meet james ensor...
Lawrence P Solomon
Um, just wondering, where does the vibraphone appear in Meet James
Ensor? On tmbg.com, there's a picture with a caption about Brian
Doherty doing the vibraphone track for MJE. I can't hear it... of
course, I don't know where to listen for it. Can anyone hear it?
Chris Conaton
Ok, so I headed over to my local Wherehouse to see the John's play a set.
I got there late, but my friends were up close so I managed to get a good
position. The show was about 45 minutes long and a lot of fun. How does it
compare to the other TMBG shows I've seen? It doesn't, because it was a
completely different setting and atmosphere. I did manage to get a good
recording of the show, so I'm open for trades. It was just the Johns and
Brian, Flans had his guitar, Linnell the accordian, and Brian had a small
drum-set, which, according to Flans "He bought specifically for doing in-
stores. It's only in two dimensions, so we're interested to see what hap-
pens when it bursts into the third." The three of them seemed very loose,
with lots of fun banter between the Johns. The setlist included:
Ana Ng
Cowtown
Particle Man
Birdhouse
Meet James Ensor
S-E-X-X-Y
How Can I Sing Like a Girl?
NYC
James K. Polk
Older
WDTSS?-Latin Swing version
For Your Love (Yardbirds tune)
That's not in order, and maybe not complete, but it's pretty close.
The store was absolutely packed, but the crowd seemed very cool. A
couple of people yelled out questions about touring with Hootie, all of
which were ignored. It was great to see Linnell using his accordian, since
it's been used less in recent years 'cause of his keyboard. The set was a
lot of fun, and the Johns seemed to be having a good time (Brian always
seems like he's having a good time). Older was the opener, and they had to
go over the intro a few extra times while Linnell fiddled with his accordian.
A few people in the crowd knew it, which kind of surprised me. It was very
cool to hear the Lincoln tunes, which seem to have been conspicuoulsly
absent from shows the past few weeks. Ana Ng was great, with an extended
intro ("we're still working on that intro"-Linnell; he's been saying this
since spring '95, you'd think they would have it figured out by now), and
an extended ending as Linnell played around with the chorus vocals. S-E-X-
X-Y was surprisingly cool for the three-piece set up. As usual, it had a
lot more energy than the album. Flans introduced it by saying "This song
really shouldn't be performed with a three-piece, and we're not sure why
we're doing it, so we may have to stop in the middle." NYC was fun; Flans
sang the first verse, then said "band conference, we're not gonna end with
the blazing guitar solo, we'll just go out on the chorus," then proceeded
to start singing the third verse, so he had to stop and try again with the
right lyrics. Polk was also interesting-Linnell skipped the solo and went
right to the last verse. During the final verse, he was making large arm
motions to go along with the lyrics about seizing territory, etc. The line
about Polk building an independent treasury got a huge cheer from the
crowd, which was pretty off-the-wall. Stump the band returns! I got the
impression that they still like doing this, but don't as often anymore
because of the larger venues they play in. Anyway, they had someone in the
back grab a random cd and start naming songs. The disc was the Yardbirds,
and the first song was For Your Love. They didn't want to do it, but the
guy wouldn't give them anymore Yardbirds song titles-he moved right on to
Yes' Owner of a Lonely Heart. Flans made a comment about it not being the
object to stump the band, so they attempted For Your Love. WDTSS? closed
the show, and it was a new latin-flavored cheesy swing version which was
a lot of fun. Linnell was having a great time with the educational vocals.
He started talking them in rhythm and came closing close to singing them.
They also did a couple of ticket drawings for the Hootie show that night,
I didn't bother to enter 'cause I went to see George Clinton and the P-Funk
All-Stars instead, which I'm sure was ultimately a hell of a lot more fun
than the Hootie show would've been.
All in all, it was a very cool experience. I was a bit worried
about it beforehand, since they've been getting some pretty lackluster
reviews here lately, but I left the show happy and satisfied. The setlist
was a good mix for a 45 minute show. They played the big hits, new stuff,
classics, and songs that work well with the small setup.
Chris
cona...@pilot.msu.edu
"It's not the band I hate, it's their fans."-Sloan