September 27, 2003 - The Thirsty Mind - South Hadley, MA
Henning says: Welcome back to the Thirsty Mind, man. It's been a while. Although Thirsty Mind gigs are a pain because we have to lug a whole sound system over there, they are always really enjoyable. It's warm and comfortable in there and the people are very nice to us. What more could we wish for? There is always that one awkward part of the evening when we just arrive. Inevitably there are people sitting at the tables that we need to move up on the stage. They are deeply immersed in books or laptops and we have to rudely interrupt them moving tables and chairs all over the place and carrying in big ugly speakers and cables. The people never seem to mind, really, but I always feel a little bad for imposing on them. This was our first Thirsty Mind gig without Ken and his colorful synthesized snippets were missed. It took me about 30 minutes before I started to get into the groove of the show. The room was a little less full than past shows, although by the time we finished up it was pretty swinging. The activity pages were enjoyed once again by the kids and adults. Hannah was there and provided just about as much entertainment as we did, she was dancing and making faces at some of the patrons - one sofa-full of girls was overcome by giggles from her cuteness. Musically, I'm not sure if we did anything new. There was the failed attempt of blending the end of the Waiting into the beginning of Omnivore and there was the successful blending of Something's Taking Over into Everybody Loves Martha. Brian, once again sang some great harmonies and I have to agree with him when he speaks of this new aggressive acoustic approach. It's pretty good. Lately, we have been playing without setlists and it's been working ok. In one way it's better because we can contour the show based on the audience reaction, like, if attentions are starting to waver, we can play Photobooth and bring 'em back in. But, sometimes the lack of a setlist makes for some downtime that involves me turning my back to the audience a little too much. A couple people picked up some CDs and we got a request for some child-sized t-shirts. Also, we passed on a couple discs to a Mt. Holyoke DJ. Fridays nights on 91.5 FM. Overall it was a nice show - of course, I haven't brought all the equipment in from my car yet. We don't have anything booked until November 15 at this time. Do you have any gigs for us? Brian Says: SFTD, breaking in the new blood at Mount Holyoke. A new plan of attack: the Violent Femmes school of aggressive playing with brushes and acoustic. We perfected it in New Haven and again the kids loved it in South Hadley. I had a caramel mocha which prompted my quip (after a horrid attempt at high harmonies in "thug") Never mix Lactose and Falsetto. We then turned this into a TV detective team. "Falsetto, enough with the wine and women already, there's crime to be fought downtown." "But-eh, Lactose-eh, I was just about to singa a songa to her, eh?". I thought I was getting sick, maybe because I was getting a bit irritable and stuffy, but that was the caffeine and, yup, lactose. A Jameson's at Harry's changed all that and I was ready to rock my farewell rock with the Fawns. Rock on, Fawns. Speak of me fondly (or Fawndly) on your Behind the Music. Afterhours at Chez Ning El Beez was musical and surreal.