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As previously alluded to, we took in the Paul & Storm / Jonathan Coulton show at Johnny D's late last night. I showed up early, all hopped up on an unusually delicious Diesel iced mocha au lait, but due to a wee fire in Park station ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
adfamiliares was delayed, and finally had to take a taxi from Central to Davis. (As we were discussing this option via cell phone, JoCo walked past me and into the front door of Johnny D's. I was insufficiently quick on the uptake to say hi or otherwise express my inner fanboy.) She did make it, as did ultranurd, rigel, and a whole passel of faces I more-or-less recognized from Arisia. Very geeky crowd.
There is one problem with Johnny D's, at least on a night when the Sox are having a pennant game: the bar is full of rowdy yahoos. This was not so bad for Paul & Storm — there are, after all, two of them — but JoCo is a small, sickly1 lad strumming a mellow guitar. Some of his quieter songs got smothered by shouting, and then the Sox achieved an inconveniently timed victory during the second, best-beloved verse of Mandelbrot Set, which made it all but inaudible. (On the other hand, three-run homers in the bottom of the ninth are pretty cool.)
That in mind, the show was faboo. A lot of Paul & Storm's set was familiar to me from their Saratoga Springs show, but they brought some new (to me) material, including a deft series of suppositional style parodies ("Imagine...if They Might Be Giants were the ice cream man!") and a dead hilarious liturgical chant about nun fighting. They also hurled snack cakes at the audience, leading me to cry, "What is this, the Aquabats?" (That led everyone else to eye me warily and ask themselves, "What the hell is an Aquabat?") It's Storm's birthday this weekend, so we got to sing to him, and Paul gave him "the best birthday $30 at CVS could buy." Pamprin was involved.
Coulton mellowly belted out nearly every song I hoped he'd play—Skullcrusher Mountain, Mandelbrot Set, Baby Got Back, I Feel Fantastic, Code Monkey (which actually turned into a three-part version of Good Day Sunshine with Paul & Storm before they got things back on track), I Crush Everything, The Future Soon, and more of your favorite all-time hits! Somewhere in there, he whipped out a Zendrum for an on-the-fly remix of Mister Fancy Pants—it's a bit hard to explain, but imagine an electronic box slung on a strap and afflicted with the Black Plague, and every bubo you touch emits a different audio sample. Only even better! He closed with an audience-participation version of Re: Your Brains, then re-closed with Paul & Storm joining him on a feel-good, singalong, clapalong cover of Neil Diamond's Sweet Caroline (because, y'know, why not?)2.
We got out at about 1:15AM, and I already told you about the trouble getting home. But man, what a show. They all said they love playing Johnny D's, because of the warm—some might say rabidly warm—reception they get, and I believe them. Energy levels were off the charts. P&S got off around 11:00, and I was afraid JoCo wasn't going to be able to bring the room alive again—everyone was sleepy and a little restless at the end of the break—but by the third number he had us in the palm of his soft-rockin' hand.
1 Not sickly enough to keep my fiancée from finding him hot hot hot, apparently.
2 You can watch a version from another concert on YouTube. It rocked more in Somerville.
adfamiliares was delayed, and finally had to take a taxi from Central to Davis. (As we were discussing this option via cell phone, JoCo walked past me and into the front door of Johnny D's. I was insufficiently quick on the uptake to say hi or otherwise express my inner fanboy.) She did make it, as did ultranurd, rigel, and a whole passel of faces I more-or-less recognized from Arisia. Very geeky crowd.There is one problem with Johnny D's, at least on a night when the Sox are having a pennant game: the bar is full of rowdy yahoos. This was not so bad for Paul & Storm — there are, after all, two of them — but JoCo is a small, sickly1 lad strumming a mellow guitar. Some of his quieter songs got smothered by shouting, and then the Sox achieved an inconveniently timed victory during the second, best-beloved verse of Mandelbrot Set, which made it all but inaudible. (On the other hand, three-run homers in the bottom of the ninth are pretty cool.)
That in mind, the show was faboo. A lot of Paul & Storm's set was familiar to me from their Saratoga Springs show, but they brought some new (to me) material, including a deft series of suppositional style parodies ("Imagine...if They Might Be Giants were the ice cream man!") and a dead hilarious liturgical chant about nun fighting. They also hurled snack cakes at the audience, leading me to cry, "What is this, the Aquabats?" (That led everyone else to eye me warily and ask themselves, "What the hell is an Aquabat?") It's Storm's birthday this weekend, so we got to sing to him, and Paul gave him "the best birthday $30 at CVS could buy." Pamprin was involved.
Coulton mellowly belted out nearly every song I hoped he'd play—Skullcrusher Mountain, Mandelbrot Set, Baby Got Back, I Feel Fantastic, Code Monkey (which actually turned into a three-part version of Good Day Sunshine with Paul & Storm before they got things back on track), I Crush Everything, The Future Soon, and more of your favorite all-time hits! Somewhere in there, he whipped out a Zendrum for an on-the-fly remix of Mister Fancy Pants—it's a bit hard to explain, but imagine an electronic box slung on a strap and afflicted with the Black Plague, and every bubo you touch emits a different audio sample. Only even better! He closed with an audience-participation version of Re: Your Brains, then re-closed with Paul & Storm joining him on a feel-good, singalong, clapalong cover of Neil Diamond's Sweet Caroline (because, y'know, why not?)2.
We got out at about 1:15AM, and I already told you about the trouble getting home. But man, what a show. They all said they love playing Johnny D's, because of the warm—some might say rabidly warm—reception they get, and I believe them. Energy levels were off the charts. P&S got off around 11:00, and I was afraid JoCo wasn't going to be able to bring the room alive again—everyone was sleepy and a little restless at the end of the break—but by the third number he had us in the palm of his soft-rockin' hand.
1 Not sickly enough to keep my fiancée from finding him hot hot hot, apparently.
2 You can watch a version from another concert on YouTube. It rocked more in Somerville.
