here's what happened to me. I'm still reeling. having been there in july for the music extravaganza it was nice to see so many familiar and friendly faces. the show was sold out and you could feel it in the 40 watt.

The sound was PERFECT.

yes, it was. that was B&S's doing. they brought a monitor man, jake, and a front of house guy too, a frenchman who's name eludes me. they requested the 40 watt rent PA reinforcements and a piano. They definitely knew what they were doing. oh, and jake explained the reason the sound checks take so long is partly due to shoddy american power, damn 110. luckily they brought their own transformers. did you notice how they all sang a few inches away from the mic, hence no muffling or weird pops? this only works on a bad ass PA with a great sound man, but thats why their voices were so clear and intelligible.

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.

I know exactly what you mean. I was kind of hoping for that bit, but by the end of the show, it didn't matter at all. I was smiling for days. I do wish the rest of the audience would have moved a bit more, I sure was.

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?"

hi, my name is "some guy". what I said was, "play slow graffiti!" but I was drunk, so it came out terribly. stuart said "are you scot?" I said, no, I'm drunk!" "good, cuz that was pretty bad" i did make an arse of myself, but I was giddy as hell. I talked to stuart later and we had a laugh about it. he's heard worse accents. richard later said I looked a wee bit scottish and if I didn't talk too much I might be able to get by. after the show, we went backstage to say hello, since the masters of the hemisphere are friends of mine. someone mentioned that michael stipe had wanted to come but he was out of town. stu M said they'd learned don't go back to rockville in the park that day, but didn't have time to get it together for the show. that would've been so perfect. we stayed at the 40 watt for a good while, so we missed out on the engine room. when we finally left the club we ended up at todd's house I believe, he had a keg. there were several of us from texas, michigan, atlanta, etc and stevie, chris, richard, mick, stevie dreads, neil and jake, as far as I can remember. I was getting late. what a great time. we finally got a minibus for all of us and we got home around sixish, I think. the next day, everyone was looking haggard but still glowing from the show. B&S decided to stay in Athens, the weather was beautiful and it's so mellow there. we kept running into various members and a bunch of us finally settled at a table outside at the lunch paper for happy hour and beyond. we were there for several hours, I was glad to see I could hold my own with them as far as drinking goes. the table was absolutely full with empty bottles. then we went back to the tourbus and made fun of american tv, watched the pilot episode southpark with jesus vs. santa that jeff from the masters had brought, and I introduced some of them to blunts. we talked about american accents and we did southpark imitations, oh yeah, and drank more. When Neil heard that we didn't have a place to stay that night, he offered us the bus driver's hotel room since they had it for another night. they dropped us at the travelodge and gave us the key, we said our goodbyes and watched them head off for DC. it all still seems kind of unreal, they really are a geniunely nice bunch of people. but I'm babbling now. anyway, here's some pictures of the after party. sorry I didn't get to meet more of you, it was just so crowded. http://www.navitus.com/schrasj/csp.nsf/pages/belle

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.

maybe I'm being harsh, but can you imagine how many "how much your music means to me" speeches, they've heard by now? the whole time I was talking to them, their music, or even music in general, hardly came up. they are just regular people and they feel as awkward as you do when you start gushing all over them. OK, I can't type anymore. cheers, gram ClubSafeParking, making Houston proud. http://www.navitus.com/csp ______________________________________________________ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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" +-+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+