All the Concerts Fit to Print

It was New Rock 102.1's Mistletoe Jam at The Rave, in Milwaukee. The Rave has a big ballroom upstairs, a theater in the basement, a bar, and the place on the ground level where this show was. It's kind of a small ballroom, I guess. It was packed. It was the first time I had ever seen the balcony level open. Very smoky. The opening act was a band called The Oprahs. It was a local band made up of what looked like teenagers. They weren't bad. Then were The Donnas. They were okay. A hard rock chick band.

The Femmes went on at about 10:30 and played for an hour and a half. The sound sucks at The Rave. The beams in the ceiling reverberate the bass, so the high end gets lost. It was all drums and bass, with Gordon's vocals. I had trouble hearing the guitar. They also had a few technical difficulties. And you wouldn't think it would matter, but the Horns of Dilemma were badly mixed.

Most of the songs were from their first two albums. They opened with "Country Death Song." I think the second song was "I Hear the Rain." I love that one. A little bit into the show, Gordon came on stage with a violin. Ritchie said something about not playing it in many years, or maybe since they recorded Hallowed Ground (I'm not sure). First, Gordon sang a little hymn, a capella - "O Come Emmanuel". Then they went into "Jesus Walking on the Water." Gordon started out strumming the violin like a mandolin, but then did the violin solos. I had never seen him play the violin. Very cool. Then he played it again on the next song, which I can't remember. They did the usual selection of songs from the first album, but fewer because of the somewhat short show. Peter Balestrieri played sax on several songs, including "I Held Her in My Arms," but he's not really that good. They had a guy on keyboards for quite a few songs, but I was only able to pick out the sound of it for a few seconds during one song. Gordon sang "Merry Christmas Brother", from his solo record (his sister sings it on the record).

Ritchie had quite a variety of basses. In addition to his usual acoustic and electric basses, he had the one-string stick (which he used for "Dance Motherfucker, Dance"), and two that I've never seen him play. One was an old fashioned washtub bass, where you push the stick to change the pitch. The other was an electric "washtub" bass - just a stick on a stand. Other than that, I think he only played the xylophone and conch shell.

Victor was as goofy as ever. He was really wild for a few songs. Arms flailing...

It had its highlights, but the sound was bad, and the floor was packed. overall I was disappointed. Add to that the smoke, dehydration, close quarters and the hoarse throat - I was sick the next day.

This was a fun show, as you can probably imagine. They always do goofy things.

At one point, they came onstage with big baby doll heads on poles. The heads had long dark hair teased out on the top and sides. The mouths moved when the Johns pulled triggers, so the baby doll heads were singing whatever song it was at the moment.

My best memory was of "Battle for the Planet of the Apes". In this song, John Flansburgh and John Linnell would play guitar and keyboards, respectively, and the audience would shout "People! People! People!" over and over. We'd do this for a short time, and then the bassist and drummer (they both had the same first name, and I can't remember what it was, dammit!) [Danny Weinkauf and Dan Hickey] would play for a little bit while the audience shouted "Apes! Apes! Apes! Apes!" We'd go back and forth for a while, until a winner emerged - whichever pair of musicians that the audience seemed to have more enthusiasm for. The Johns seemed a bit surprised that the "apes" had won this time.

This was at The Rave, and they had seven bands. Downstairs on The Rave stage, were Smack Melon, Fig Dish, Everclear and Letters to Cleo. Upstairs in The Eagles Ballroom were The Amps, Elastica and Sonic Youth. A bunch of people went, some in costume, all friends of Phil and Laura's. Wendy among them.

I'm guessing I saw The Amps, since that was a project of Kim Deal, so I'm sure I enjoyed them. I know I saw Elastica, and I'm sure they were good. I remember a bit of Sonic Youth, including their free-form noise jam at the end. The rest of our group may have left before the end of the show, or maybe I just had to catch up with them somewhere else, since I recall making the decision to stay and watch. Maybe they had gone downstairs to see Letters to Cleo.

I think this was my first show at the Rave, on the ground floor (The Eagles Ballroom is upstairs). I think there were two opening acts. I have no idea who the first one was, but I remember the bassist came out to the edge of the stage and sung a song off-mike. They seemed like a local band. Rather loose, performance-wise. I think the Silos were next. I really don't remember it at all, though, so that's just a guess.

Cracker was great. I didn't have the album at the time, so I went on the strength of their two hits, "Teen Angst (What the World Needs Now)" and "Low". I loved the show and soon bought the album. Good old fashioned rock and roll, and alt-country, with David Lowery's sense of humor.