Reviews by...
Mark Cathell
Jill
Jess
Alex
John
Roy
Mango Mark
Chris
sunshine
While we (myself, roy, jess, jill, chris) did only arrive about a half hour before doors opened, the line was halfway up the block, and eventually around the corner, up the block. The place was pretty packed by the time the boys hit the stage, but wait, I'm getting ahead of myself.
After about an hour wait, Ben Lee came to the stage, sporting two keyboards, a bass player, a drummer, and Lee himself, playing acoustic guitar. While the set was plauged by technical problems, and not all that incredible to begin with, Lee showed some guts when he kicked over his mic, unplugged his guitar, and just kicked it freestyle, eventually going through the audience to the balcony, and backstage. Very interesting, and something I've only seen done once before.
About 30 minutes later, after the unveiling of the drums, and guitar tuning, the boys came out to a fairly packed house with a little surprise. They opened up with "James River." While this not only shocked us, it shocked their tour manager as well. The first three songs were from GB, but Jess has the set, and I didn't have time to copy it from her. I'm sure she'll post it. Anyway, they had a few other surprises in for us this evening.
One of the biggest surprises was the return of "Dr. Bernice." the fifth song in, David and Johnny sounded as if they were checking the tuning of their guitars, and then broke straight into it. Those of us in the front row were certainly awe struck, and mouthed to each other "DASMN!!!"
When Johnny went to put on an acoustic guitar, I knew we were in for something special. They played "Trials and Tribulations" with David on the tambourine, banging it against first his beer bottle (which Roy now owns) and then his guitar stand. a nice sound, incredible live. The version of "I ride my bike" sounded pretty nice, and for the second time in a row, I could actually make out what was said. Amazing. We did get to see Johnny's bad tattoo, but only for a brief moment, as he played with the audience, showing us the wrong shoulder first.
They did resurrect some other half forgotten material from the self-titled. More on that when Jessica posts. And in other news, Frank now has a little hair. I was amazed, it didn't look like him. Mango Mark (enobean) talked to Bob about the possibility of the Sparklehorse tour, and the message was that Bob was not going to do it, because they had more Cracker dates planned, which is good news for us.
Afterwards, there were only a few hardcores out to get signatures. There were a few photos taken, which I am sure you will see in the near future.
Other than that... night night. I win, I got home first. What was I going to say? oh yeah, something something ... oh $hit.
Mark
It was a great show. They played pretty much everything i was hoping to hear, especially "Dr. Bernice," which i was not expecting to hear. and my theme song (or ex-theme song, read on), "St. Cajetan." Maybe they didn't play "rainy days..." tonight cause they wanted to practice it more to get the "something, something, oh sh*t" part down first. right?? David messed up on "Big Dipper", just for a second though. Roy and I appropriately did do the "something something, oh sh*t" thing for him.
I give up my duties as official water girl. these cracker listees are too freaking hard to please. :) it was nice meeting those who i hadn't met yet. and Mango, thank you for the poster! you are THE mark.
oh yes, I liked ben lee. especially at the end when he played with no amp and no mic, with people booing at him, and then running off into the crowd. I thought he was really good. just a little too obsessed with "blood" (at least two songs with that kind of stuff I think). and hacking little kids. oh well.
dasmn, it's late. (had to get that in there somewhere :)). Or else it's really early. it's 6am. my mom just woke up. Well i am going to bed. It was nice seeing you all tonight.
dc is filled with gay ass and chaos.
1.James River
2.Been Around the World
3.7 Days
4.Eurotrash Girl
5.Lonesome Johnny Blues
6.Dr. Bernice (YES!!!)
7.St. Cajetan
8.Teen Angst
9.Sweet Thistle Pie
10.Big Dipper
11.The Shiner Song
12.Trials and Tribulations
13.Get Off This
14.Pictures of Matchstick Men
15.The World Is Mine
16.Mr. Wrong
17.I Ride My Bike (no virtual sex b/t Johnny and Bob)
18.Low
*encore*
19.I Want Everything
20.I See the Light
Everyone's done a really great job of covering what went on at the show
already... I'll just add a few personal impressions.... I had a great
time... The set list was just super (my 1st time hearing Dr. Bernice live!
and it came off so great!) and Trials and Tribs. w/ David banging the
tambourine on the beer bottle was great. =) I *think* maybe they played I
Want Everything at the first Cracker show I was ever at it was great to
hear it again...
Thanks to Jill and Mark I was able to squeeze in to an awesome front row spot just before the guys went on! (yes) and that spot happened to be the one Johnny went to every time to do his solos (yes yes!) So I spent many minutes of the show with his zipper in my face... ;-) Even wrastled out a wink from him during the "long sweet body lying next to mine" line in Teen Angst. =)
Anyway it was a wonderful experience. Great meeting all the listers too!
hmmm. other cool stuff about the show...seeing the guys get into their own cars and driving off... (Roy we should've just offered to let them pool w/ us to begin with!;-) and of course, passing their gear on 95 on the way home. =)
Ben Lee wasn't incredible, but I thought he was decent. I think he was pissed off with the conversation level towards the end, hence the last song "unplugged". I heard some of it, being a ways back. The crowd seemed a little shitty last night, they talked all the way through James River too!
Alex
It was great to finally hear the Shiner song live .. I missed the Richmond Halloween show last time around.
(Since Cracker isnt getting as much radio airplay these days : ( they are losing some of the drunken frat boy fans (apologies to the sobering frat boys on the list if there are any) : ) I saw Cracker at the 9:30 in '96 and the crowd was a little on the insane side. People were pushing all over, and a few crowd surfers actually got up on stage. It was nice to not have a fear of Doc Martens last night since the crowd was pretty well behaved ('cept during Low, of course).
It was good running into some of the people from the list (and a couple rivals bidders on eBay too). : )
John
Mark said: "I think it is safe to say that we all had a good time, aside from the chaos while cruising DC. (ask roy)" We did get a FREE high quality window wash though! But it was raining at the time.
I couldn't completely understand [Ben Lee's] lyrics (or comments) but he had great stage presence I thought.
DASM says it all. We had Jill write up a card, courtesy of John, to request DR BERNICE from the Cracker2000 group, but before we could pass it off they did it. Something about Crackersoul, huh?
Mark said: "They played "Trials and Tribulations" with David on the tambourine, banging it against first his beer bottle (which Roy now owns) and then his guitar stand. a nice sound, incredible live."
:) yep! & might I add it's an autographed Rolling Rock!! DL was banging the tambourine against the bottle & it fizzed up, during the next verse he used the guitar stand instead. But, the trooped that DL is, he did finish all but about a swallow of that beer after it overflowed on the stage, et al. A shame to waste a beer:)
DL only broke ONE, only ONE string (during LOW). We had all guessed before that show & were all wrong.
Roy
- Opening with James River just kicked *ss.
- Dr Bernice was sonically superb, maybe because we were getting it thru the monitors, but, it was very strong, 3d surround sort of effect going on, very very good arrangement. kudos to woody for an excellent mix (all evening).
- I want everything was a total surprise, couldn't ask for more.
- special thanks to chris/karen/nancy for living large and saving my space there a couple of times.
- Thanks to Tony for the tip on the Posters,
- nancy, we'll get yours signed in philly(thanks for the pin, too).
- I hope all the pictures come out,
- i'll be looking for a post there jessica.
- Rick the guitar tech has moved on with Sheryl Crow.
seems a huge time was had by all, and it was great to meet everyone. indeed, this is cracker soul
- mango -
~Chris~