Sinister: drop a pill and then say hello

[layla]

dear sinister,

(my nth attempt at posting. don't ask.)

you may (or may not) recall my plea in mid-january for
transportation between toronto and montreal. i wanted
very badly to attend both belle & sebastian shows.

lo and behold, via this marvellous invention that is
the internet, i found a girl with similar plans, and
better yet, an automobile. she had posted on bowlie
looking for passengers, so whoever it was on both
sinister and bowlie who hooked us up, thank you. that
was an act of genuine kindness. i hope you get
rewarded in your next life.

it was a brilliant weekend. my boyfriend and i decided
to get our money's worth and we lined up
embarrassingly early for both shows. i can't think of
any other band for whom i'd withstand such a lot of
physical discomfort -- about six hours standing, no
bathroom breaks, of which almost two were spent
outside on bitterly cold, canadian february nights.

but it proved to be a very wise decision, particularly
for the toronto show at the docks. the docks is by far
the worst venue i've ever been to. i guess the band
has already vowed never to return there. it's
essentially a trendhole nightclub and not meant to be
a concert venue, since it's long, narrow and flat. we
were right up at the barriers in front of the stage,
so i can't actually complain about my view, but i
imagine it was wretched further back.

i don't have the setlist for toronto, but they started
with "stars of track and field", and then jumped
around quite a bit. the songs off the new album sound
cracking live, particularly "white collar boy". i even
starting warming to "sukie in the graveyard" (sorry,
that song doesn't do much for me). i really would have
liked to hear "we are the sleepyheads", but it wasn't
to be. they played a fair bit off IYFS, and absolutely
nothing off TBWTAS, to my dismay, but made up for that
the following night in montreal, when they played
"sleep the clock around" at the encore.

the montreal setlist:

the state i am in
another sunny day
seeing other people
sukie in the graveyard
to be myself completely
electronic renaissance
the loneliness of a middle distance runner
the blues are still blue
piazza, new york catcher
slow graffiti
funny little frog
mayfly
your cover's blown
dog on wheels
i'm a cuckoo
jonathan david
white collar boy
judy and the dream of horses

encore:
string bean jean
sleep the clock around
   
the highlights?

- "your cover's blown": both nights, but especially in
montreal. even our teddy bear gets up and dances when
we play it at home -- and he's a very lazy little
bear.
- "sleep the clock around": it's only got one of my
favourite b&s lines ("and when you saw it all come, it
was waving the flag of the united states of calamity,
hey"). and it sounded surreal live.
- "string bean jean":  stuart needed the lyrics, which
was oddly endearing.
- "slow graffiti": i just wish people wouldn't holler
during the quiet bits. they're meant to be quiet.
- "electronic renaissance": i love that they've
started playing this one regularly.
- "jonathan david": totally unexpected. stevie reeks
of style.
- stuart's dream, which he described in some detail
after apologizing for being distracted and making
mistakes while playing "seeing other people". he was
apparently thinking about this dream he had had. it
involved an awkward situation with a former girlfriend
and her kid brother who was actually a beeping robot
on wheels.
   
stuart asked for requests during the encore in
toronto, and he called on me -- we were meant to raise
our hands politely for mr. murdoch. i asked for "meat
and potatoes" (i feel a great deal of affection for
that song). he smiled, made some comment about getting
toronto into the bedroom mood, but played "me and the
major". oh well.  it was a better request than "legal
man" (the girl next to us).
   
stuart's a bit of a showman, isn't he; he jumped down
from the stage in the middle of the montreal show
while they were fiddling with sarah's guitar and shook
hands with everyone in the front row ("just like
elvis," commented stevie), starting with me -- yes, i
had positioned myself directly in front of his mic. i
was so taken aback i don't think i mustered even a
"hello" in response to his rather cordial "hello, nice
to meet you, i'm stuart".

the rest of the band were rather quiet, especially
sarah, who seemed not to have too much to do in her
corner on the stage. bob spent most of his time eyeing
the girls in the front.
   
it was altogether too good a weekend. now i've nothing
much to look forward to. incidentally, was anyone else
in toronto planning to go see isobel last saturday as
part of CMW? we bought tickets (i couldn't help it, it
was three parts morbid curiosity to one part genuine
interest in hearing her live). then on friday she
cancelled the show -- according to the man at
soundscapes, she never made it out of the UK due to
some illness which prevented her from flying (an ear
infection, he hypothesized). hmm.

i apologize if this got a bit rambly. i suppose i'm
making up for over a year of lurking.

layla

p.s.: the new pornographers were really good too. i
just realized i left out any mention of them, and that
seemed a bit unfair.

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com 
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
        +---+  Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list  +---+
     To send to the list mail sinister at missprint.org. To unsubscribe
     send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to
     majordomo at 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!                +-+
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+