I'm still kinda sleepy, so I'm sure I'll forget a lot of stuff, but anyway here's the story. Oh, but before I forget, there are pictures (of varying quality) and also a couple videoclips from the instore. I didn't bother taping either set; Jay, who makes really good recordings and then puts them in the CVB archive at archive.org was at both and the instore is already up. That's devotion for you. Thanks, Jay!

So, first off, I went to my guitar class in the morning. Since this was the last week of the session, it was recital day. And one of the classes performed Pictures of Matchstick Men (on five acoustic guitars in unison. It was quite something)! I took that as a good sign.

I came home, ate lunch, fed the cat and then got in my car and headed south. And Mapquest sucks. At least this time it did. Despite the completely inaccurate directions I managed to get to Luna Music only about fifteen minutes late. I pulled into the parking lot behind a van with a Howard Dean bumper sticker, which, as I discovered when I got out of my car and they were getting out of the van, was Camper's. Greg happened to look at me and I'm sure he knew I was there to see them (the fact that I was wearing a shirt with the words "HIPPY CHICK" in 2-inch letters on it probably gave it away); when we made eye contact I giggled nervously (because I'm an incurable giggler) and then took off across the parking lot.

I'd read that the turnout at the instore in Detroit was fairly small, so I was happy to see that the store here was pretty full. The performance area was set up right near the door; thus, since I was one of the last people in, I ended up right near the front. The band came in a minute later and started setting up. Jonathan saw me and smiled and said hi and I felt special. :P Frank wasn't there, Victor had a very shiny, creamy new bass, Jonathan was playing a black Fender electric violin, David had a classical guitar (with no strap, so he had to prop his foot up on a toolbox to hold the guitar up), and Greg had a cute little Ibanez which I guess was actually David's, 'cause he (David) played it exclusively at the show later. Because of where I was standing I couldn't see Greg very well during the performance (he was kind of hidden by David), which disappointed me a little, because I like watching him work.

Before they started playing David talked a little about the concept of their new record and then they played some songs. I was especially happy to hear 51-7 with the acoustic guitar, because that's one of the things I really like about the recorded version (and at the show later it was 2 electric guitars). They did Eye of Fatima part 1 and there was a really long pause afterwards, so I thought that I was witnessing the first time in history that part 1 was being played without immediately being followed by part 2, but after a minute they did start part 2, with Jonathan playing the violin instead of guitar like usual, which was sort of surprising, but interestingly different.

Afterwards the guys stood around and signed things. I told Jonathan how bummed I'd felt when I heard all their stuff got stolen and he said he was particularly upset about his '71 Strat, because to get another one of the same vintage would be way out of his price range. I wanted to tell him that the people on the CVB Yahoo group are trying to take up a collection to help replace the stolen stuff, but then I thought that maybe it was a little premature to count on that, so I decided not to mention it.

Later I drove on over to Birdy's and parked at the mortuary across the street. There were only a few people inside, mostly standing at the bar watching the game. I looked over at the merch table and thought that they'd hired Carrot Top to be their merch guy, but when the opening band (the Damnwells) came on, he turned out to be their bass player. After a few songs the lead singer said "I don't think I've ever played a show and watched a baseball game at the same time before" (the bar with the TVs was behind the crowd) and then asked us who we were rooting for in the World Series. One man yelled out "Cubs!" and the bass player cracked up.

People had been standing way back in the room during the opening set but when they left we started moving nearer the stage. Over in Jonathan's corner there was a black Strat set up, with what looked like a metallic pickguard but which I discovered was actually plastic (I copped a feel of it when Jonathan came to take it offstage to switch it with another). He stopped a moment to chat with me and mentioned that they'd had Thai food for dinner; when he said that I realized that he totally smelled like jasmine rice, which suddenly made me feel really hungry. Yum.

Anyway there wasn't too much of a delay and Camper came out and the rocking began. David thanked the local people who had lent them guitars for the night—Jonathan had a natural-finish Strat with a tortoiseshell pickguard and Greg had this gorgeous Les Paul, deep red with gold hardware. David was playing the Ibanez and there was also a black Telecaster over in the corner which nobody touched.

I don't remember setlists very well without a visual or audio aid, so just a few notes on the actual show... They went through the songs in rather rapid succession, so there wasn't much banter. When they did That Gum You Like David, Victor and Jonathan all sang the chorus together. Is that a new arrangement? They played Long Plastic Hallway, which hasn't been on any of the few other setlists I've seen from this tour. Jay and I agreed that 9 of Disks sounded different—I think maybe it was something about Greg's guitar playing, but I'll have to listen when the recording's up and think it over again. During Might Makes Right Victor was staring off above the crowd with this glassy look in his eyes—I'm pretty sure he was watching the game on the TV behind the bar. Before Hippy Chix David explained that the chorus was very simple and so we could all sing along, and demonstrated, "We would fight for hippy chix, we would die for hippy chix" which was indeed simple enough, but then he went through and recited all the other six lines of the chorus and I think he lost some people at that point. I'm sure all the beer didn't help the crowd's concentration.

At both corners of the stage in the front row there were drunk men dancing extremely dorkily. Yes, that amused me. And speaking of childish amusement, the right side of David's shirt collar was sticking up in the air instead of lying flat, and this really seemed to bother Jay: every three or four songs he'd lean over to me and say, "Tell David to fix his collar!" And I'd say, "I'm not gonna do it, you do it!" And he'd respond, "I'm not doing it, you do it!" Et cetera. Finally when David took his guitar off after the very last song his collar fell into place and we had resolution.

I'll be seeing them again on Friday, yay! I hope they do I Am Talking to this Flower. And I hope I get some better pictures.