C-town Scarcity

13 people in a room that holds 500 isn't really a recipe for a barnburner of a rock show, but as the old Jim WIlbur rallying cry goes, "you play the show not the crowd"... actually i often think about all the great shows i've seen where i was one of a handful in the audience and the band or artist still totally kicked out the jams, and then you feel like you really got to see something special, as opposed to being one of 600 people sharing the same experience (which can be great as well, just different).

so on a sparse rainy night in charlottesville we still managed to have a good time & it seemed like those in attendance did as well. jennifer o'connor promised that she and her band were going to compose a song onstage, but they didn't so i'll be requesting that they do for the rest of the tour.

we flew without a setlist so i may not remember everything we played but here goes:

a pair of brown eyes
little fern
sour shores
getting saved
you blanks
sweetness and light (i think we had everyone in the audience onstage for this one)
white wave
full of stars
drill me
silver screw
like a pearl
naked pilseners
san andreas
noisy night
smothered in hugs
autumn got dark

spying on the spys (acoustic)

wow, we play a lot of songs when we're not reading them off the setlist. some might say too many.

it was a mercifully early show so afterwards we went out for some more reliably popular entertainment -- the ancient art of karaoke, at a mexican restaurant. highlights: margaret's fierce version of benatar's "shadows of the night" and a local (i'm a big fan of local music) doing a totally sincere and well-sung version of "different drum". lowlights included some guy singing ac/dc's "ride on" in a style more redolant of pearl jam than bon scott, and someone named "wild bill" doing a terrible and incredibly long version of lenny kravitz's version of "american woman". he only knew the first line of the song (which is the title) and after that just said "i can't read..."

on to our nation's capital...