Live Show: 12/2/97

12/2/97

Pittsburgh, PA

Reviewed by: Michael Wood


The Details

So here I am...Feeling a bit like a missionary of the teachings of the Fruvous biys, in my city of Pittsburgh. For MONTHS after the last show Joshy, Mel and I have awaited the return of the Boys, spreading the good word to everyone we can.

After months of "You gotta listen to these guys" and "You'll lovbe this" and taking the cd's to partys, we have developed a mini fan-base here.

Now, mind you, Pittsburgh is a bit South, so not so many people know the band..And, to be honest, that's okay with us...But we want them to be successful, so we advertised the show at the local colleges and on our favorite radio station (WYEP, hi guys) in order to gather up some folks...In the end, as far as I am concerned, we had our little crew all ready for the show...As said before, it was Myself, Joshy and Mel, Scotty, the Sprout, and Chris Bowser, man about time. We all loaded up into our vehicles and drove the 5 minutes it takes to get to Rosebuds on the strip.

Rosebuds is a nice place, kinda classy, but not TOO classy...We were about 15 minutes early (we want the good seats, you see) and ran into JoJo and the Short One (laughs out loud to himself) outside where it was cold . As Mel jumped up and down for warmth, Joshy and I turned to see Mike enter the building. A few minutes later, sound check started and we listened through the large windos as they ran through BJ Don't Cry and a few other ditties...Sound check sounded great. The newbies were excited.

The doors opened at about 6:30 and we all sat down for dinner (ASIDE: Our waitress was gorgeous and named Cory...same as my ex-fiance'...but I digress). The boys ate at the balcony seating, by the way.

At about 7:30, Hammel on Trial went on. The man is a riot...He's very good, and a great ballance to the more playful Fruvous. Then the Fruvous boys took stage. Now, I must be honest, due to the rather high number of beers I had uingested, I do not know the set-list exactly...But they opened with an accappella "Got to Get a Message to You" that was great. Ran through some stuff from WOOD "Poor Mary Lane" etc.

All in all is was a fantastic show. People jumped up and danced the hippy- dance and blocked our view a bit, but hey, fun is fun...After a while we moved our chairs out to the floor and partied with the rest of the Fruheads. As the boys broke into "Psycho Killer" Scotty and I did the Same As it Ever Was as Jian smiled.

Amazing...Just amazing....It really was...And, I am going to mention something in this review that's a bit odd for a review: These guys are just darn nice.

After the show they came out and mingled with the small remaining crowd members. Murray remembered us from last time (MURR: Be sure to tell me when you're done with the Orson Scott Card book, we'll send you the next one) and we took pictures, chatted, signed posters, etc.

Jian discussed some business with me and gave me the room number so I can drop off some artwork (SHAMELESS PLUG: Airborne Simian Productions, for all your artwork needs...contact us) And the next morning I dropped off my stuff for him at the desk. They left the Pittsburgh area around noon that day...And we hope they return soon.


The Music

Opened with The Set Closed with Encore 1 Encore 2

Misc. Info

Some other tidbits from the performance include:




Back to the tour dates 1997 page