I know you've heard it all; the set lists for Boston and New York have been posted and dissected (I know it would be gauche to make a list of my ten favorite Belle and Sebastian songs, but if I were to do such a thing I could happily comment afterwards that at least half of them were played live this weekend), the relative merits of crowd-participation have been bandied about (maybe at some point the "free bird" request from the audience was something so very funny and groundbreaking that it completely re-wrote the way band and spectators interact and has become such a part of the public idiom that it's taken for granted, because that's the only way I can fathom it being shouted at every show I've been to for the past fifteen years, but I kind of doubt it), and the politics of dancing (I enjoyed the first five or six songs of the Boston show less than I should have because I desperately wanted to dance, but EVERYONE around me was sitting down and I felt self-conscious about that. It took a combination of Marisa, who is a star and a half, as anyone who was at the Monday show in New York can attest to, shouting out her frustration re: lack of dancing at the Orpheum and the undeniable rhythm of "The Boy With the Arab Strap" to make me actually, uh, get jiggy with it. I had a much better time after that, which helped me justify to myself the obscene amount of money I paid for tickets. To anyone who wanted us to sit down and was grumbling about how we wrecked the show for them I'm really, really sorry but if I can't dance then I want no part of your revolution. Also, keep this "Footloose" analogy in mind : People who were dancing = Kevin Bacon. People who did not want us to dance = John Lithgow. End tangent.) When I was in high school I once saw a band play four songs in as many minutes, smash their instruments, and then set the stage on fire, causing the club to evacuate. Nothing I've seen since has really topped that, but Belle and Sebastian managed to come pretty fricking close. I still get to see them next week in Atlanta, so maybe they'll be so very amazing there that I can have a new "best show I've ever seen" story. I'm starting to get tired of telling the one above. "Tigermilking NYC" was fun - although I mostly went to see my friend Keith d.j. and I missed most of his set. Apparently he played a Japanese electro-cover of "From the Morning" before I got there. I do sort of wish the shebang was downstairs at Fez, that seems to have more of a party atmosphere. Still, I had a fantastic weekend, and probably my best birthday ever. Thanks for indulging my euphoric post-show babble. Kevin P.S. - "Judy and the Dream of Horses", recorder feedback and all, very nearly made my head explode. +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +-+ "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001 +-+ +-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+ +-+ Snipp snapp snut, sa var sagan slut! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+