September 24, 2003 - Harry's - Northampton, MA - with: McGowan, Spouse
Henning says: On Wednesday we played at Harry's. McGowan was the opener and Spouse was the headliner. We were the sandwich meat. It had been a long blurry day of back-pain, muscle relaxers and pain killers. By the time I got to Harry's my back was feeling a little better but I couldn't turn my head or do much moving at all. I showed up at Harry's and Spouse was already on the stage with all their stuff sound checking. Jose offered us the use of any of their equipment - that made the evening so much more enjoyable. McGowan took the stage and played a really nice set of beautiful songs. He's got a strong Rufusy voice and a bunch of good songs. I had only seen him once before when he played second guitar for Ben Lee opening for Fountains of Wayne, but somehow he recognized me from seeing me backstage that night. He remembered Lesa, too. Must have a good brain for faces. We played a fast and aggressive set. Brian says that when he uses someone else's drum set, sometimes he take on the persona of that person. In this case he was playing J.J. O'Connell's kit, so his drumming was very muscular and concise. It made for a fun slightly different show. I was doing my best just to keep focused on what was going on. Part way through the show, I saw Alex Johnson grab a seat right up front and for some reason that made me really happy. During One Lady Dancing, Bartender Lisa got up front and danced away under the swirling lights. Spouse took the stage after us and put on a great concert. J.J. and Don were running back and forth between drum set and percussion set. Brian went on stage and joined them by singing their super-awesome hit song Wonder Woman. He did a great job. Jose is a rock star. Brian Says: SFTD at Harry's, with Spouse. Ning wrote well about it. I did drum aggressively, but not so precisely. I think it was just "they have two drummers, I'm gonna play with double the productivity" See what a bargain I am, Ning? I was embarrassed by my duet with Jose on Wonder Woman. It's such a classic song that I've put on mixes and stuff and I still never knew it has something to do with The X- Files. I was underwhelmed by my cameo, so I left as soon as I finished (I also had to get up in 5 1/2 hours) Tony Says: Henning- severe neck pain, Max- hand ailment, Brian- exhaustion. Yeah, what's my excuse? Yep, I just didn't play well at this show. The highlight for me was entirely solipsistic. After making up a set list, I entertained myself by making fake songwriting credits to all the songs. Sorta like this: Overs (Rodgers/Ohlenbusch/Hart) Photobooth Curtain (Lennon/Ohlenbusch/McCartney) Omnivore (Tinker/Evers/Ohlenbusch/Chance) Uncomfortable (Sacco/Ohlenbusch/Vanzetti) Oh my, the wit- i bet a copy of that setlist is selling on ebay right now for several hundred thousand million dollars.