My notes on the Sunday show:

I hope someone taped this one and the Saturday show. Robyn always seems to be in a great mood at Maxwell's. He was very talkative both nights. (His Sunday intro to "Briggs" was one of the funniest, most rapid-fire, free associative things I've heard from him in many years--unfortunately some idiot started shouting out a request in the middle of it, prompting Robyn to have to "shh" him and likely ruining it for the film.)

Saturday's show was a bit more precise, I thought, with Scott's and Morris's harmonies really on target (Morris remembers harmonies from the records that everybody else seems to have forgotten). But Sunday the band was a force of nature. Scott's singing and bass have already been commented on, but Bill's playing is just so fantastic. It's rock and roll, but he brings an almost jazz-like energy at times, and the effect is obvious on the guitarists. Robyn was having more fun on the electric than I've ever seen. Peter looked almost cadaverous on Saturday, though his playing was right on--complementing Robyn's, never overshadowing it--but Sunday night Peter was moving around, posing, obviously enjoying himself. All parties seemed to be more lively on Sunday--Robyn danced with his guitar a lot more and often directed himself to the camera.

The opener with the band was "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat," with Robyn just on fire on the guitar, and the show pretty much continued in this vein. Setlist below is just about right, though with the Minus Three, there was at least one more fantastic new song. It was the second or third song they played, and it had a *very* Dylanesque set of verses--one of the lines very directly references a Dylan song--and Robyn sang it in a wonderful Dylanesque style (more so than usual). The new song written with Buck is good too.

Unfortunately I can't remember any of the lyrics to either one at all, but they were great--bodes well for the next record. I was expecting more unreleased stuff based on what he said on the WNYC interview earlier in the week. (There, if I remember right, he said the point of the film was that they started filming him with the new songs in embryonic form, then filmed with the band in the studio where they recorded the whole thing in a week, and the film will follow them through to being performed live for the first time. I think he said they'll also be filming a show in Seattle.)

It should be a great, whenever it's done. My overall impression of the shows is that Peter, Bill, and Scott are out there supporting an artist whose work they truly admire. I prefer Robyn's acoustic work to most of the rest of it, but I'm really glad he's playing with this band.

James F