hi kids,

just returned back to providence after last night's show in hartford in the webster theater -- recently renovated from a port theater, with a rub and tug next door...
not sold out, but pretty close they said. about 800 people, the lady said, of pre-paid tix, prolly more at the door.
opened with something on, went out from there. locked was crossed off the list. i had the pleasure of staking out a great standing area, behind only 2 or 3 guys...next thing i know there is an entire hockey team, trashed out of their minds (from dartmouth...)right in front of me. got kinda pushed to the side, but everything was made all better when gord looked at me and two other girls standing on the side, (looking mighty pissed off at the guys moshing, crowd surfing, falling over etc..) and said "this song is for all the ladies in the house...sorry you got pushed out of the middle.." or something to that effect before launching into nautical disaster.
security was ridiculous. one guy, sometimes two, standing at the front. every time a surfer reached them, they'd simpled put the guy back into the pack. one or two times, sure, but it was getting really hectic.
even gord told them to cut it out -- went out with acid wash, and that saying "what's up with that?"...he told them that the introduction to this song is actually supposed to be minutes long--maybr 4 or 6 or 7 (something to that effect..i'm improvising here) and he's bore them with the details of
his rambling till they calmed down. one girl got a very bloody nose from someone's shoe in her face.
good rambles though...great nois in my opinion, got to hear grace too, chagrin, escape, lionized, membership. was looking still to hear scared, maybe penguin again.
got a great poster left over from bill's bar -- hung outside till the guys came out - at one point there were 4 cop cars x 2 cops each = 8 fully loaded with ammo and guns cops standing around with the crowd, which had dwindled to 15 people or so.
once again impressed by the band members - they said they're hoping for europe in the fall. taking time off this summer. not any new info i suppose.
gord came out wearing a hooded sweatshirt, with the hood on-- i had mine on too...he told me he liked my jean jacket...and my hoood...suggested we needed a picture or something with our hoods on - some guy was nice enough to take some poloroids of us--very cute. i'll scan it in, and maybe someone will put it up for me...
johnny's hands were bothering him- he rushed to the bus without shaking hands or signing...saying his hands hurt way too much.
gord s. as friendly as ever. some guy was going off about how he quit his job the day before so that he could see the hip in vt, hartford, then ny...
met phil (again.)
alas, i said my hair was pseudo-pink..left over from its flourescent flamingo pink days of amsterdam last month. now it's enjoying the baby-pink stage. i even had on my go-go boots but dan made me take them off because we'd be walking through the prostitute section of hartford to get there, and
he didn't want to deal with cops!!!!!!! phil said he'd burn me on the list for not holding up my promises...burn baby burn!
good good show..hoping for europe in the fall cause that's where i'll be...
ciao!
fi
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Review by Jeff Topping via e-mail

Well, didnt take notes during the show, but here's what I can remember:
This is not in exact order:
Something
Twist
Grace
Gift
Membership
Bobcaygeon
Poets
Daddy
Springtime
Fireworks
Nautical
Lionized
Wheat kings
Escape
Nois

:Rules
blow

:Chagrin falls
700 ft

Sorry it's NOt exact, but pretty close!! The show could have been truly awesome, the only downside was the completely UNRULY CT crowd!! there was a mosh pit that went out of control, and 3 or 4 guys that insisted on crowd surfing all nite long, and security didnt kick them out, but instead just sent them back into the crowd so it continued ALL NITE LONG. When you listen to the tape you'll hear gordie plead to knock it off, several times, including during New Orleans, when he did a long bit about cooling down and lighting yourself on fire, getting along, making a deal. This was just about the time where two guys started brawling right infront of him.
Enough about the downside... The venue filled up just after the Damnations finished, not too shabby, girl singers, cool western twang.
Hip came out with something and everything was great ("You, You, You!!!). Twist My Arm rocked as always, Grace was the anthem of all anthems, could barely hear gordie!! Membership is a favorite!! Poets was simply awesome, gord shook his gord during the entire song. Long coda, went on forever (seemed like it). Springtime, gord dropped his bean bag, and did a "Hacky sack" foot toss back into his hands, sweet. Bobcaygeon is when things started getting violent, gord turned his back for most of the song, he was NOT into it. At one point he came forward and said "That was the wrong thing to do." Lets see, Fireworks, got the crowd all pumped up again, and everyone
jumped up and down like a huge throbbing mass, pretty cool, this happened regularly. Nautical, again a HUGE crowd pleaser!! Then, Wheat Kings to mellow everyone out, worked like a charm, very well received, indeed!! Then we head towards the ending, escape was played beautifully as always, it's one of my favorites! New orleans was long, gordie did a long bit in it, that took forever to get to "pale as a light bulb..."
Encore NO. 1 was rules, which I anticipated as another mellow tune to keep the scene low. Then blow turned the place upside down, unreal, everyone was pumped!!!
Encore No. 2, saw Chagrin falls, played very atmospheric, robbie doing all kinds of interesting harmonics and stuff, fantastic, and my first time seeing it! Then they wrapped up with 700ft, fast, tight and loud. Thanks, good nite!!
so we saw gords riding the mic stand, his odd faces and gestures all nite, lots of add libbing, and stuff. Paul was cool as usual, robbie was coming forward quite a bit, even looked into the crowd once in a while. Man, Gord Sinclairs next must hurt!! Jonny cranked and was hot all nite. so, it was a
Wild ride, lots of energy and crowd was VERY alive (800 or so folks)
I had the luck of talking with gord after the show, he wanted toknow if the Bruins had won. Didnt have much to say about the crowd being rough other than at one time he said it was like that every nite they played, so " It werent no big thing!!"
They seemed excited about woodstock!!

JT