For starters, I'm glad to be out of the goddamn car. And if there are parts of this message that don't make any sense, it's because the caffeine that got me from Athens back to Chapel Hill is wearing off. I hate it when it does that. Secondly, I'm feeling long-winded. If you want, you can skip the details of the phenomenal Athens show and get straight to the part about me and my friend Laurie embarrassing ourselves in front of the genius known as Stuart. Oh, the shame... Seeing as how exaustion is tapping on my shoulder, I'll spare you the Southern Americana I was going to write about the drive down and how glorious it was to be in Athens again. It's one of my absolute favorite places in the world, and the fact that not many people know of its greatness makes it that much more exciting to be there. I think the Belles and Sebastians of the world liked it too. Unless they spent all non-showtime on the bus. Which is possible...it's a very nice bus. Mr. Exaustion has taken a breather from tapping on my shoulder to tell me I'm an idiot for thinking I could come close to describing how fantastic the show was. So the description will end here: It was fantastic. I'm sure that not everyone was entirely happy with it, and I heard a few people grumbling coming out of the show. It seems that most people are very, very attached to encores. And granted, it was pretty nasty to leave the lights off for so long that even I was thinking, "Well, maybe..." But please! Is it really that important for a band to leave, dry the sweat off their forheads, talk about the cuties up front, prepare the syringes for the post-show and then come back on? Who's still impressed by that? Anyway, it was definitely a show geared for the hardcore fans, so people who only know Sinister and The Boy may have felt a little left out at times. The sound was PERFECT. After all the talk I'd heard about how quiet their shows are, I was expecting to have to stand on Laurie's shoulders and press my ear against the speaker. But it was crystal clear and exactly the right volume. Okay, okay...the general set list (which someone may have already submitted...I'm a digester). I know I have the first four and the last one right, and these are all the songs they played, but everything in the middle is not necessarily in the right order: Is It Wicked Not to Care? Simple Things A Century of Elvis Lord Anthony Ease Your Feet Into the Sea Mayfly The Boy With the Arab Strap Lazy Line Painter Jane Beautiful Belle and Sebastian Photo Jenny Seymour Stein Paper Boat Dirty Dream Number Two Highlight of the show? Easy: Lord Anthony. Everyone on the list was talking about it as though it was just another new song. Let me tell you for those of you who haven't heard it: It's incredible. I was speechless when it ended. How could one band be such a bottomless well of musical perfection? HOW, dammit?! I'm beginning to think that a "Murdoch sells soul to devil" rumor may well be in order. "Lord Anthony" is nothing musically groundbreaking (kind of a cross between Fakers and Modern Rock Song, I'd say), but it's also nothing short of amazing. Hello, I'm a goose and these are my bumps. The surprises for me were Mayfly, Belle and Sebastian, Photo Jenny and Beautiful. Mayfly was pretty faithful, Belle and Sebastian was an improvement (Richard's brushes sounded better than that John Bonham beat on the recording, although I know people who'd disagree) and Photo Jenny was slowed down a little bit, but sounded just as good. Stevie was hitting the tremolo chords so hard that he nearly fell over after the first chorus. Beautiful was...okay, I'll say it: It was beautiful. They didn't change it really, but the ending strings/trumpet bit sounded especially lush, and it was probably my favorite song of the night after Lord Anthony. Lazy Line Painter Jane was more like the session version, but it was faster (that's right: it was slower yet faster. It makes sense if you heard it). Unfortunately, they didn't do that little rave-up at the end like they did on the session version. You also need to know this: Simple Things rocked. Dirty Dream # 2 sounded great, but they changed the ending a bit. I wonder if the album ending just didn't sound right without the 144 piece international orchestra on it. We provided the handclaps for about 1:00 of The Boy With the Arab Strap, and one observant fan near me even was doing the handclaps at the end of Seymour Stein. Speaking of which, Stevie's voice sounded even better live than it does on the album, I think. Is it Wicked Not to Care was very faithful to the recorded version. Still, a good way to open the show. "Century of Elvis": Yeah, I was surprised that it was Elvis and not Fakers, too. But the weirdest thing is that, as far as I could tell, the vocal part was a tape. If it wasn't a tape, it was someone off the stage, since I saw all of the members on stage and none of their lips were moving. Ventriloquism? Most likely. Oh, and since the argument about "what is Elvis" is back up again, I should mention that the clarity of the sound at the 40 Watt allowed me to pick up the line "Elvis is a sack of doorknobs that belongs to Mick Cooke". I pretty sure about that... All eight of them were so fucking cute that I got severely star-struck. Stevie thanked the audience about ten times and every time he did it, it was more endearing. And I know that the bitter and nasty people of the world love to make fun of us for laughing at everything that Stuart M. says, but he really is funny. At one "I'm embarrased for America" point in the show, some guy tried to say something in a horrendous fake Scottish accent, and Stuart put him in his place: "Is that a bad joke or just a bad Scots accent?" We laughed at the mysterious man because he damn well deserved it. It was almost as embarrasing as the Pulp show in DC, when some girl ran around the balcony at the 9:30, waving a Union Jack and shouting, "Go English People!". Yes, I'm serious. Actually, that was a lot worse. Still, I hope for the Athens guy's sake that he was drunk. Because that beating that Mick gave him with the sack of doorknobs really would have hurt otherwise. Man, oh man is this long. I'm just glad I get to go see them again tomorrow night, and I pray I get to hear Slow Graffiti (I've listened to the 2:00 Liquid Audio sample about 30 times over already) and Sleep the Clock Around. And I hope I get to hear Lord Anthony just one more time for who knows how long. Here's the embarrassing story, which I'm reluctant to tell since it'll just be ammuntion for my Sinister enemies. But it entertained Laurie and me for hours, so you might have a laugh or two. That's right...I'll sacrifice my dignity for the possibility of entertainment. After the sparsely attended Engine Room meet-up (I blame myself and hereby resign the post in shame), Laurie and I hopped in the car, still on our post-show high. We stayed at the palatial Econo-lodge, and so we headed back to the room down Broad Street. This is a street that's not normally very populated at 2:30 am, so I was a little suprised to see a bundled-up couple walking away from town. As I passed by them, I looked at their faces and then took my foot off the gas. "Laurie, that was Stuart Murdoch and Isobel." Now, I'm prone to star-struckness anyway, but Laurie's even worse and in our post-show giddiness, we had both gotten the personalities of 14-year-olds clutching autograph books at a Hanson show. "Where are they walking at this time of night?" we wondered, which soon turned into (this is where it starts getting a little embarrassing) "Maybe they need a ride somewhere." Laurie commands me to turn around, which I do, partly out wanting to see them again, and partly because I know I'll get one of her patented "You'll kick yourself for passing up this opportunity" speeches if I don't. So we turn around (not easily, I might add) and head back in the other direction, pass them, turn around again and head towards them from behind. It was as the window started going down that I thought that maybe we shouldn't bother them. Too late. At least I thought enough to quickly tell Laurie to say their names so that they would at least know we were fans and not out to hurt them. "Stuart! Isobel!", she yells as we pull up beside them. "Do you want a ride?" The hard part here is trying to describe the looks on their faces. At no point did Isobel stop walking, and she looked either frightened or annoyed, most likely both. Stuart was all smiles, although it was impossible to tell if he was flattered or just if we were just being really entertainingly stupid. "We're just going to the Travelodge, actually," he said. Which made us feel even dumber, because at this point, we were about 50 feet away from the Travelodge. So Laurie quickly blurts out the main thing we wanted to tell them anyway: "Thank you so much for playing down here. It really means a lot to us". I stuck my head over and quickly yelled out a "Thank you", too, before we said goodnight to them and drove off wondering if/hoping that it was all a dream. And for one final blow, Laurie reminded me of the Pulp and Blur stickers onmy car, and so I had to get all paranoid and think that maybe they thought the only reason I like B&S is because they're British. Which has nothing to do with it. I love them because they move me to Heaven. Without breaking the glassware. This morning, as we drove into town to get coffee and sit outside and people-watch, we again saw Stuart, heading into town (wearing a t-shirt, which he's probably not used to being able to do in late October). We spent the rest of the day talking about how funny it would have been if we had pulled up to him again and asked if he had wanted a ride. If anyone on this list talks to Stuart or Isobel and they mention "two babbling fuckers in a car in Athens", that was me and Laurie. Tell them we're very sorry for bothering them. But what kind of a world are we living in when we can't stalk our heroes without embarrassment? Ooh, scratch that. Seriously, this awkward display of affection possibly cost me the opportunity to deliver an awkward "how much your music means to me" speech. Which would have been one for the record books after that show. Honestly, when you get right down to it though, it's really not that bad. The show was amazing and reduced Laurie and me to euphoria. Ladies and Gentlemen, we are all in on some of the most beautiful, most life-affirming, most incredible music ever made. We understand what baffles others. Pat yourself on the back. You know the secret to happiness. The world is gorgeous and so are you. Corn, cheese and sap, Reid, giddy Reid +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list please mail "sinister@majordomo.net". To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to "majordomo@majordomo.net". For list archives and searching, list rules, FAQ, poor jokes etc, see http://www.majordomo.net/sinister +---+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" +---+ +-+ "the cardie wearing biscuit nibbling belle & sebastian list" +-+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+