From Victoria:
It normally takes approximately an hour and a half to get from East Lansing to downtown Detroit...unless you have the proper motivation. Thankfully my motivation was adequate enough that J.R. and I were able to make the trip in an hour, missing none of the show (well...except for the opening group).
The Shelter, first of all, is this little pit of a place beneath St. Andrews Hall in downtown Detroit, dangerously close to Greektown (you've gotta really watch out for those flying gyros). After walking to the back of the building you stumble upon this poorly labeled door, the opening of which reveals dingy walls and steel steps which practically ooze the adjective 'industrial.' Not, I believe, your standard Moxy venue. The room was small and came unequipped with chairs. So when the guys came out they were met by this standing mob pressing against the stage. If I were they I would have been more than a little worried about how they were going to come off in such a room.
But come out they did, and early so as to hopefully beat most of the interference from another concert at St. Andrews. I'm sure that the Morse concert influenced the setlist for the show, since after it started upstairs we received only the faster-paced louder stuff. Few complaints from this little Fruhead (officially now, since I received my shirt last night), though it would have been nice to get a Gulf War Song or Drinking Song.
You must please insert here your standard "Man, I was just jammin' too much to even _think_ of writing down the set," but edit it to replace 'jammin' with 'fried.' Finals week, ya know. But here's what I can remember:
(see below)
No, those are in no particular order. Can you tell I was looking at my discs? "Um...yes, no, yes, yes, yes, no, K, next CD..."
Fruvous might start to avoid playing shows in MI: we're hard to appease. Either that or greedy little bastards. Like Ann Arbor, the crowd didn't shut up until they came out for yet a second encore. I'll admit to clapping and whooping along, like the good little lemming I am, but I felt guilty making them come out yet again. Sure, we got Brown-eyed Girl, which was a great moment, but still... I dunno, I feel almost as though we, the crowd, thought that this was _owed_ to us. "We came to your show and paid you $8 to be here, dammit, and we're going to milk it for all it's worth." *shrug* Just a thought.
It looks like this isn't turning out to be the 'brief' review that I stated in my subject line it would be, so why go halfway? Here's a little thought I've been mulling over since yesterday. As previously mentioned, I got my Fruhead shirt yesterday. Go me. I decided that it would be nice to have the guys sign it, so for the first time I hung out after the show. And so did half the crowd. Well...not that many, but there was a sizable group gathered to meet the guys. Well sure, why not? They're good guys, who play good music. After seeing that, however, my desire to get signatures just sort of faded. All of a sudden I felt like a harpy circling around to descend on my unsuspecting prey. "Here, you guys are great, sign this. Here, you guys are great, sign this. Here, you guys are great, sign this..." They were very friendly and forthcoming, signing posters and answering questions...
My problem here doesn't lie with the band, or even maybe with the mob of people after the show. It is, after all, _my_ problem. "Hi, you've just played a nice draining show. Would you please stand around for an hour afterwards schoozing with starry-eyed fans?" Again, like with the second encore, it almost seemed as though this was "owed" to us. These weren't some people, they were celebrities, and as such they had relinquished any claim that they ever may have held on privacy and personal choice. They were there to be pawed over, fawned over, picked over, and just generally spot-lit like some exotic animal in a petting zoo. They most likely don't feel that way about it, but that's the feeling I got and it bothered me.
But not enough to not get my shirt signed. Which bothers me a bit more.
From Sarah:
This was my second moxy concert and I loved it once again. I was the small indian girl in a leather jacket I was basically right smack dab in front, cuz if I was't I wouldn't have been able to see. WEll the best part of the show for me however did not occur till after the concert. Now we will take a quick break and respond to the earlier comment about feeling like the guys owed us the second encore. WEll, lately I've thought about this and realized that the encores really are rough on their voices and so it might be a little demanding of us to ask for more than one. However about the standing after the show thing they seem to want to do it.. and plus I love it. I mean I get to sit and talk to Murray... which comes to why the time afrter the show was so great. I'm one of those so called "annonying teenagers" that lust after murray. Well I thought I was lucky when during the show murray looked at me and seemed to recognize me. I also thought it was alot of wishful thinking. So we enjoyed the show and were waiting around for the guys.
So my friend and I talked to marcus and fanangled our selves two free posters. We got all teh guys to sign it. And of course I took special care when talking to murray. HE saw me and aid hey nice to see you again. IAnd ya know I thought hewas jsut saying this and vaguely remembered me and was being nice type of thing. So I said the real test is if you remember my name. And he said Sarah with an H. ANd of course I was floored and COMPLETELY ENAMORED. HE took my poster and was signing it and I asked him if I could possibly get a hug like last time and he said sure. So then when he signed my poster he put P.S. Let's hug at the end. And so he spread his arms wide and said come here. it was just more then I can handle. I LOVED IT. but then we were stil waiting around cuz the people we came with were getting their cd signed and they know moxy better than we do so they were just chit chatting. So I was like bam... I should ask murray to prom. Not really expecting him to say yes but ya kow thinking it would be an interestiing conversation. So I said hey murray you wanna hear a story? SIt down and let me tell you a story. SO he sat and asked if it was long and I said it could be long or shot and he said he wanted a long one. But don't worry I'm going to make it short for all of ya (god knows this post is long enough already).
So basically I told him a story of a girl in highschool whose name is sarah (fancy that) and who didn't have a date to her senor prom and that she already a happening dress but no little boy to take her. This story took about 15 minutes or so, it was beautifull. During which Murray offered me his beer and then we preceeded to share the beer. I know this sounds insane your all going this poor little girl writign this is on crack. But really I'm not like this about normal poeple just super cool people like murray. Now the ereason that sharing the beer is so cool is becuase you see this is an intimate thing your beer. He would take teh beer from my hand and drink and I would do like wise. Do you see the intimacy in this? ya know besides the fgact that we both had our moths on the same place. That's the physical intimacy, this was mental intimcay. (Now, I'd like to say take a break and laguh as hard as you want because tht sounded really funny and I just want to let you know I'm not a crazy fan. In fact Jian asked me if I knew his birthday and I said, pshaw no. cuz in fact I do not know his birthday. so let me continue) So murray said taht he could not take me to prom becuase he was on tour. And so I said well I want some proof that you would take me if you could, so my friends would believe him. So he said just tell them and show themour tour schedule. I said I wanted hard proof like a note or something so he grabbed my poster and wrote (I'm using quotations cuz these are exact words) "P.S. Sorry I couldn't take you to the prom. I think your hot. Yours, Murray Foster"
Now tell me how great is that? That made my month. Now I 'd like to think
he really thinks I'm hot so please no one burst my bubble. and thanks for
reading to the end of this sucker
Some other tidbits from the performance include:
Back to the tour dates 1997 page