(Warning. This is my first review. Remember, patience is a virtue. )

Allentown. No wonder Billy Joel wrote a song about it. He should have, although, included something about all the streets being one way and it being impossible to get back to where you came from... and getting lost is easy...

The Show: No opening band! My friends and I were under the impression that "Godfrey Daniels" WAS the opening act. Just slightly confused. Heh. Whoops. They opened with Early Morning Rain, a first for me, and the first thought was "Wow. This place has AWESOME acoustics." I felt like the music was coming from all around me and from inside of me as well. It was reverberating through everything and it just felt SO. COOL. I guess at orchestra places you have to have acoustics like that, but the music was so thick in the air, I just felt like I was going to explode... Ahhh....

After EMR, they took a trip back into the land of Bargainville. I don't remember the setlist, but Carey already posted it... There was River Valley, BJ, Lazy Boy (which I noticed was transposed... how often do they do that in concerts? Or were they just REALLY flat?) among others.

There wasn't much banter, but what there was was HILLARIOUS. I believe the really funny stuff was already mentioned in Carey's review, but I really liked it... And I just thought I'd mention it a bit. I noticed that Jian keeled over on the stage at one point after the "Am I rambling?" line laughing. I bet that, sometimes, they have more fun than we do. ;o)

Not much from the C Album. They did mention it and something about 24 more letters to go... And I'm wondering how they would do the "A" album... They did have Pisco and Disco, though, and those are two of my favorites.

Okay, is it just me, or is it always a group of teenage/college girls who start dancing? During Michy, a few girls ran up to the front... fishgirls, maybe? I supressed from running until KOS because I was at the Keswick and I was afraid people would yell at us to sit down again. Luckily, that didn't happen, although I felt SO sorry for the people in the two rows behind us. Eep.

At the second encore, they closed with the Gulf War Song which was, again, a first for me. I nearly cried and it WASN'T because my asthma was acting up (note to self: Stop bouncing. Hard.) Slowly, people started singing softly at the end, and some people were out of tune... but it was kinda easy to tune them out because they were soft... I was singing along too, but quietly... so only I could really hear... kinda like I do in class. I think that if people want to sing along, they should do so inaudably. I mean, I know some people WERE in tune and everything, but it was probably hard to hear the guys in the first place. Other than that, the song was wonderful. It got a couple of chuckles from people at appropriate places, and that was cool. If you can be funny and serious at the same time, I dig it. My favorite part was, though, how it was so quiet after GWS that you could probably hear a pin drop. It was at LEAST five seconds long... I loved it. :o)

From Amy:

It is now Thursday and I have decided to take this time to write up my reviews for the last three shows instead of packing up for my official move to Florida (I leave tomorrow...) Ya, I'm a good procrastinator. :-) So, here it goes...

I decided to go to the Allentown show due to some great persuasion by Lisa. I must say that I was a little worried about meeting up with her considering the fact that the extent of my conversations with her consisted of a week's worth of emailing. But, I decided, what the hell.

A Fruvous show is definitely a good enough reason to drive up to Pennsylvania and meet Lisa. So, I told Jordan that I was headed up there and she decided to come down from the city. I was so excited that she wanted to do that because that meant that I would see her one last time before we went our own ways for the summer.

So, Lisa said she would meet me outside the venue at 7pm and I was figuring to leave around 2 on Sunday...figured I would do some studying for my final that was on Monday. Well, I talk with Jordan and I find out that her bus was getting into Allentown at 11am. I didn't want her chillin in there by herself, so I told her that I would meet her at 11. Sunday morning rolls around and my alarm goes off at 5am. Yes, that's right. Amy got up at 5am on a weekend morning. Oh yay. I'm on the road by 6:30 and what was supposed to be a 5 hour trip was really 4 hours. After driving around to find a place to park, I decided to park in a lot that was labeled as parking for permits only...just like ALL of the parking lots in Allentown. What's up with that?

I walk the 10 blocks or whatever it took to the greyhound bus station and there's little Jordan chillin curbside at the bus stop. She shares her stories of the bus ride while we walk uphill to find someplace to hang out until the concert. Well, sadly, :::NOTHING::: is open on Sundays in Allentown. Wendy's and Subway wasn't even open!!!!!!! We had nowhere to go. Since our list of places to hang out was limited, we decided to kick it curbside outside of the venue. It was a nice day out, so it wasn't really bad...

After a while, we got onto the discussion of the Bryn Mawr show that was supposedly that afternoon. I looked to see if it was on the map that I had in the car, but it wasn't. It wasn't until we saw Gella that we found out that it was about an hour or so away. We could've gone there instead of sitting on the streets looking like two crazies. Oh well. We had fun anyway.

People started to line up around 5pm and we were excited to talk with someone other than the people that work in the venue...we're sure they thought we were crazy. So, anyways, we talked with the girls next to us and there was a Fru-virgin. Both girls were awesome. They took a picture of us because we were their "first FruHeads." Ya. Anyways, so after a while, the guys pulled up in front of their hotel and eventually they came down to the venue. They seemed in great moods considering they had just performed a concert in Bryn Mawr, drove to Allentown, and were headed in for yet another concert. The dedication they have is just amazing.

I found Lisa thanks to the help of some peeps from the newsgroup and I was totally excited. She's one of the coolest people I know. J I was definitely glad that I came up to meet her. Jordan, Lisa, and I talked the entire night about some fun topics and stuff. So cool that she's in our mind set.

Doors opened at 7:30 and we got our seats in the center of the fourth row. The three rows in front of us were roped off for the people that have season passes or whatever. It was quite amusing to watch them during the concert. One couple in the third row had a pair of binoculars so they could see the stage better. Very interesting. During the show, some of them seemed to really enjoy the music and banter...except for that one woman Jordan mentioned...she left during Greatest Man in America and didn't come back.

The concert was great considering it was a sit down concert. During Michigan Militia, a whole lot of people ran up to the front of the stage and stayed there for the rest of the concert. They were mostly high school students and they were having a good ol' time. That night was the first time I actually felt old. There's these young adults still in high school having the time of their lives...and then there's me...just about to graduate and enter the real world. Ah. That's the way life goes. I'm trying to remember the banter...Dave was wearing the Liz Claiborne suit again. =) Jian mentioned that after the show they were headed out to get blitzed in Allentown...ya, drinking in Allentown on a Sunday night...I don't think it's going to happen, Jian. Mike said that he heard there was a rave somewhere around there and they were going to that. Dave mentioned that he brought his parachute pants... Jian was like, Whenever I look at you Dave, I think of sitting with you on a front porch sipping a mint julip. Hahaha. There was this kid in the audience that had a Neil Diamond shirt on...it literally had Neil Diamond on it...so, he was pulled up on stage and Dave started a medley of some Neil Diamond tunes. The guy stood in front of Dave, moving the shirt to make it look like Neil Diamond was singing. It was pretty funny. And, that's about all that I can remember...it's been a long week, kids. I'm surprised I've remembered all this...

After the show, Lisa heads out and Jordan and I hung around. We talked with Mike for a bit and then with Jian. He signed my shoes...didn't seem to mind having to do that which is cool.

Jordan and I headed out for NYC and got into her place around 2am. We both crash... The alarm went off around 8:15am. Jordan headed to class and I headed home. I got in around 2:30 and tried to cram for my final that was at 4:00. The bad news: I didn't know anything going into that exam...and it was cumulative. The good news: I went in with a C and came out of the class with a B for my final grade. Pretty cool, eh?

From Mocks:

Hey all... I know reviews of this show have been posted already, but I promised Lawrence I'd write one, so here it is... and bear with me... I'm tired and stressed and this is my first review.

The venue was awesome. Old-lookin all carved up stage... really nice place. *very* comfortable seats.

The set:

Early Morning Rain
River valley
BJ
Horseshoes
Sad girl
lazy boy
pisco
moon
stuck in the 90's
minnie
michy
tureen
Johnny saucep'n
GMIA
IWHO
nuits
KOS/GE&H
splatter ^2
Disco b'ville

Encore 1=
Authors
GITC

Encore 2=
GWS unmiked.

High points: It was an incredible show. The only negative comment I had was that it started off really slow. They didn't get into any of the songs until Lazy Boy.... and then they picked it up. (In fact, Jian didnt even have the audience sing their designated part in Horseshoes... it threw me off!) In Lazy boy, the harmonies were *tight*... and all of a sudden the energy was there!! Best Lazy boy I'd ever heard!

Banter of the night was without a doubt the Neil Diamond teases... a guy in the stage was wearing a ND shirt, and Jian pulled him onstage and was messin with his shirt while Dave played ND... hysterical :)

Anyway, nothing out of the ordinary ,but a high energy and fun show nonetheless... I took my little sister and she said it was the best one she's seen yet.

Don't want this to get too long, but thats the gist!

From Tregghr:

Okay, not only was this my first concert, but it’s my first review. (pause) Duh. Anyway, this was, quite obviously the Allentown show on April 30, 2000. My car arrived around 7:15 and the line, I think, was surprisingly short. They didn’t let us in, though, until closer to 7:45 or so. And all you Ji-heads out there will be happy to know there was a nice little non-Starbucks café next door.

We sat in the oh-so-comfy greenish seats and waited not-too-patiently for the show to open. So about 20 minutes later my parents walk in and inform me they met Dave. I of course throw a fit, but get over it as the lights dim. And the room darkens, we all cheer, but the lights come back up again. Then they dim, almost come back, but settle on dark again. So our MC for the night steps up and thanks all the sponsors and the hall, the local radio station, and the Godfrey Daniels organization which, I’m pretty sure, supports folk music. And, the words we’d been waiting to hear: “The next people you see on stage will be Moxy Früvous!” The guys step out and I must say I was surprised by Dave’s white and blue pinstripe suit. Jian’s new hair was cool, but I was hoping Murray would wear a cooler shirt; tonight’s was royal blue. They starts out by playing a song I’d never heard before and can only assume is called Early Morning Rain. This suspicion was confirmed by a glimpse at Mike’s set list after the show. It was really quite pretty and I hope it shows up on an upcoming album. Next was River Valley (yay!) during which Dave broke a string. What a start. Then they began to introduce the next song. Jian said something like “This is about a boy who grow up, or maybe he still growing up, I don’t know.” And then he insisted the song was really about Jesus, and he asked the audience if Jesus was born in Pennsylvania (Bethlehem, ::shakes head::). Next was a wonderful rendition of BJ Don’t Cry, which always seems to be great live. Next came Horseshoes, a personal favorite of mine. Then Jian starts talking. And we all know that when he starts, it’s a while ‘til he stops. He talked about the show they’d played at Bryn Mawr earlier that day and how all the girls were dressed in white gowns for the May Day festival. “It’s about as close to heaven as we’re going to get.” Then Jian goes on a again about the juxtaposition of 90’s music and punk and cocaine addiction before he pauses and asks, “Am I rambling?” Murray replies with, “I just did my taxes in my head.”

Next was Sad Girl, which was merely okay as a live song. Afterward, Jian dons a black hat and says, “I’m the original Persian Cowboy!” He’s apparently forming a new identity and will no longer answer to his name. Go figure. Then came Lazy Boy, which called for the audience to clap along happily. And, of course, Jian got his groove on … for about the tenth time that night. Once again Jian puts the hat on and strikes up Pisco Bandito the Bandit Fish! That’s followed by Murray saying, “That little pocket in your swim trunks? Not even safe.” Which, somehow, cued one of those great improv songs. Murray had a Jaws sort of beat going while Mike chanted, “The fish are coming!”

Next was a great version of You Will Go To The Moon (thankfully I used the abbreviation on my notes during the concert) where, after the second “orbiting rondelle”, Murray delayed his “bum bum bum” for a good twenty seconds. Afterward, Jian brought up Elian and the “Storm Troopers” who stole him away. I don’t know why I even mentioned that, but I guess I just found “Storm Troopers” kind of funny. Next was “an old Früvous song”, Stuck In the 90’s! Then *everybody* wore a hat and played Granpa Früvous filled with a goodly number of Philly-type references. A comment from my notes reads, “ ‘nother string bites the dust”, meaning Dave broke yet another string, but it turns out it was *two*. So, here’s the sort of turning point of the concert: Michigan Militia. There were probably 30-40 people dancing by the time the song ended. And, to my surprise, no one told them to sit down! In a very un-Keswick-y fashion, there was a big party in front of the stage. Next came The Present Tense Tureen and Jonny Saucep’n, which amazes me to this day. So, after commenting a bit about the dancers, Jian spots a guy with a Neil Diamond shirt on. He pulls the guy on stage and says he’ll pay him for the shirt. So the guys offers to give to him and Jian laughs and says no thanks. But Jian *then* pulls this guy over in front of Dave and says now Neil Diamond will be joining the tour. Dave played two pieces of Neil songs while Neil Diamond Shirt Guy makes it look like Neil (the one on his shirt) is singing. They send the guy with the inflated ego back down and take up The Greatest Man in America. Next is I Will Hold On. It starts out, for the first two verses, with just Dave and Jian, with Mike and Murray later joining in. Next came an extremely rocking version of Nuits De Rêve. Suddenly and mysteriously Dave disappears from the stage, and we all know what that means … I finally gave in* and ran down to the stage to get ready for my absolute favorite Früvous song that I just couldn’t wait to hear live (what an intro): King Of Spain! Know that I ran down now, meaning my notes could be a bit out of order. Jian asked something like, “Is it [insert American government official here who I can’t quite remember]?” five or six times. He said that whole Elian thing could be easily resolved by just giving the poor kid to someone with international knowledge and royal heritage. Then Mike picked up the megaphone he’d been toting around and began saying, “His Exalted Majesty, His Royal Highness, His Greatness, His [puts down megaphone] oh, screw it! The suspense is killing me! The King Of Spain!” Dave came out in one of the Früvous hats that were being sold outside. At “Oh, my unspeakable wife queen Lisa!” the audience replied “DON’T MENTION LISA!!” Dave put his hands up in a gesture of I-didn’t-do-it-ness. Then they started Green Eggs and Ham. During most of the song, poor Mike had his head down on Jian’s drums. I figured the poor guy was tired after 3 shows in 30 hours. Anyway, Jian starts berating Dave for ruining the show and being pessimistic by turning down the dish. Mike then gets up, shuffles over to Dave and, after breathing sporadically into the microphone, he says, “I see dead people.” It was great! Dave never saw it coming and Jian nearly fell over! The guys thanked everyone for coming and making it a special night. So Dave says he wants to deliver a message to Deidre (That’s me!) and though he said my name wrong I was thrilled. It turns out my parents love and I shouldn’t get a tattoo. I still don’t know where that came from. Anyway, then came Splatter Splatter and they bowed themselves out and left the stage. We kept on clapping and screaming until they came back. Next they played Disco Bargainville. The really entertaining thing was that Murray got a bit of a solo, followed by Mike wailing on the guitar prompting a rude gesture from Murray. ‘Twas cool. I’m pretty sure Get In the Car was next, but here’s where my “copious notes” fall apart. My friend Rai and I did our little dance to it, which seemed to get us an amused look from Jian. Then came My Baby Loves A Bunch Of Authors. And they left again. We continued stomping, screaming, and clapping. My friend Aly started a chant of “Früvous! Früvous! Früvous!” which caught on rather quickly. They came on one more time and asked that they could have quiet. They wanted to do the last song without microphones. It was the Gulf War Song and it was beautiful. The audience sang along for the last verse and it just made the night that special.

*Know that I did not, in fact, choose to wait that long to dance, I was forced into my seat when I tried to get up before King Of Spain. Go figure. Bad Rai. Baaaaad.

From Carey:

Hello from the land of 1000 nuns[1]! Shelly and I are opting out of sleep tonight, and instead we're bringing you this fabulous review of the fabulous show tonight (er, last night, by now) in Allentown.

Sooo, Gordon and I left the Land after my choir concert, and even though Allentown was apparently hours and hours away, and Mapquest had decided to totally screw with our minds, we got to the Symphony Hall before the doors even opened, and were able to join the line with everybody else in the world. So, um, hi to everybody else in the world, it was really groovy to meet you :)

Alrighty, onto the show. This was my first time taking notes on the setlist (besides just writing down quotes for my infamous quote board), so let's see how this works out.

Early Morning Rain: YAY! I was so happy to hear this live, and that they opened with it. It was *gorgeous*. But why Jian decided to use this song as an opportunity to resurrect his old Tall New Buildings-era dances is totally beyond me.

River Valley

banter: "Are people booing the jewel of the Susquhehanna?"(Mike), "Nooo, I think they're just booing Jewel." (Jian) "It's a good thing I brung my parachute pants." (Dave, who was all spiffed out in a suit tonight) "Isn't Jesus from Pennsylvania?" (Jian)

BJ: hadn't heard this one live yet, either. It included some little attempts at vogueing or something by Jian and then Murray.

Horseshoes

banter about the Bryn Mawr performance earlier that day: "It was like some pre-pubescent male fantasy . . . and that's why we paid 2 thousand bucks to play that gig." (Jian) then Dave said something about a "flagon of mead" . . . Murray: "Dave's waited for 3 years to use the word 'flagon' onstage."

Sad Girl: began with a long intro about grunge culture and stuff. At one point, Jian finally asked, "Am I rambling?" and Murray replied. "I just did my taxes in my head." Jian had the Persian Cowboy hat on again ("Don't call me my name anymore -- just call me Persian Cowboy"), which led to some banter about Persian fundamentalists marching in the streets . . .

Lazy Boy: yay, this one is always fun

Pisco: speaking of fun stuff. Intro about C album, and how there are still 24 letters in the alphabet to go, and each will have its own album -- "Each one more expensive than the last!" (Mike)

Then what started as a segue from Pisco into YWGTTM became a "the fish are coming" improv, about how all the fish are going to invade earth, and not even the little pockets in your swimming trunks will be safe. It was very ominous, esp. with Murray's spooky falsetto line going on. This led into banter about confused theatregoers trying to figure out exaclt what was going on onstage ("Oh, honey, this must be some kind of popular Canadian music," "At least in Wagner I wasn't *supposed* to understand it")

They tried to go into YWGTTM again, but it took awhile. At one point, Dave broke the silence by breaking out of the line and bursting out with, "Won't you come home, Bill Bailey?"

YWGTTM: another one I hadn't seen live. I loved watching Mike and Jian on this one -- they looked like they were in The Music Man or something.

Elian intro-->Stuck in the '90s

Minnie: Yay Grampa Fruvous! Someone else will have to help me out with the rhymes here. All I remember is "go local sports team!"

At some point in here, Dave strapped on the banjo and they went into a hoedown, which preceded

Michy: one of my favorite, favorite songs live. At this point some girls near the front got up and started dancing in front of the stage, and a bunch of us followed, prompting Murray to say something like, "We're glad to finally see you getting your groove thing on." Dave apologized because the rest of the show was going to be nothing but slow ballads.

Tureen: I spaced out here. I don't remember anything except the line, "It's not a pot, it's a tureen." Seriously. Weird . . .

Johnny Saucep'n: much faster since November, I think.

Song Sung Blue --> Cracklin' Rosie: yes, this did happen. There was some kid in the front wearing a Neil Diamond Tshirt, and they invited him to stand up in front of whoever was doing lead vocals, and move his shirt so it looked like Neil was singing. Dave started out with Song Sung Blue, and then went into Cracklin' Rosie. The other guys were really looking like they were thinking, "Ummmmm, *why* are we doing this? and *how* did this happen?" hee hee.)

GMIA IWHO Nuits KOS --> GEH: I think everybody was dancing at this point. OK, so this was my first time even hearing GEH live, so it was lots and lots of fun. "Not the Beatles" went on for quite awhile, with the "look what you've done to *him*" thing, and then Mike in his little kid voice saying, "I see dead people." Splatter Splatter Disco Bville: can I just tell you how happy I am that this is gonna be on the C album?

Encore 1 MBLABOA: there seemed to be some confusion over whether Robertson Davies need a shave or a grave tonight :) GITC

Encore 2

GWS: absolutely beautiful. One request, tho, and I mean this in the nicest possible way: if Fruvous is singing off-mic GWS and you're tone-deaf, *please don't sing along*. Just let them do it. You can sing again as soon as the get offstage. But apart from that, it was lovely.

After the show we were kinda hustled out o' there, which I was OK with. Jian and Mike came out, and Jian signed my YWGTTM and talked with me about my choir concert, thanks to Gordon. We went a little picture happy, too (well, it was the first time Gordon, Shelly and I had been in the same place at the same time, outside fhdc of course, and we had to mark the historic occasion.)

So, to make a long story short (too late), the show rocked, and a good time was had by all. *hugs* to everyone I met or remet, especially those who gave up time and sleep to get me there and back.

Hope to see some of you at the Rams Head and Birchmere,

Carey

[1]my school (not its real name, just what it *should* be called. it has two theme songs.)

Some other tidbits from the performance include:

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