After spending a day cooking in the sun at my brother's college graduation, it was nice to have a slightly cooler day for my day trip to Long Island. Fruvous so close to Philadelphia with the possibility of a cd was too much to miss.
Picked up my FruVirgin friend Caroline in Willow Grove and headed up to Garden City. A short 2-1/2 hour drive.
We arrived at the mall which was huge and actually a bit confusing. Sam Goody was on the concourse level which was located below a certain section of the main level. But after a bit of wandering, we found the huge Sam Goody and, having seen where they were playing, we wandered off to get something to drink. Gotta have that caffiene, ya know.
We returned to Sam Goody and found that all the cool armchair seats around the stage area were taken, but there were folding chars about 2 feet in front of the mics.We sat down, and I immediately started looking for somewhere to move to. "Moxy Fruvous is not a sit-down band," I told Caroline, who was very kind about humoring my quest to move. It was sort of strange to be in an audience and know NO ONE, but eventualy KPFruhead's dad showed up with a ng pin, so I was able to go over and say hi.
Oddly, since this was an in-store and not a show, Fruvous had an opening act. Gerald Bair came on and sang for about a half hour. He had some nice songs. "Bleeker Street" was particularly good and real got in touch with the feel of that famous part of NYC. And after his set was over, I finally moved to the third row of seating which were the stools that line the listening area. Essentially, a long shelf about 4 feet high with stools on either side for listening to CDs. This lined the outer part of the circle which was "the listening bar." I had decided pretty quickly that I would prefer mobility to proximity.
Finally, Fruvous came out - Jian in sunglasses, Mike in regular eyeglasses, Dave totally sunburnt. And talked. First Jian spoke in his rock 'n roll british accent, apologizing for the sunglasses, but it was a late night of partying and he was just coming down. Then talk turned to the deal Sam Goody was offering. They had been in the back signing cds which weren't available that day, but for "$2 down" you could get an autographed copy on Tuesday. Fruvous spent several minutes joking about this being a great deal...because management never actually said we would have to pay off the rest. Murray chimed in that you would also get interest--"six cents"--for having to wait.
This went on so long that they felt obliged to reintroduce themselves. In fact, they pulled a member of the audience in a Canadians jersey up to the mic to reintroduce them. He had seen them before at Nassau College.
They opened with Peace of Mind. And then began to talk about the level of crime in Long Island compared to Canada. This was, of course, one of the running jokes of the day. As was the claim that they were doing music for the soundtrack to the movie "Woo." (And as Jian later said, they were working on the stuff for "Woo 2." Say it aloud if you don't get the joke.)
Then then went into "Authors," "Michigan Militia," and "Jockey Full of Bourbon." They gave a minimal intro about how this was music from their live album, but they wanted to slip in something new and went into "Sad Girl." After which, Murray commented that he was always worried that he was making weird faces while playing the drums 'cause he had no idea what his mouth was doing. Then this segued into Mike commenting that drummers were big boozers and partiers and that it was quite a lifestyle change for Mur. Jian looked on with raised eyebrows and mock insult. But didn't comment.
Next up was "I Love My Boss." Almost the instant it started, Jian took off running after a guy later described as "the little spiky-haired guy." The combination of the run and the interaction with the guy left the first verse in disarray. By the 2nd version, Jian had left the spiky-haired guy and climbed up on the listening booth platform to dance a bit. He made it back to the stage for the end of the song. At which point, Mike laid down between the mics and the first row and Murray queried, "What started that?"
Jian explained that the guy had walked in the store and apparently not heard them singing. So when they started, he made a dimissive face. But when Jian went over to sing to him, the spiky-haired guy responded by saying, "don't get so close, man." Jian started to talk about the homophobia implied: "did he think I was going to have sex with him here?" But Murray interrupted by pointing out that he might have just been afraid that Jian would shoot him which segued back into the difference between crime on Long Island vs. Canada.
Meanwhile, Mike had been laying on the ground for sometime, and they finally did a "Spidey" introduction. Mike used his time as Super Hero to offer tips on CD shoplifting. Tip 1: Don't steal popular music. It's restocked often. They'll notice it's missing. Steal from the classical or jazz section. Tip 2: Steal music that's on sale. (Mike's choice was Andreas Bocelli, a blind tenor that Mike had never heard of.) Tip 3: Where to hide it? In your pants. Of course. Which he illustrated. Tip 4: When the alarms go off, have some sort of CONDITION....like prostate cancer.
Next up, the slow Boo Time with a weak response from the audience. Then into an a cappella Message.
Finally, time for King Of Spain. Rousing cheer from the audience, but when it came to "do you want to know the epilogue?" It was Murray who wanted to know. "After all the time, it's still exciting."
From that, right into a short version of Green Eggs and Ham. Pretty good "Hey!" from the audience. As Jian explained why Dave couldn't dis that Beatles, Dave countered that he had MET the Beatles once...but was a little unclear about where this encounter with John and Yoko took place. They then eneded with Love Potion #9.
There was a great audience response as they said their goodbyes. So much so that the manager actually went after them about an encore, but apparently, the lads had somewhere else to be and didn't have enough time.
But all in all, a nice afternoon, definitely worth the drive from Philly even without getting the new CD...although it sounded good in the store after the show. And it was nice meeting a couple new folks, including the other online Mary FruHead. :-)
From Scott Perschke:
Mary already gave the high points.... I just wanted to add that I brought along 2 Fruvous virgins with me, both of whom are now converts!
It was great meeting Mary, even if she did identify me in her post as Ken's Dad, instead of being a Fruhead in my own right. Hell, I introduced him to their music, those many years ago!
On my way to snatch Jian's set list from the floor, I was cut off by
someone else who got there first! I had to settle for Mike's "Boo
Time" notes, and asked the store manager for one of the big promo
posters, which I had the boys sign for Ken, who could not be there.
Some other tidbits from the performance include:
Back to the tour dates 1998 page