Live Show: 4/18/97

4/18/97

Cleveland, OH

Reviewed by: Kristina Cizas & Phil Thrawn


The Details

From Kristina Cizas:

In the 3 shows I've seen so far, I've now heard everything off YWGTTM except Lee and Love Set Fire... and I'll be surprised if they play either of those anytime soon. :) I was up front, in the middle of a group from Case Western who held up a sign over one of the girls' head "Murray, I want your baby." Oy. He handled it very well. :) Set list was pretty standard. Even as close as I was, I was unable to see (or understand through that dratted megaphone) what Mike is reading from during "Sahara." It almost looked like the author was Dante but the title seemed too long, and the book seemed too short. Help, anyone? I'll let someone else go into more detail, but suffice it to say it was a great show and Jian seemed just fine.

From Phil Thrawn:

Since no one else has done it yet, I suppose I should give the rundown on the Cleveland show at the Odeon. It was an interesting show to say the least. Firstly, there were intermittent sound problems. Mur's mic kept cutting out and Jian's had some problems too (he was obviously, visually unhappy). There were some interesting vocal problems as well (though I later found explanations), one of which was a quite involuntary key change:) Talking to Jian and Dave later on, I found out that Jian is just getting over strep throat and Dave is battling his own cold (as opposed to someone else's?). Mike only broke one guitar string close to the end of the show...a personal record for the shows I've seen:) Being a guitar player myself, I only wish there were a way to avoid that. The setlist comprised mostly of songs from YWGTTM, with a few of the usuals mixed in. At one point, a few of the audience members (myself included) shouted "Fell in Love" in an attempt to get them to play the unheard-of-in-concert song. They began to ask us why we always ask for songs that they don't even remember doing, then launched into a parody of the song. When someone asked for Spiderman, it was also met with a different-than-usual version.

Dave had the bad joke of the night. Someone threw a hat up early in the show and encouraged Mur to put it on...which he did. He noticed that there was a Kraft emblem on it. Immediately the mac&cheese jokes started. Suddenly, Dave launched into this impromptu speech about a company in the MiddleEast that was developing a new product. It was to be introduced soon into Western Civilization. It's name: Cheeses of Nazareth. (BOOOOOOOOOOO!) :)

Here's what made the show great. They took a poll at one point to see how many Früvous Virgins there were in the audience. The ratio was about 4:3 newbies to vets. As they played The Drinking Song during the second encore, those of us who had seen them before began the usual swaying with arms around each other. Jian was telling us after the show that he looked out and saw the ENTIRE CROWD doing it, including and most especially, those who had never seen them before. It truly made the show for everyone and they told the crowd they would be back again in the coming months and were definitely looking forward to it.

Now that I have that out of the way, who knows whether Ludlow's is gonna be 21+ or not?

Computer Guy (Thrawn)


The Music

(coming soon!)
Opened with The Set Closed with Encore 1 Encore 2

Misc. Info

Some other tidbits from the performance include:




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