Setlist:
Jimmy Olsen’s Blues
What Time Is It?
Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong
Forty Or Fifty
Refrigerator Car
More Than She Knows
Two Princes >
Off My Line
How Could You Want Him (When You Know You Could Have Me)? >
Shinbone Alley >
Hard To Exist
E:
Gestalt’s Blues >
About A Train
Lady Kerosene
Details:
– PFOK 20th anniversary tour
– A soundboard recording of this show – fully mixed and mastered on the fly – was officially released as limited-edition, double CD sets by a company called Rock House Live. See Album Discography for details.
Review by greenone on the Spins board:
So it´s been a week, and I figured I should put something up about the Boston gig. It was right around 7:30 last Saturday that I was hopping in my car to head down to the show. 9:00 opener, 10:00 Spins take the stage, figured I´d get there before 8:30, plenty of time. Messaged with my friend, another taper, just before I headed out the door, and he messages me back that the show has sold out. Totally wasn´t expecting that to happen, though a 340-capacity place on a Saturday night does tend to draw a crowd, especially in that neighborhood, and for $15.
I´d also forgotten that parking around this place is an absolute bear, which resulted in me cruising the neighborhood for a full 40 minutes before finding anywhere legal to park. By the time I get to the venue, the opener is on, and there are a few folks milling around in front. No extras to be had, so I strike up a convo with a guy out front for a smoke, who last saw the band in St. Louis in the fall of 1992. He lives right around the corner and figured he´d give them another shot after all these years. He heads in at about 9:30, after the opener wraps up, and wishes me luck in my hunt for an extra.
About 15 minutes later, I decide that if it gets to 10 with no ticket, I´m just going to give up and go home. Then I spot a guy holding a ticket with the back facing up. The bouncer asks him to turn his hand over so he can put on a wristband, and the guy obliges – showing another ticket back. I pounce on the extra, rush inside, and find my buddy and his wife, already set up in the best taping spot. He drops his stand down, lets me clamp on, and we´re up and good to go with five minutes to spare. That very minute, one of the house guys comes by and asks if we´ve been cleared for taping. We say that the band allows it, mention Jason´s name, and he says he´ll go check. Comes back ten minutes later – at set time, mind you – and says we have to tear down because they´re selling an instant live that night and don´t want other copies out there. I ask if that word came directly from Jason, he said yes, that the band won´t even take the stage until we´ve completely packed up our gear. Now, mind you, my friend has been in the venue since 9, taped the opener, had his gear up during set break, and we´re only approached now, by a house guy rather than someone with the band. Ugh. Oh well. We pack up and just enjoy the show.
This was first time I´d seen them since the two gigs in ´05 that I was able to make it to. Those left me with a bit of a sour taste – the shows were two weeks and a two hour drive apart, the first was a free outdoor show at a festival, the second was a club gig just before NTTM came out…and they were exactly the same. Same setlist, same banter, same jams, everything. I was expecting a little more from a club gig than 90 minutes, so I hadn´t bothered to travel for a show since then.
This show was considerably better. I can´t remember the last time I had listened to PFOK front to back, but even so, I remembered just about every word. Especially Shinbone Alley – that surprised me. Just speaks well of Chris´s ability to turn a phrase. Shinbone was a full 20 minutes long and featured a lengthy bass solo from Mark in the middle of it while the rest of the band took a break and left the stage. Then they all came back and crashed down into a very satisfying Hard To Exist. Encore was – The Drop (I think), About A Train, and Lady Kerosene. No Hamed, unfortunately. No special guests, though Chris´s brother Jeremy was in the room – apparently he lives in Somerville, a town or two over.
Really wish I had a copy of this show – it was quite an adventure just getting into the place, and I spent my last $20 on the ticket so I had no money for an instant live…though you had to sign up ahead of time to get them, so I probably would have been out of luck anyway. Just very disappointing to get shut down so close to show time, especially so since they were openly taped in both Alexandria and Buffalo (EDIT: And Syracuse!). Find it hard to believe nobody showed up in New York, but who knows? Have instant lives been sold for any other shows this tour? And if anyone got one for Boston, let me know…hopefully we can work something out so everyone´s happy.
