Queen-486x60



Barenaked Ladies in St. Louis 8.4.2004

It should be apparent to anyone who has seen my blogroll that I'm a serious Barenaked Ladies fan. I haven't written about the beginning of this obsession, and this seems a good place to do so. I'll be brief, I promise, and then I'll review the concert.

I've written before about my ignorance of R.E.M. for most of the 1990s. While I was writing that, it occurred to me that I stopped listening to them right around the time I got sick. Steven Page and Ed Robertson formed BNL in 1988, and became hugely popular in Canada around the time I came down with the illness. 'One Week' hit #1 in 1998, and that was when I was in the middle of the series of operations, and I wasn't listening to any music during that period. I know that sounds odd, but I didn't have a stereo in my bedroom at the time, and I spent most of my time in bed from weakness or recuperating from an operation.

I didn't become a BNL fan until March of 2001, when John and I were in Las Vegas staying at Luxor and we noticed that the guys were playing at Mandalay Bay the last night we were there, as a stop on their 'Maroon' tour. We got tickets and walked over to the arena, saw the show, went home, and I bought every one of their albums I could find. They were so funny, and although their show was for adults it wasn't profane or obscene, and we both felt we could take our teenagers to see them.

Since then, I've seen them twice more live, and next summer my daughter and I plan on going to at least two shows. Debby idolizes Jim Creeggan, the Bass God, and desperately wants to meet him to talk shop (she is the only female string bassist anywhere around here).

The show in St. Louis was part of the 'Au Naturale' tour with Alanis Morissette. The two acts have been trading headlining and opening, and this show had Alanis opening. This was good and bad - good because BNL could play as long as they wished (they've been known to play over two hours straight), and bad because I had to sit through Alanis. I'm not a huge fan of hers, but I like some of her work, but her set that night was terrible. Something was wrong with her microphone, and I thought my head was going to split open when she screamed her lyrics. Couple that with an almost irresistible urge to fall asleep. I didn't expect her to put me to sleep, but she did. The first 2 1/2 hours of the concert were awful for me.

At 9:30 on the dot, that changed. BNL opened with Steve alone on the stage with "Brian Wilson," their tribute to the sometime-brilliance of mental illness. You can see the set list here for each show on this tour, so I won't bother with that.

However, if you've ever seen one of their shows, you know that their ad-libs and the raps are staples. The first rap that night was about the three bottles of yellowish water on the stage. Think '99 Bottles of Beer' mixed with 'why did they give me pee to drink tonight' and you'll get an idea. Much too funny.

The second rant was about a movie called 'The Village.' They got into town the night before this show, and had the night off, so Steve and Stewart went to the Cardinals game while Ed and Kevin went to see that movie. To sum up Ed's disgust, "Don't go see 'The Village!" There's a plot twist two-thirds of the way through, and I'll tell you what it is - it turns into a shit movie!"

Ed also complained about the heat, being the wussy Canadian who can't take 90 degree heat with 85% humidity that he is (kidding - he's got muscles on his muscles), and they changed part of 'Pinch Me' to "It's hotter than it looks outside." The other 'Pinch' change I remember - of the usual 'Pinch' changes at every show - was running through the sprinkler with 'no bottoms on', but I can't remember for the life of me what kind of clothes he changed into this time. Last time I saw them it was 'wrestler's clothes,' the time before that 'my sister's clothes' - you get the idea.

Underwear was thrown, macaroni was not, which is good - I'm glad they've convinced people not to waste pasta. I've read in a couple of places that they miss the macaroni and complained at one show that they couldn't finish the song without appropriate condiments . I wish they'd decide. In Dallas some dope threw sparkling confetti, and Ed jumped all over that guy for not knowing the difference between paper & pasta.

I was thrilled that Steve sang "What A Good Boy," because I've never seen him do it live, and it's probably my favorite. They didn't do "Lovers In A Dangerous Time," which I love, but they did it two nights later, and I may have to buy that concert just to hear it. I missed "Yoko" too, and "Falling For The First Time" and "Who Needs Sleep?", although they did them in the spring.

BNL has a Christmas album coming out this winter, and their next studio album is slated for spring 2005. There's talk on the fan club site of a tour this fall and winter, although that won't be discussed or announced until this tour wraps later this week. They are so good, and so funny, and so energizing that I could watch them every night and not be bored or tired of them. Steve looked much better and seemed to feel better than at the Dallas concert in March. I think he's lost about 15 pounds, and he was jumping and running around like a teenager. For the next tour I'll have Ladies Room tickets, which hopefully won't suck like LR tickets did for this tour (LR tickets are usually in the first ten rows, but they had to share this tour with Alanis fans and most LR ticket holders were very disappointed and angry, sometimes getting tickets 30 rows back or to extreme stage left or right ).

I'm turning 40 in ten days, and this summer I've tried very hard to run around like I'm turning 14. It's been a lot of fun, and it's been good for me, too. I've paid for some of it by having to rest a day or two that I didn't want to spend resting. Even so, I've had a pretty good summer.

I want to go to another concert. Now.

Discuss

[ Print This Page ]   [ Email This Page ]