Yo, check out some pictures (first couple of items in the table). I don't have any mp3s this time because I didn't bother making my own recording—I saw a guy with a big old microphone and I'm sure an excellent copy will soon be making the rounds.

I'm not usually out of my house for so long at one time, so this evening was quite an event. I went over to this restaurant/bar "Life's Too Short" for the WXRT show at 5. I was supposed to be on the list, but I wasn't. After a confused conversation, the guy finally asked me, "Are you by yourself?" and I was, so he let me in anyway. A minute later he came running after me and said, "I don't want to offend you, but I have to ask, are you over 21?" That made me laugh, because I was old enough to drive myself to a Camper show before they broke up fourteen years ago, but I just said, truthfully, "yes."

The band was doing their soundcheck and people were just standing around because they weren't letting us into the performance area yet. Jonathan came by and I said "hi" and he seemed to remember me and stopped to chat. I noticed right away that he was wearing a wedding ring (because I notice things like that) so I congratulated him, and he told me he'd gotten married in Sweden, because his wife is Swedish. Aw. Later when I saw Victor I noticed that he also had a wedding ring. Awww! So it looks like Greg is the only remaining Camper bachelor. All the rest of you ladies can get in line behind me.

Anyway there were maybe 40-50 of us there and they finally let us into the room where the stage was. Before they started David took off the sweatshirt he'd been wearing, momentarily exposing his tummy. This caused something of a ripple of excitement in the room. The guys played for about half an hour. I have a terrible memory so I can't really remember what songs they played. "Redneck Mothers," um, "Sad Lovers Waltz," "Take the Skinheads Bowling," and, um, crap, I can't remember anything else. I told you my memory sucks. The XRT DJ asked David what the future plans for Camper and Cracker are, and David said there would probably be a new Camper album first (to be called New Roman Times) and then a Cracker record. And Johnny said he would be having a solo album out soon too. The DJ also asked David if it was confusing for him to be in two different bands on the same night, and David explained that he stands in a different place and usually changes his shirt and/or his hat, so he's able to make the adjustment without too much trouble.

For the last song, Johnny came back onstage and David said, "Johnny and Greg are gonna fight now" and Greg held up his guitar with this "come and get me" look on his face, which was great.

When that was over I left pretty quickly because I was still hoping to get a good spot at the Vic (it was already past six at this point). I didn't get to the theater until after the doors had opened, but I guess I overestimated the zeal of Chicago Cracker/Camper fans, because I did manage to get right up in front anyway (but way over to stage right; so I had a great view of Johnny and then David, but Jonathan was like a million miles away).

Then the waiting began. Johnny came out onstage and seemed to be standing there talking on his cell phone for about half an hour. The two guys on either side of me tried to talk to me. I hate it when guys try to talk to me. The show was supposed to start at 7:30, but it didn't and then at about 7:45 a bunch of gear suddenly arrived. (My guess was that the truck bringing the stuff back from the bar had gotten stuck in Dan Ryan traffic.) So the crew ran around madly setting things up, and finally Cracker came on a little bit before 8.

I was way more excited about CVB than about Cracker, so I was kinda glad Cracker came on first. Not that I didn't enjoy that part of the show too. It was fun being right in front of Johnny—he plays with this style that is very much "I'm hot shit and I know it" (as opposed to Greg's style which is more like "I'm hot shit, but—shh!—don't tell anyone"). But Johnny smiles so big, what he does is very adorable. At one point there was a pause and somebody yelled, "Hey, Richard Grieco! You're great!" (which I thought was hilarious) and Johnny laughed and said, "I'm older than that guy, so he looks like me, I don't look like him."

They went pretty quickly through the first few songs and then David said he was gonna stop the show for a minute to make it better for everybody, because he needed to find out whose G was causing feedback: "That's why I just played four songs in G, to try to figure it out."

Anyway, that was all good, and they finished up and left, and we waited around for about half an hour while they set stuff up. Then Camper came out and everybody started playing except Jonathan, who was having equipment problems. The other guys kept playing for a while until finally David stopped and said they'd come back in few minutes when everything was fixed. I yelled "you don't need that guy!" (ha ha, just kidding, Jonathan!) but they paid no attention to me, and right as they left Jonathan waved at them that he was ready, but it was too late, and then he stood there by himself in some confusion for several minutes.

Finally everything got straightened out and the others came back out and they were off. David, true to his word, had changed his shirt for the second set (well, he'd put his flannel shirt back on over his t-shirt), and I think he'd changed his shoes as well. They played a bunch of songs, including the new "Unabomber Song" and an instrumental that I think was also new. There was not a lot of chat, they were too busy rocking. For the encore Johnny came out to play "Interstellar Overdrive" with them, and Jonathan played guitar on that one, so there were four guitars going at once and I thought my head was going to explode with joy. Greg was being amazing and Johnny kept making these great faces. It was wonderful.

When it was over the security cleared us out pretty quickly, but not as aggressively as the last time I was at the Vic (for instance, this time they didn't scream at us to get out). So I was able to approach Jonathan (who'd come back out onstage) just long enough to say one thing: "Thank you." That was all I wanted to say to him after such an excellent night.

Aw, man, my feet were kinda hurting when I got home. I guess I'd spent about five hours standing at the Vic, and another hour or so standing at the earlier show, but—oh, forget the excuses. I'm old.

But I'd do it all again.