I'm posting a review of last night's show. There are others out there with a lot of good stories to tell, so stay tuned.

First of all, security was lax, and I could just kill myself for not bringing my recorder. I brought a backpack in with me, and they never even bothered to search it, or frisk, or even look me over or anything. Hell, Eddie (Eb all over the world Eddie) had his D3 hanging from his neck like Flavor-Flav's big gold watch, and no one said a word! All of you with a recorder, and half a love for any of these bands, you really owe it to yourself to try and get in and use the headphone aspect of the concert to your advantage.

The t-shirts have changed now. They didn't have the lime green shirts everyone mentioned previously. The shirts are now purple, with "Robyn Hitchcock" and "Jewels For Sophia" printed in pink lettering, and the big yellow star in the middle. Very nice design. I purchased an extra one in case any of you list people aren't able to make it to this tour and still want a shirt. Just email me.

The headphone idea worked great. I think the idea is that normal PA sound you hear at gigs is so bass-heavy that it tends to drown out some of the higher frequency instruments and such. The mix in the headphones focused on the high end, so by adjusting the volume on the little walkman you are issued, you can mix the room mix with the headphone mix, and get something that in the end sounds pretty nice.

IQU came out first, and I really liked them. They are a trio. This bjorky-looking girl played keyboards, and a bloke played the big standup bass (ala Soul Coughing). The third member was a DJ/lead guitar/drum machine operator/ theremin whiz and did all the rest. There was scratchin' and sampling, and breakbeats, and other cool noises and stuff. All instrumental. They are on K records, so go seek 'em out.

Sonic Boom was next. One man and a row of six Speak and Spell machines. He has rewired the circuitry on them so they produce odd alien sounds, and for the next 30 minutes, proceeded to weave this big rumbling ambient Aphex Twin/Eno-like soundscape. After the first five minutes or so, I was bored of it. But the ability to take something as everyday as a Speak and Spell, and come out with something akin to Apollo is pretty laudable I think.

Then out pops Robyn. Polka dot shirt. And played these songs, tho I might screw up the order:

Gene Hackman
I Something You

enter Tim Keegan:

De Chirico Street
Jewels For Sophia
Beautiful Queen

exit Tim, then Robyn plays

Freeze

and leaves,

and then Robyn and Tim come back and play

Queen of Eyes.

I believe I have it right. Do I? Eddie? Michaels?

After Robyn, Michael and I walked around a bit, and ran into Eddie, and ended up skipping the Sebadoh set. Oh well.

Finally, Flaming Lips. I was looking forward to seeing them after finally getting to hear Soft Bulletin and loving it. The show was a multimedia event, with video synched up to backing tracks, and Flaming Lips playing and singing along to it. I would've enjoyed less backing tracks, and more live music, but the video show was enjoyable. The best part of the video show for me was the drummer. The Flaming Lips have no drummer on tour, but they managed to film a few different drummers playing drums for the various songs before they went out on tour, so you see this cyber drummer on the big screen behind them, providing the beats for the songs, and kind of smiling down on the three Lips who are playing on the stage.

Wayne (lead singer) did lots of theatrical stuff, like banging a huge gong every now and then, and throwing lots and lots of confetti into the crowd. And had some puppets sing the songs for him as well.

I left about 45 min. into the Lips set, as my feet were killing me, and it was about 1am.

I had a blast. Great show, great concepts, great musical acts, great t-shirts (and tomato pen!!) and great as always to meet up with the PFC (Portland Feg Contingent).

=jbj=