From: owner-edheads-digest@efohio.com (edheads-digest) To: edheads-digest@smoe.org Subject: edheads-digest V1 #65 Reply-To: edheads@efohio.com Sender: owner-edheads-digest@efohio.com Errors-To: owner-edheads-digest@efohio.com Precedence: bulk edheads-digest Tuesday, October 13 1998 Volume 01 : Number 065 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [none] [atemple ] of biker pool parties and borscht: EFO 11/9/98 [Colleen Campbell Subject: [none] Hey everybody, My name is Adam and I am originally from Greenville, SC where I faithfully attended EFO shows since I was a junior in high school and you could get tickets the night of the show. Well, I decided to go to school here at old UT in Knoxville, TN, and to my dismay and horrer I found out that EFo plays nowhere near here. Well, I was thrilled to death to find out today that there is a new place opening here and who is preforming at the Grand Opening? You guessed it. I am so pumped I might just have to take classes off tomorrow as a holiday. Anyway, I just wanted to share the joy. Ya'll take it easy, Adam ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1998 10:27:12 -0400 From: Colleen Campbell Subject: of biker pool parties and borscht: EFO 11/9/98 Eddie From Ohio, Club Passim, Cambridge, Saturday October 9th, 10 p.m. late show. I've seen half a dozen EFO shows before, and I expect I'll see a good many in the future, but this one set a new standard for me, and I doubt anything will surpass it in a long time. Not that the band isn't welcome to try. :) It wasn't just the setlist, which I loved; there was something more than that, a really strong connection with the audience, who really seemed to "get it"; a comfort with the venue, and an exuberance in playing, even though it was the second set and didn't start until 11 p.m. They opened, to my surprise, with "Train Song," which I generally think of as a closing, keeping-the-energy-high-on-the-way-out sort of song. But it worked really well, with an homage in the middle to their "favorite local bluegrass group: Aerosmith!" They were playing from _Big Noise_ for the first four songs, as they went from there into "Omar Has a Problem," "Gravity," and "I Don't Think I Know Me." "Gravity" was dedicated to Eddie, who apparently celebrated a birthday recently whereon he went skydiving. Someone quipped that he'd also celebrated it by buying a Porsche, and the rest of the band gave him looks and commented that, yeah, he did count the money at the end of the night. . . hmmm. . .okay, maybe this song isn't dedicated to Eddie after all. When doing the intro to "I Don't Think I Know Me," they told a rambling, hilarious story about playing a gig in a "would-be park" in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, a glorified parking lot with a flatbed truck for a stage and a bikers' pool party blaring in the background. They shifted tone after that and went into "Not Enough Gold." Always catches me by surprise, how quick the snaps are in that thing and just how long I can go before my fingers start giving out. Then they spoke of the borscht they'd been served the night before ("You don't know what it is? Well, we're big borscht fans now, believe us.") by Vika, and dedicated the next song, "30 Second Love Affair," to her. The crowd was delighted with it. It's off Robbie's solo album, which Mike pointed out afterwards, saying that Robbie's too bashful to say so himself. I dunno about the bashful part, myself: during the high-kicks section of "Bookends," which followed, he came close to kicking in an audience member's head. EFO shows double as gladiator events, apparently. . . After that, they spoke of how good it was to have an extra day in town: they'd been able to do a radio show on WUMB and then visit friends, where they got wonderful massages that had allowed them to do the aforementioned high kicks. So they were playing the next song, which had been requested by their massage therapist. They suggested that anyone could set up a trade system like that and that Julie might want a pedicure and Robbie, a waxing. Then they did a hilarious "Doin' Time Under the Lifeguard Stand." Julie was deadpan, snapping like a blase backup singer and shouting "Polo!" into the mic almost cacophonously; Mike hammed up the "lech" personality and then the chastened adult, still doin' time: "I'm just here to show my son how to swim!. . . I'm thirty two years old. . . This sucks!. . . Jimmy, go get daddy some hummus. . ." They followed it by another request, a punchy, throaty version of Willie Dixon's "29 Ways." What a great cover! They were introducing "Jerusalem," and Mike explained that it was from their blue album. He got ribbing about how they identify their albums by colors: "We can't read." Then Robbie quipped, "Of course, conceptually, all of our albums are `White Album's." Jerusalem was a good "catch a breather from all the laughing" break and a lovely song, with its call for peace. The lull didn't last for long, though, as they kicked into a new song, "Maylie, I Had a Dream." They intro'ed it by mentioning that Willy Porter (who would be playing at the venue soon) had opened for them and had a great gift for turning anything the audience could feed him into a good song. One woman had stood up and said that she wanted this to be a song, how she felt about her significant other: "you're a loser, and I'm a loser, but together, we're winners." Their own upcoming song, they said, was slightly different: "You're a loser, and I'm not." The audience howled. They talked about how sometimes you can't get out of a relationship, you try everything but actually saying the magic words, "It's not you, it's me. I don't like you." The new song had a lot of interesting harmonies, different tempos in it, and was terrifically sardonic: the voice was that of someone who'd dreamed his lover to be killing him gruesomely and was suggesting that maybe they should break up. It opened, "You gave me a kittycat; I almost cried. I'm allergic to kittycats. . . and I think you knew that," and it closed, "You gave me a kittycat, and that's okay. My dog eats kittycats" (paraphrasing). They noted that the response was lukewarm, that the audience thought them cruel, and said they needed to bring the karma back up by singing a pro-kittycat song, which they forthwith did: "There's nothing wrong with kittycats, there's nothing wrong with kittycats." End of song. It was a riot! Next followed three of my favorites, "The Old Dominion" (Robbie stealing the videocamera of some tourists to film them in return), "Oh My Brother" (they *really* put themselves into it, with a tremendous response), and the massively popular "The Bridge," (I keep thinking Eddie's going to run out of ways to go crazy on those drums, and he keeps effortlessly proving me wrong). "Operator" also got a big cheer; I felt like I was at a revival, clapping along. For their first encore, Mike intro'ed the song as being about "three not-so-seaworthy broads." Quickly deciding he'd probably offended someone by not being PC, he corrected himself, "Girls! girls!" and then skittered into a quick take on the previous karma-raising song, "There's nothing wrong with girls, there's nothing wrong with girls!" Then, of course, they launching "Three Fine Daughters of Farmer Brown." The second encore, a special treat, was their full-throated a cappella rendition of a song from a solo album of Julie's, the "Irish Blessing." It was a perfect end to a gloriously energetic and lovely set. And until I see them again, may god hold them all in the palm of his hand. . . Colleen Colleen Campbell o/~ Fruphoria! o/~ ceecee@fruvous.com "You called in sick?" "Well, what was I going to do--call in ecstatic?" ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1998 11:14:47 -0400 From: Jim Merullo Subject: Re: of biker pool parties and borscht: EFO 11/9/98 Colleen Campbell wrote: > > Eddie From Ohio, Club Passim, Cambridge, Saturday October 9th, 10 p.m. late > show. I went to the 7:00 show at Passim, and felt the same amazing energy from the band as well as the audience. It was only my second time seeing them, the first being a couple of weeks ago at the Boston Folk Fest. It sounds like the set list was similar (including some of the same dialogue and jokes), with a few exceptions. They did "29 ways", and said they were rehearsing it for the 10:00 show. From the way they did the song, they didn't need any rehearsal. The funny part of being in the basement at Passim is that people keep walking by and watching through the window. At one point Mike noticed someone watching and he decided to ham it up with some "rock star moves". Very funny stuff. The woman watching didn't realize the whole room was looking back at her. During Eddie's solo, Mike and Robbie just kept looking at him with this amazed look on their faces. I got the impression that even though they watch him do that every night, they are still impressed by it. Can't wait to see them next time they come this way. I'm hooked, I got my wife hooked, and next time I hope to bring some friends and get them hooked as well. Jim ------------------------------ End of edheads-digest V1 #65 ****************************