Sinister: Why, I do declare...

[Reid Dossinger]

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

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