This was the first full show I'd seen in a while (well, relatively speaking). I'd seen Fruvous at this venue last fall, right at the beginning of the YNB tour. Good room, very cool town. Was looking forward to returning to Burlington.
Vika, Colleen, Mary and I left Boston around 4:30 on Friday night. Boston traffic being what it is, we didn't really get moving till about 6:30. The show was slated to start at nine, but we were counting on the universal truth that no concert ever starts on time. After a bunch of fast and slow driving (we seemed to hit every traffic jam imaginable), fog from another planet, and Vika pushing her car to its limits, we made it to Burlington (and to the venue) by around 9:30.
Thankfully, the opener hadn't even started yet. Her name was Shuron (with the emphasis on the last syllable of her name). Very tall woman with a guitar. :-) She had an amazing voice; very deep, very powerful. I fell in love with her music instantly, and she performed from about ten to eleven or so. While there, met up with Adam H (and his cousin I believe?), Paul (and his friend, can't remember her name), Jo, Jen, Chris/Moe, Toby (he was so happy the venue had the original Space Invaders video game), Nate Deroes, and other frufans and friends.
Fruvous came on around 11:30, played for two hours, and delivered a fairly standard, yet super-energetic set. I was right in the front row (haven't been there in quite a while), and from the first dumbek hit of Sahara to the final "blurred" in The Drinking Song, I was completely in sync with the show, no worries, having a great time. Gotta love Fruvous' ability to lift you away from your problems, if only for the duration of a concert.
After the show (about 1:30), we rounded up the troops (Vika, Colleen, Mary, and me) and we left almost immediately, since we were heading back to Boston that night. Left Burlington at two, I got a "speeding warning" on the way to Rutland to drop Colleen off at Solarfest (arrived around 3:30), then headed back to Boston, arriving around 7:30 in the morning. Nothing's more depressing than driving through the whole night, watching the sun rise, and realizing you still have another hour of driving before you can finally get some sleep. :-)
All driving adventures considered, it was an amazing time. Can't wait to see everyone at the Toronto bonus weekend...
From Adam Hartfield:
WHTMATBVTMFC
(What Happened To Me At The Burlington Vermont Moxy Fruvous Concert)
Concert date - July 17, 1998. Venue: Club Metronome, Burlington, VT.
Waking up by falling out of bed fortunately was not an inauspicious beginning to my day Friday. I hied it up to my aunt and uncle's farm in Plainfield, VT, right quick. I hung out there until 6:30, when my cousin Ginny and I drove through horrible thunderstorms on I-89 to get to Burlington. After circling the block several times, we finally found a place to park, and went into the club at 8. The venue was shaped like a large J, with the bar and lounge area in the semicircle at the bottom of the J and the main performance space along the long part of the J with the stage at the top. The stage was tiny - maybe 15 feet by 10 feet.
We were some of the first patrons for the concert that was supposed to start at 9. Armed with gin and tonics, we drank some, and chatted with Tobey, who was busy playing the arcade version of Asteroids. Ginny and I then played a game of pool. By this time it was about 8:40, and the club was still virtually deserted. We sat down, and me being the extrovert that I am, I struck up a conversation with the couple at the next table - Paul from Enfield, CT, which is just across the border for me, and Andrea Krause, also from CT. We chit-chatted for a while and bemoaned the fact that the opening act wasn't starting.
Eventually the opener, Sharon, pronounced like the boatman of the river Styx, came on. She has a very deep voice for a woman, and ably accompanied herself on electric guitar. She was good, but Ginny and I later agreed that she needed a band behind her and that all her songs sounded the same. I took a picture of her performing and will scan it in if it develops OK. She played bluesy my-lover-did-me-wrong/I'm-so- lonely-I-could-cry songs from 10 till 11.
In the meantime, Chris O'Malley, Vika Zafrin, Colleen Campbell, and Mary Krause showed up. They had trekked up from Boston at warp factor 9.5. I hadn't met Mary before, so this was especially nice for me. Chris & Moe showed up at some point - I saw them later after the show started. Other than those six people, and me of course, I didn't see many people that I recognized from the newsgroup or IRC. Colleen and I started chatting to a woman standing next to us, who was seeing Frvous live for the first time. She was really nice, and I hope she posts to the ng or comes into IRC. Colleen - did you get her name? I didn't. She said if she posted it'll be from something called ThetSig - a combination of theta and sigma - but when we were talking about it I was so tired that I couldn't pay as much attention as I would've liked. Anyway. Before the show started, as we were directly in front of Jian in the second row, I told her to beware drunk women shoving their way to the front. She looked at me incredulously and laughed it off, but I got the last laugh when it did, in fact, occur.
Frvous came out at around 11:15. I was so close to the stage, and the stage was only about 2 feet higher than floor level, that I felt a level of intimacy that I've not felt at other concerts. Plus I'm usually in the corner in front of Murray, so being in the center was a new experience for me. I couldn't look at them all at once, and that took getting used to.
Here's the setlist:
Extended Sahara. Just keeps getting better and better.
Jockey Full Of Bourbon. Great song, but not one of my favorites.
BJ Don't Cry. This one makes me dance.
Banter - Tony Esposito Sweat. Who?
Half As Much. Somebody said something a few weeks ago about the new backing vocals being wonderful, and they are.
Horseshoes. Ahhhhhh.
I Will Hold On. More good stuff.
Pisco Bandito. This song rocks. I adore it.
Mistra Know-It-All. This was unexpected but wonderful!
Gotta Get A Message To You, unaccompanied version. Great, great, great, but the noise level from the back half of the room was incredibly loud. Seems the majority of the people were drinking and talking. The Nerve!
Banter - Human Flesh In A Pipe. I have no idea what they were talking about.
Tease - Safety Dance
Michigan Militia
Johnny Saucep'n
No No Raja
King Of Spain
Green Eggs & Ham (I don't know the difference between the long and short versions so can't comment on which this was)
My Baby Loves a Bunch of Authors - another favorite of mine, live or recorded.
Get In The Car - I don't care what anyone (Jordan!) says, I love this song, live or recorded. It always makes me want to dance. I might add here that dancing was tough due to the density of the first few rows of audience. So I therefore improvised - I grabbed Ginny's arms (she was right in front of me) and acted like a puppet master. She told me after the show that Murray saw this and was cracking up, but I wasn't watching him at that point. In addtion to close quarters, some very drunk people had by this time shoved their way right next to me, and they kept talking to each other. The second time they tried to pass me I did not move out of the way for them. Damn rude people! Love Potion #9 Medley - I'm not sure what the first thing was, but there was Stayin' Alive, Love Shack, and Who Will Save Your Soul in there as well.
I can't read the next one. It may have been a medley component, or a standalone song - I don't remember.
Encore 1: Laika. Woo hoo!!!!! Psycho Killer
Encore 2: The Drinking Song. The background noise level was SO LOUD on this was. It was the exact opposite of the way I've heard this song at the Iron Horse, where a pin could drop and you'd hear it. Not so this time. Feh.
After the show ended, I managed to go introduce myself to Nate De Rose, and that was cool. He's a member of the roB! Johnson/Dave Tobey lookalike club. Heh. Also, I managed to take about 20 pictures, and once I get them back I will scan them in and forward to Chris for inclusion @ FDC.
I'm sure there's much I'm forgetting, and if I left you out, please do email me at the address below (not the hotmail one). I look forward to seeing whoever's going to the SONO festival in Connecticut on 8/1.
From Paul Beasi:
Greetings fellow früheads!
I figured it was time to get off my rump and start posting something here more often, especially now that I've met many of you at some of the past shows. I haven't seen a review of this particular show yet, so I guess I'll offer my two cents worth!
We got to Burlington a little early after we settled into our hotel room (and hit one mother of a storm on the way) so we found a parking garage (more on this almost sad story later) and went over to Nectars, below the club. Moxy was doing the sound check, so we listened for a couple of minutes and then went into Nectars. We didn't recognize anyone hanging around so we ate and then walked around the streets of Burlington checking out the shops.
On our way back toward the club, we saw Jian walking toward us (actually stumbling toward us, he tripped on something) and we exchanged "hello's" and kept on going. We also saw Dave, but he was walking down the street talking to a woman (who we later saw) at the show and we didn't want to bother them.
Anyway, the doors were open and we went inside. Nice layout, but it was 8:30 and there was NO ONE there! A few people were sitting at the tables and we decided to sit down too. Both of us were in the middle of bad colds with lots of coughing (if anyone gets sick, i humbly apologize) and we just wanted to relax a bit. I met Adam and his cousin and found out that we live about 10 minutes from each other. Then Vika, Chris, CeeCee and Mary showed up somewhat later (which was OK, the opening act didn't go on until 10!). Those of you who we met for the first time, it was nice meeting you! The opening act went on (I forget her name) and I thought she was pretty good, but it had been a long day and I was anxious for the guys to come out.
They did of course, and they opened with the extended version of Sahara. I was hoping they would and each time I hear it it gets better and better. Jockey and BJ were next, the latter sans bullhorn. We noticed Cal fumbling around with 2 of them earlier, I guess they were having problems. Anyway, I don't remember the whole set list but they played some of the new songs, the first one sung by Mike that I don't remember the name of. They also played Pisco Bandito (yay!) and a song that I just cannot get out of my head called "I Will Hold On" which I've heard twice now. I absolutely love that song and cannot wait until I can own it.
The crowd was mostly made up of people who hadn't seen Moxy live before, and I'm guess many of them had never even heard much of their stuff. There was a lot of chattering during the songs and little participation. The first two rows from the stage (and mostly on the left side) seemed to be where most of the noise came from during songs like King of Spain, GE&H, Boo Time, and The Drinking Song (more about that in a bit). There were also some really annoying people to the left who kept making fun of people who knew the words and motions of some songs and one guy with a beer who kept turning around and screaming "yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!" for no apparent reason. Meanwhile, I was losing my voice, coughing uncontrollably (sorry if I bothered anyone :( ), and feeling faint. But I perservered longer than I should have been able to -- I guess I was running on frü-backup power. I'm glad we thought to get a hotel room. Speaking of which, how was your ride home Vika/Chris/etc. ?
Anyway, despite the crowd I think Moxy was performing at their best. Among the songs they've been playing lately to promote Live Noise, we heard "He's Misstra Know-It-All" and Laika (!!!) which was dedicated to Cal. The Drinking Song participation was disastrous. I only heard voices (mine rapidly fading) from the first two rows singing. The whole back of the room was chatting noisily away, and you could see in Jian's face that he was rightfully upset. They had even prefaced the song by saying that if the song was a sing-a-long, and that people who didn't know the words should instead drink while other people were singing to keep from talking. Oh well, the BAND was awesome as usual. I just wish the crowd could have respected them a little more!
Anyway, Andrea and I were wiped out and feeling really terrible. We just wanted to go back to the hotel, so I'm sorry we didn't stick around and chat and pulled a vanishing act. We're planning to see the Syracuse show so we'll hopefully see some of you there (we'll be looking for you, Mary!).
** End of Moxy content -- silly story follows! **
We got back to the parking garage and found out that it was closed! We didn't see the sign on the way in that said it closed at nine. We could still get inside, but all the bars were down. We looked for a security guard, but none was found. We were going take a taxi to the hotel ($$) but we saw someone else trying to get out. They had found an envelope in their door handle with details on how to pay after-hours. However, this didn't solve the problem on how to get out. Their solution was to drive THROUGH the bar, which pushed it up a little and damaged the bar. Now, I like my car a lot and didn't want to be damaging their property so we went to my car in hopes of finding a better solution. The people evidently didn't see the sign that said that that exit was closed and to use the other one which we did. Unfortunately, I lost my bearings getting out on a different side and got lost for awhile. :) Oh well, we're alive.
Anyway, talk to you all later. I'll try to find time to post more often, I do read the group a lot.
From the yellow Club Metronome pamphlet:
They say ya gotta hear 'em live. Luckily the band has released
a much requested live album, LIVE NOISE. Fruheads can now experience
the band's four part vocals, impromptu songs and stage banter in the
privacy of their homes. MOXY FRUVOUS began performing a cappella on the
streets of Toronto in 1990. Their first cassette release went gold in
6 months. Rabid Fruheads have formed an annual Fruhead Convention in Toronto
and they are sure to travel to this show. Hurry up and get your ticket
today. PHISH isn't the only band with a travelling circus-like fanbase.
Some other tidbits from the performance include:
Back to the tour dates 1998 page