Live Show: 11/5/99

11/5/99

Champaign, IL

Reviewed by: Tim & Amanda


The Details

Half As Much
Horseshoes
BJ Don't Cry
Independence Day
Sad Girl
I Love My Boss
You Will Go to the Moon
Boo Time
Michigan Militia
Present Tense Tureen
Johnny Saucep'n
Greatest Man in America
I Will Hold On
My Poor Generation
Splatter Splatter
King of Spain/GEH
Get in the Car
Your New Boyfriend
Psycho Killer

Encore 1:
Disco Bargainville

Encore 2:
Lazy Boy
You're Gonna Lose That Girl (AGAIN!!! YESSS!!! And
this time, they sang the first AND second verses,
instead of the second verse twice!)
Drinking Song

Packed place. "Rock star" crowd whose obnoxious screaming during banter threw Jian off a couple of times. But they were loud and appreciative.

Box score: 3 virgins converted, one Beatles song played -- as close to heaven on earth as I'm going to get for a while.

From Amanda:

On an off night, you can see forever.

I'm not one of those people who thinks Fruvous can't play a bad show, I've seen it happen a couple of times, and although I still think a bad Fruvous show is still better than a lot of other bands best show, Friday at the Canopy Club wasn't even close to what they can do.

I don't necessarily fault the band for this, the crowd was unruly and quite loud. I took it upon myself to silence the screamer standing right next to me, even though I had to pull out my most significant Bitch Queen attitude to do it. This guy had interrupted two improvs with his shouting, and he was right in front of Jian, who looked tired, even in his spiffy Led Zepplin tee.

That tee was the basis for a hysterical Mike-Dave bit about Zamfir's new album where he'd play the hits of Led Zepplin. The show definitely had its moments, and that was one of them.

Half and Horseshoes sounded muddy.

Mur and Jian had a great bit about Mur's outfit near the beginning, in which Jian declared that Mur looked smashing, which he did in black jeans, a black polyester shirt with squares and shiny new shoes. Mur said he didn't look "fetching, not like Dave; women see Dave and say 'fetch him for me.'" They settled on smashing, then Indy sounded slow, but as always, I was into the keyboards. It was nice to hear this again.

They did King, which was really not very good, but this may have been one of those nights when they really *had* to do it. Green followed up, and I tell you, I wasn't expecting much, but it was terrific. At the Not the Beatles break, Jian starts, and Mur comes to stand behind him, tapping a drumstick in his hand as a threat. "Rule one of the Fight Club, always have a bass player to back you up." Then Jian points to Mike and starts with the "look what you've done to him!" Mike grabs the glitter cap, puts it on, picks up the bag and starts walking toward Dave while he mumbles parts of "Leavin' on a Jet Plane"

Dave responds "I've made him sing John Denver songs?" Jian replies "You've turned him into Chantal Kreuziak (sp?)!" Then Mike charges Dave, who ducks out of the way. "I had no idea he was going to turn into a bull."

The show sort of coalesced at that point. It was strange to hear My Poor Generation not at the end of a show, but the slightly slower version was really nice, one of my favorite versions yet. The other note from a Thornhill song, Dave seemed to put a little bit more force behind the guitar in IWHO, but it was definitely gone by Cincinatti.

Other observations: on an off night, it might be better to pass over Get in the Car right after Green; Dave was obviously worn out. And Video Bargainville rocks in the first encore spot, two thumbs up for that setlist choice.

They closed with the Drinking Song, and the sing-along was great. We linked arms and swayed back and forth and sang our hearts out. I was pretty much willing to forgive anything that had happened during the show just for those moments of togetherness.


The Music

Opened with The Set Closed with Encore 1 Encore 2

Misc. Info

Some other tidbits from the performance include:




Back to the tour dates 1999 page