Reviews by...
John
Ana
Chris
Jess
Lauren
Got down to Jessica's place, and then we darted to the Amtrack station to pick up ana and Karen. Soon Chris joined us, and we were off for Chapel Hill.
Once we got into town we ate at the Wicked Burrito, which would have been more wicked if it was TexMex instead of CalMex, but it was still good. Their slogan is 'badass mexican food'. Then we headed down to a local record store that was unfortunately going out of business soon. We bought a few things there, and then started taking posters out of the store too. : )
We then ended up in a clothing store ... a note here, while it may be fun to go on a 'date' with four girls at once, it's a little different when the five of you head into a clothing store. I'm surprised I didnt come out of the store with the metal bikini everyone liked, or one of the velvet shirt/skirts that were around. Had I let the bikini thing happen, I'm sure that I would have ended up in the go-go dancer booth at the Local 506. Ya know ... I dont think I would have enjoyed the show as much from there ...
Anyway, we got to the club, Local 506, and sat our lazy asses down since it had already been a long day. The show started a little late - but it was certainly well worth it.
David got up on stage with four straws and got everyone Lauren, Kitty, and Steve to draw one. He ended up with the short one and started first ... (Jessica already posted the set list ...)
Hearing those old Camper songs was great of course : ) but I cant decide which was better .. hearing Kitty, or hearing Lauren. Kitty is ... Kitty. Her performances are astounding - I've never seen someone that gets so into a song while they are playing it. Lauren was great too, and I think she really enjoyed helping David play One of These Days, and I loved it when she played Termite at my request. : ) I'd havent listened to Steve much, but I liked his stuff too - so I'll probably be getting his cd once Pitch A Tent puts it out (soon I think).
We ran into a Cracker fan that hadnt discovered the Cracker2000 list yet and he was quite impressed with Lauren, Kitty, and Steve too. So I imagine that we'll be seeing him around soon. He was mentioning that he made it all the way down to Ziggy's for the Cracker/Kitty show in March (I think it was March..), and we mentioned 'oh yeah, we were there too'. I think he thought we were nuts when he realized that ana came out from the west coast to see the show, and that Karen came down from PA for the show too. That made DC, Richmond, and Williamsburg see close.
During the show David mentioned that they would have more Pitch A Tent night shows, but probably not in Chapel Hill, he said he wanted some place with more spirit. The crowd was good, but the club was certainly not packed.
After the show, we subjected ana to a Waffle House with a nearly deaf waitress. An experience as usual. : )
We handed ana off to a friend that promised to take her to the airport, and then stuff only four clowns into my car and headed home. We drove till 6am ... everyone was dropped off for a few hours of sleep in Richmond, and then we all ended up getting up at 9:30am so that Karen and I could head further north to DC. Rumor has it that Jessica and Chris went back to sleep and slept till 2pm. I drove by a metro station and flung Karen out so she could catch the train back to PA. After I saw that she landed upright, I raced home and grabbed a couple of other friends and then went to spend the day at Farm Aid '99.
John
saturday morning, i took amtrak out of DC to richmond.... as i was about to exit the train, a lovely blonde woman asked me: "are you ana?" it was karen, much to my delight! we waited in the teeny station for jessica and john, and soon they arrived.... before we knew it, we were in that legendary cursion-mobile-- on our way to jess's apartment, to wait for chris....
it was a real treat, looking through jess's cracker photo albums, and seeing the mississippi show video.... and lots of chit chat.... i discovered that the *true* reason why mango mark was MIA had absolutely *nothing* to do with a post-bday hangover.... rather it was due to "NAStyCAR" or some other quaint southern tradition that is unheard of in california....
anyway, it was so great hanging with karen, jess and john, that i didn't even notice the time when chris arrived.... the five of us then hopped into the cursion-mobile like ever so many clowns into one of those mini cars.... we zoomed to north carolina, stopping only once at a convenience store/gas station.... i marvelled at the southern delicacies available.... some knew from my past life as a texan, but some were so off the wall.... john almost persuaded me to buy those off-flavored pork rinds, but i didn't....
so we (or perhaps karen, chris and i) fell in love with chapel hill. since i had been there two nights earlier for the guided by voices show, i felt like a tour guide, pointing out small attractions here and there.... it was uproariously funny to see the group of hare krishnas busking and panhandling outside the bank of america (that's my employer).... we ate at the wicked burrito (note to self: they do the burritos NoCal, rather than tex-mex :( but the guacamole was head and shlders above what alleges to be guacamole out here in the bay area.)
we did find a tiny little CD store, where it was no problem to encourage john to buy ;) .... one of john's purchases i won't name, but it featured our own steve pletch, and it was not the seymores....
we also went to some retro style clothing store, before waiting forever outside local 506.... we did heare david's soundcheck... ('big dipper' and 'i'm a little rocket ship'....lovely!) my friend tim from greenboro joined us, and we all bristled when tim said he was afraid that the average tar heel freshman had no idea who cracker was... sad to say, he was right, and the crowd was small-- but really attentive....
my other NC friend, tucker, arrived, and we sat in corner booth, and enjoyed david, lauren, steve koester, and kitty.... they played in exactly that lineup.... two songs/two songs/one song....david played three camper songs as well as the two cracker ones i mentioned above.... these were "one of these days" from OBRS (lauren played the lead lick, and it was sweet!); "when i win the lottery" from KLP,and "ambiguity song" from TLV....
i spoke with david after the show, and he was really gracious and cool.... i was a little concerned that
he might be, like, mister cranky pants or something, because he earlier commented on the lack of
turnout.... but he remembered my name (from my p-a-t order, i would guess), which made me smile.... when
i complimented him on his set, espec. the camper (and david was autographing my OBRS stamps while we
talked!), he laughed and mentioned how john and jess know he seems to forget lyrics.... finally, i looked
mister lowery in the eye and said:
"david, here's the burning question--
WHEN ARE YOU COMING BACK TO PLAY ON THE WEST COAST???"
DL: "you'll be seeing us around the holidays."
alm:"which holidays? the christian holidays?"
DL: "yes, the christian and pagan holidays..."
alm: "the pagan birth of jesus..."
DL"and there are jewish holidays then, also."
okay, so cracker in cali for xmas, then....
john, jess, chris and karen indulged me in my wish to visit the waffle house. i did not have "scattered, smothered, covered" (smothered=onions; covered=cheese) but i did have a waffle and coffee, as did chris... while karen had scattered & diced.... my friends, tucker and tim, went with us, and soon it was time to say buh-bye to all,before tim drove me to the airport....
hope to see you ECCHers again soon! you rock, you rule! thanks for your southern/east coast hospitality!
september gurl
--ana m.
Long live the Cursion mobile! Thanks for driving John... got to get mine legal this week, sometime.
my other NC friend, tucker, arrived, and we sat in corner booth, and enjoyed david, lauren, steve koester, and kitty....
strange layout that place...there were high bench-like seats built into the wall that you had to step up to sit upon...and the place was quite dark.
they played in exactly that lineup.... two songs/two songs/one song.... david played three camper songs as well as the two cracker ones i mentioned above.... these were "one of these days" from OBRS (lauren played the lead lick, and it was sweet!); "when i win the lottery" from KLP, and "ambiguity song" from TLV....
After a brief, initial technical delay the round-robin started... It was a real treat to hear 'one of these days.' Lauren & Kitty both put on great shows when it was their time to bat. Jessica has complete setlists I do believe. We were introduced to the music of Steve Koester. He was good too...sorta Chris Issac-like. He will have a CD out soon. Got my CD inserts signed by Lauren & Kitty... I would have gotten the CD's signed too but I left them in my car (Kitty seemed pleased with that fact though as she wrote "Thanks for having the CD in your car.") David said there will be another PAT night again in another city- he was nonspecific but verified that they would be putting on another one again sometime in a town other than Chapel Hill.
~chris~
Um... I suppose first I should mention it was a miracle that I got to go since my brother told me the week before the show that he couldn't pick my mom and dad up at the airport Sat night at 7pm! If I had to do it , it would have made it impossible to make the show... But I figured I could get my brother to leave their car at the airport that morning and all would be fine. And it was. =)
Saturday morning we drove and picked up na and Karen at the train station. It was clear when they got in that getting 5 folks into a 2 door Honda Civic was gonna be a tight fit...
Anyway, while we waited for Chris to arrive we all chatted about various things and Ana showed us her awesome portfolio.
Then we hit the road. Exposed everyone to Moxy Fruvous and Lincoln... Made it there fine and with time to kill... As Ana said, Chapel Hill was a really neat town... We just couldn't seem to get John to try on any of those mini-skirts for us...
I snagged a Waking Hours promo photo from in front of the 506 (they played there the night before) We got a ton of pictures taken and listened to David's sound check...
When the doors opened we got spots sitting along the wall... It was actually quite comfortable... Chatted and sat around... I even got to lay down for a bit....
Then the show started... here's a key to the set list... DL=David Lowery, LH= Lauren Hoffman, KS= Kitty Snyder, SK = Steve Koester and *= the one singing when there 2 listed...
1. DL - Big Dipper 2. *DL and LH - One of These Days (Lauren plays the lead riff and intro) 3. *LH and DL - Bring You Down (David doing lead stuff etc.) 4. LH - Dust Off Your Dreams 5. SK - Oh, Barbara 6. SK - Come Down ? 7. KS - Spit 8. KS - Doctor (a new song, she did it a pat night #1, as well) 9. DL - When I win the Lottery 10. DL - I'm a Little Rocketship 11. LH - Termite (Lauren said, it's hard to figure out what to play, and John suggests "Termite" and she smiles and says something like Termite really? laughing, but she plays it anyway and it sounds really great!) 12. LH - Sister 13. SK - Where You've Been Without Her ? 14. *SK and DL - Sweet Wheels of Summertime 15. KS - Celebrate 16. KS - How I Know 17. DL - Ambiguity Song 18. LH - Song For a Boy 19. SK - You can't Kill this Machine 20. KS - Breatheum... other comments... Lauren was awesome, David was great, Kitty was awesome... It was excellent having all 3 together. Steve Koester played with a drummer and a lead guitar player on all but the last 2 or 3 songs of his. He was ok, but not exactly to my taste...
um... before Kitty's last song David intro'd her talking about how she opened for Cracker and she was great because she went out in front of a huge screaming crowd and grabbed their attention despite people screaming out "show us your tits!" Then they couldn't decide if it was Ziggys, instead, where that was exclaimed.. Then Kitty said the Ziggys crowd was a good crowd, very attentive and good. Anyway, after all that David said, "So Kitty, would you show us your tits?" very funny! =) The she said that she got the unruly crowd's attention by playing "this" song and it was "Breathe" If Matthew were still on the list I'm sure he'd agree that Breathe grabbed him ;-). Anyway, it was really nice and I hope they do it again somewhat farther north... I know Richmond has even less "spirit" than CH so it probably won't be here ;-)
Jess
Well, when she sings, "Hold my mouth so you breathe when I come", it's hard not to be grabbed! I think that her singing that song was one of the sexiest performances I've ever seen in my life. She doesn't sing that line on the album.. .
Anyway, I had a great time! We were all a little unsure if we were going to like the 'round robin' thing, but it was a LOT of fun! A really nice change from the regular type of show. And I am really happy to be hanging out with David again; he is a force of nature. And Kitty's really cool, it's too bad she lives a 9 hour drive away from me. I think we all really want to do it again, maybe try to make some mini-tours out of it.
So, thank you guys for coming! It was great to see you all down there. (I had wanted to play Termite for awhile, so thanks for the push, John!) And welcome to the list Tim, thanks for the compliments on the website : )
Lauren