about learning "secret guitarist handshakes".
Cyn also told me I should tell Alan goodbye. I didn't see him, until Cyn turned me around and scooted me over about a foot, at which point I finally spotted Mr. Doyle in a corner surrounded by a small herd of other fans.
Now, I had actually been telling Monica that I did actually want to ask him a question -- because I had seen a post by someone asserting to be him over on the 30 Odd Foot of Grunts message board and I wanted to ask him if he had in fact ever posted over there. However, the Dorkiness Fairy must have come along and hit me with a wand, because although I did in fact lean over to Alan, what came out of my mouth was, "Excuse me, Cyn tells me I should tell you goodbye, so, uh, goodbye!"
He gave me a bit of a blank look, and I'm sure "who the heck are you?!" was going through his head at the time. Oh well. ;)
Leaning over to get Alan's attention did have the side effect of getting another person's attention, though, as it turned out that Mel who I'd met at the April show was sitting right there, and we chatted briefly before I regretfully announced my intentions to head home and get some sleep due to the aforementioned interview on the morrow.
Cyn told me yesterday that she wound up staying quite late at that pub in the little group talking to Mr. Doyle, and so the upshot of all this is, I skipped an opportunity to talk to Alan Doyle face to face due to my need to get a JOB!
I did, however, get the job.
Maybe next time, I'll actually get to talk coherently to Alan, too.
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Date: 2002-08-26 08:13 am (UTC)If you'd like to borrow the first three Seven Nations albums (read: the good ones. Oh, sorry. Was that my out-loud voice?), i've got them, and have no problems loaning them out. They actually used to do some traditional stuff, and had at least one protest song per album (Back Home in Derry, Pound A Week Rise etc.), just to throw a bit of something different into the mix. Sadly, it seems that's gone now. :-(
If you've ever space for mainly inept but enthusiastic players who learn fairly quickly, once we get moved, we'd love to join one of the sessions, even if it's just as moral support.
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Date: 2002-08-26 11:02 pm (UTC)As for Seven Nations, I've already listened to a CD of some of their stuff that Fred burned, and I should give that another listen before I return it to him. :) Thanks though!
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Date: 2002-08-27 09:14 am (UTC)As for playing, i'm learning the pipes and can occasionally pass on pennywhistle. Haven't played guitar regularly in years, but the fingers seem to still remember what to do if the bit of playing i did this weekend is any indication.
We all sing, and regularly. It's not uncommon for us to be outside and break into a cappella renditions of whatever comes to mind- "General Taylor" seems to be the most common tune of late.
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Date: 2002-08-28 01:13 am (UTC)Anyway, about to be off to Worldcon. We are going to play at Monica's wedding, so I'm trying to make people practice on 9/1 while we're gone, but I doubt that will happen; the next jam after that is going to be 9/8. We do generally have our jams on Sunday afternoon, as that is the most convenient time for all involved parties. Let's see if we can arrange something when I get back. :)