It’s been a while since the concert, and my first review -- so please bear with me….
My concert companions and I got into Portland about an hour before the doors opened. Maine really isn’t known for their sold-out Fruvous concerts, but we were really worried about parking. You see, OpSail (our tall ship festival for all you flatlanders) was conveniently opening that same night, so a bunch of roads were closed, and parking was going to be extremely limited. But, to our surprise, Stone Coast kept their parking lot open! So we just slipped past the “Road Closed” sign (or, if you’re a Portland police officer, we didn’t.) and parked right next to the door (and the Frubus)! Success!
Anyway…. Ok, Stone Coast is a pretty nifty place. You walk in, and it’s a restaurant/bar type thing on the lower floor. But then you walk up the stairs and there’s a cute little stage area. Small, but nice. There weren’t that many people there yet… and no one on the dance floor.
Hmm… what can I say about the opening band? Oh yeah – el sucko. I usually try to be nice and all, but it was really hard to do that with Eggbot. I’ll just say this: they closed by screaming “Somewhere over the Rainbow”. I have never seen such an angry crowd. And unfortunately our jeers of “you suck!” and “go home!” only seemed to encourage them to sing (and of course, suck) even more. Longest hour of my life. But then, the lads made it all better! They came out relatively on time (only 15 minutes late! A new record!) Opened with Nowhere Man… oh so wonderful…. Dave was wearing a Pisco Bandito shirt that I hadn’t seen yet. Very stylish.
Wow. This was a great set. I was really scared at first, because the stage is so small and I didn’t think it’d be able to handle all their energy. But they handled their space restrictions beautifully. There was a lot of talk about the tall ships and tourists. But most of the banter centered on Jian’s first experience with a real Maine lobster (in the complete shell). He swore that it lifted its head and started talking to him. Through the concert, he kept having visions of the poor little guy. We also got to hear Mike’s impression of the little kid from The Sixth Sense during GE&H (“I see dead people!”). This show also seemed to be sponsored by the word “fuck”. The word was flying around the stage even more than usual! My favorite use of it: “Do you want to hear my fuckin’ epilogue?!” It was a small crowd, but energetic. Left a lot of good dancing room! My only problem with the show was the crazy drunks in the back. For some reason they decided to stay quiet until they switched to the quieter, slower songs (IWHO). Got Jian a tad miffed…. And also the rest of the crowd trying to enjoy the song. At one point, the whole crowd turned to stare at them. After that, they stayed quiet for the rest of the show. Stupid drunks. This show allowed me to cross off a couple songs that were on my “I will die a happy person if I hear these songs” list: Laika, Independence Day, Psycho Killer and Dancing Queen. Have I mentioned that I loved this set?
And here it is, in all its glory! Right from the setlist o’ Mike:
Nowhere Laika Heat Splat Sad Lazy Ass Pisco Indy Booty Tureen Sauce Ash Hold MPG King Green Auth Car Psycho ---------- Michy Vid
And the second encore was Dancing Queen. All in all, a very enjoyable
show! (As if a Fruvous show couldn’t be enjoyable….)
Some other tidbits from the performance include:
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