Okay. I've posted the setlist on the setlist thread, but here is a more detailed report on the show that I've just gotten back from.
First, let me say that I have had a hellacious week at work. I got home tonight just in time to watch my Heels give their best against Duke in the ACC quarterfinals (like any of you care).
Anyway, I had really been looking forward to this show, but my week made it such that I had not really been able to get as excited as I had hoped to be. We live about 5 minutes from the Verizon and arrived about 8:45. I think Neil Hannon was just finishing up his set. I say I think, because when we finally got in to the venue itself, the opening was over. He either played a really short set, they started obscenely early or both. Oh well, and I had kinda wanted to finally see a decent opener after suffering through Citizen Cope.
Ben came on stage at 12 past 9...those of you planning on showing up "fashionably late" beware. The intro was the theme from Goldfinger. The Verizon is a great venue, but it is almost too versatile. We've got a couple of really good 400-500 capacity venues here and the Summit at 15,000. Verizon is the tweener...we've seen Pumpkins and Mary Chapin Carpenter there. Tonight was set for a standing crowd with some low risers in the back of the room. There may have been as many as 600 there tonight...making it somewhat less intimate than desirable.
Boxing was followed by Z&S, on which he f*cked up the second verse singing "She saw the lights, she saw the pale...oh wait, I just f*cked that up didn't I." He then got back on track. Eddie was followed by Annie.
As he introduced One Down he said some record contracts require the artist to put "red M&Ms in a condom" to give to the label; his required 4.6 more songs. He introduced Still Fighting It as his first song on Free from the Man Records.
Battle with fairly weak crowd doo...doo...doos was followed by Philosophy which he ended by doing a microphone tap on the piano strings. Then Stan, Kate, and Fred preceded RTS. He said it was originally named "Korn sucks" but thought any song with Korn in the title really would suck. Audience participation was better for Army's horns. OAD closed the main set.
He came back for the encore saying "I just checked the computer to see what we have never played in Houston." Evaporated ended with several lighters in the air. That led to a story about Coliseum shows where he used to go see Heart, Kansas and Seger. He said the only Coliseum show they ever did was opening for the Foo Fighters where no one knew who the f*ck they were. But there were lots of lighters. Shut the f*ck Up followed with a snippet of Free Bird. He then took a written request and played DCYP.
Finally he talked about major chord = happy, minor = sad, diminished = going to hell, and augmented = going to heaven. He finished up with SFTD...a very different version. Not a particular favorite for me (I like the original and even the version from the fall...but this fell flat for me).
10:30 and it was all over. We got a new solo tour long sleeved black t-shirt with dates on the back. After such a long week we just were not up to hanging out after to visit. There were only 10-15 waiting as we drove past the back of the Verizon on the way home.
A great show, but not as great as the Bowery. And I've now seen three shows since July 2001 and haven't yet heard the Luckiest
. This marks the 7th overall time to see BF/F and still no Emaline even though I was shouting it at the top of my lungs 10+ times tonight.
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For some reason, the above song really seemed to fit the occasion. And it got me wondering as to what Ben's inspiration for the song was being that he's probably about a year or so away from his 20th.