Jennifer O'Connor opened.

Photos by Countfeed on Flickr

Review by Greg McG
"You showed up at the Robyn Hitchcock & The Venus 3 concert alone and found it was delayed and you're standing in a weird, red-tinted room for a long time with nothing to do. You're gonna go sit on the Philly sidewalk instead.

"Excuse me. Excuse me? Excuse me? You got the wrong salad!"

"No don't worry... I..."

"We gave you the wrong - oh, he eatin' it already!"

"Don't worry; I like bacon." *smiles*

"You sure?"

"Yep!"

Then I hit Record, crossed the street, and entered Johnny Brenda's.

Was that Jon Stewart?

Scott McCaughey is the most unassuming man in the world! He makes Jeff Lynne look high-maintenance. He is a workingman's Jeff Lynne. He is also the lead singer of The Minus 5, formerly of Young Fresh Fellows, and has been in R.E.M.'s touring lineup since 1995.

Bill Rieflin has the face of a thirty-five-year-old and the hair of a ninety-year-old. I want to know where he buys his food and his air. Bill is R.E.M.'s new touring drummer and, formerly, the drummer in Ministry.

That's Peter Buck's Rickenbacher guitar. Or his replica of the original. And those are his guitar pedals, within sneezing distance. And that guy looks like Peter Buck because he's Peter Buck. Long-haired and reminding me of R.E.M.'s 1991 BBC acoustic performance.

If Tall Guy In Front Of Me needs to go piss or get a beer, I am literally leaning on the stage directly in front of one of my lifelong musical heroes. Tall Guy In Front Of Me proves to be wise and does not miss a moment of this rock & roll heaven on earth.

And I call it heaven before I've even mentioned Robyn. Robyn climbs on-stage dressed as the ugliest couch from 1973 you've ever seen. Clearly, Peter and Robyn like to stop the van at the United States' best thrift stores.

He opens with "I Often Dream Of Trains" and I am nearly moved to tears, soaking in the joy of being so close to so many of my favorite musicians.

Peter's guitar intros vaguely remind you of "Moral Kiosk" or "Romance," but they work every time.

Robyn is just as good between songs as he is during songs. He explains that he misses the "permed" guitar cables of the 1970s. He also loves the fact that Girard Street has "streetcars."

"One of the good things about being young is that you can't remember being old. And, also, you have time for things that are implanted in you to hatch out. So, say you're young, you're seventeen or eighteen, and you're in a coma. Something quite large, kind of sits astride you, like a big probe goes inside you, probably through the pineal gland there. Coming out, kind of teasing the thyroid, then making its way down through the sternum and esophagus and gestating in the spleen. Nothing appears to happen; you just get up and go, "hmm," scratch your head like an ape, have a banana, and carry on with your life. But maybe forty or fifty years later, something hatches out and that's called your youth. You think, "wow, what's this youth doing inside me, 'cause I'm just a portly middle-aged geezer who doesn't do any of these things anymore." But oh ho ho, inside you; that's your youth. And such people are described in this song which is wheeled into the public arena by Bill like a newly narcoleptized patient in urgent need or surgery which only he can provide. OBSERVE."

"This is a postcard from the future sent from a man in the past."

"Last time we were here, we were in Australia! And because we were in Australia, we played the last song upside-down."

I knew I was greedy, but I was really aiming high when I decided to secretly record the show directly in front of Robyn and the nine-foot-tall Peter while I was ALSO dancing and occasionally taking photos!

I am lucky enough to be a new fan of Robyn's, and every concert I attend or listen to is chock full of old standards that I'm hearing for the first time. "She Doesn't Exist" is heartbreaking.

"Freebird" and "Whipping Post" requests are roughly as funny as the Michael Steele and the GOP are "off-the-hook." But, repeating the joke between MULTIPLE songs? And yelling, "play something good?" "Peter Buck, how about some Byrds?" Robyn, sipping tea all night, is sharp and focused and deals with it quickly.

The drunk immediately responded, "I'm WITH you, Robyn. I LOVE you. I'm WITH you."

"This [set] is just going past like a bar of soap on an ice rink during a high wind in a wind tunnel during a cyclone when a tornado has happened to occur at the same time. And it's Daylight Savings."

You may have heard "Up To Our Nex" in Jonathan Demme's brilliant 'Rachel Getting Married.' The Venus 3 Bo Diddley-ify it to great effect.

The main set closed with "The Authority Box" and its unforgettable refrain of "FUCK ME, BABY; I'M A TROLLEY BUS!"

The encore included, among other selections, a good cover of The Beatles' "I Got A Feeling" and the title track of his new LP, 'Goodnight Oslo.'

I waited until Peter was about four feet away, and, preparing myself for one of the more surreal events of my life, I tilted my head up, looked Peter in the eyes and asked him if he'd check out the note I wrote him. He took it and said, "sure."

Who knows if he will have any interest in reading my ramblings about the music that he unknowingly turned me on to, or the way that his restless, un-rock-star-like approach to music has inspired me, but I was inspired to reach out and I did.

GSM