(review of GEH- at end *worth reading!!)

I was gonna post a review, but I never have.. so for now I'll just post the set list. The show was unique... started out unusually quiet, but the guys picked up and took control, and were excellent,. Good job of bringing the crowd up to speed.

Daves setlist:
1/2
horse
too care
indy
sad boss
rush
river
booty
too cold
tureen - sauce
Moon
Hold
MPG
Splatt
Car
Boyf
Potion
------
Michican Militia
------
King GEH
Drinking

Green Eggs and ham was hysterical! Jian was tormenting Dave in the usual "not the beatles" way, when he appeared to go to far... and the crowd started yelling quietly "way to go dave" which transitioned to a loud roar of "we love dave" "we love dave" it was awesome!! Jian says " no.. no.. if you love davem then you hate the beatles!!" them mike runs from behind the drums in the back to the front of the stage and yells.. "no! he's not dave-- he's mr cheese!!" Mike then jumps offff the stage into the crowd and starts beating on people.. he jumps back on to the stage and they finish the song... Oh my all that followed by a wonderful (usual) finale of the drinking song. Not many arms around each other,.. but a bit of swaying... Fruvous needs to hit the West Coast a bit more often!!!

Sorry, I've got to go.. I wish I could tyoe more!

From Taylor:

Fruvous Round-up Part 1

If there was ever a crazier week to have before seeing Fruvous three times in three nights, this was the week! I got sick a week before the show and took everything I could think of to beat it before they arrived in town. The good part is that I more or less did! :D Of course, that meant skipping a day from work to get rest and do part of a semester project that I would have otherwise done this weekend, but that's the choice I made.

I trekked over the hill from San Jose to Santa Cruz right after work on Thursday and did the whole parking bit without incident. Had dinner at the Pontiac Grill (great place, eat there!) and as I was waiting in this little 50s diner, the jukebox started playing the original version of Love Potion #9...I totally flipped out! :D It was 7pm when my food arrived and I asked the lady please to put it in a box cause I needed to get over to the venue. So here I am walking down Pacific Ave eating my grilled cheese and fries. Well, right at the corner where I'd turn to get to Palookaville stands Cal and Mike. Eek! I casually walk up and say "Hey Mike, want a fry?" I think startled him; he politely declined. I stayed and chatted a tad, asking about the drive down and so forth. It was cool. So, I did the waiting in line thing and the wishing they'd open the damn window so I could get my ticket that was on will call thing as I hung out and caught up with other Fruheads that I hadn't seen since the Fleadh back in June.

Eight o'clock and we all get in and start milling around, talkin with Tobey, getting the stamp action. I found a good place to stand and record and take pics. Met up with Carly Constanza and her mom, Nancy, from the Monterey area, her two friends Dakota (a little *too* into Jian) and Celeste. They made a short comic book about the band and gave it to Dave after the show....I hear they really liked it. ;D Caught up with Nicole and her friend from Davis. Generally milled around and talked with folks, checking my watch to see where Fruwench was since she had just flown in from Delaware that night! Luckily, they chose to put on a opener (one girl, one guitar, not great) which pushed back the Lads' start time and gave Wenchie enough time to arrive! :D She brought truffles too! Dark chocolate with Pineapple and White Chocolate with Macadamia Nuts!

Well, the house was about three-quarters full when Fruvous took the stage which was a little disappointing, but it was a Thursday and not all the people who wanted to make it could. Either way, the show was real good...we were just thrilled to have them back out here! The energy started off low, but really picked up after a short time. All the standard Santa Cruz references came out...yeah, we're all a bunch of hippies. It was revealed that Thornhill was the town from whose loins they sprang and continue to spring. Their words, not mine! Plenty of sarcastic jabs at the employment level and homeless population of Santa Cruz. Which really isn't that bad, honestly...coming from San Jose or seeing what it's like in SF! Oh, and naturally there were references to how warm it suddenly was now that it was fall. For those who missed it, go back and read the reviews from June where it felt more like fall at the beginning of summer! I'm continually impressed with how they're able to remember where they made which reference. And keeping in that key, they played It's Too Cold this time out! What was really a thrill was to hear River Valley and Present Tense Tureen live. Just one of many songs this weekend that hadn't been done in Northern California before! Of course, the slight irritant of the night was a bunch of newbies who kept yelling for King of Spain...not knowing that they always do it. Strange reference of the night goes to the Blanc Mange (it's a Monty Python reference that I think I mispelled)...this giant Blanc Mange that grows huge and (as Mike says) attempts to eat the earth! To which everyone runs around yelling and screaming after some encouraging. Total highlight of the night had to be Green Eggs and Ham with a five minute (I timed it) "Hey not the Beatles" interlude where the beating on Dave prompted a chant of "We love Dave" and of course he wasn't supposed to be Dave, but Mr Cheeze, so Mike jumps out into the audience and does this improv moshpit/beat on people thing. Pretty damn cool!

After the show everyone came out...always a plus and hung out for a little while. As I was wearing my Tacky Hawaiian Shirt (which I may put into rotation with more mellow ones) Dave gave it total approval and said "Were Graham Parsons alive, I'm sure he'd wear one just like it." Talked with Murray a little and said hi to Jian and Mike. But eventually it was time to get out and get back over the hill. Fruwench caught a ride with me and I dropped her off at her hotel room before picking her up again the next day for the Stanford show. Big thanks and love to Wenchie, Nicole & Co., as well as Carly and her crew!

From Victor:

Well, here's my review of the show on October 21st 1999 at Palookaville in Santa Cruz, CA...

I don't live in Santa Cruz, in fact I live about two hours away. And yes, Moxy Fruvous would be playing a tour date about a half hour away from me, but I decided to go to the Santa Cruz show because it was my eighteenth birthday. And boy was I glad I went.

First of all, Santa Cruz is a very strange town, and I won't even begin to comment on the oddness factor of a town with a 24 hour combination espresso bar/laundromat, and newspaper stand sized sushi restaurants on the sidewalk. Actually, I guess that would count as "beginning to comment" but I won't go any further than that.

After exploring the town for a little bit I tried to find Palookavile and got somewhat lost. I was looking for Pacific Ave. which Mapquest said intersects with River St. but in fact it runs parallel to River and Ocean streets and instead, intersects with Water St. I half expected to come across Wet Street, Stream Ave, and Large Body Of Water Boulevard. Street namers should be more creative.

Anyways, after a large amount of confusion I finally found the spot on Pacific Ave. where the address that Palookavile owns should reside. The main problem was that even though the street address is listed as being on Pacific Ave, the entrance is actually on a side street and there is no discernable indication of anything even remotely resembling a concert venue visible from Pacific Ave itself.

So I found the place, and walked inside. Continuing with the overall weirdness of Santa Cruz, Palookaville contained a counter which served vegetarian Cambodian cuisine, and the opening act was a freaky new-age diary-poetry spouting girl-with-a-guitar who half the audience seemed to enjoy... I walked outside and got some pizza while waiting for her to get off the stage.

After the opening act, I saw Dave walking through the place on the way to the stage door. I approached him, shook his hand, and wished him good luck on the show. Then a little later I saw Mike heading for the stage door and I informed him that it was my 18th birthday, and I would be a happy little Fruhead if they played a birthday song for me. He asked my name (Victor) and told me he'd see what he could do.

Finally the boys got on stage and jumped right into the swing of things. The show was very Thornhill based (they played half the songs on the album) which was slightly annoying to me because I hadn't gotten a chance to pick up the CD yet and therefore only knew "I Will Hold On" because they had performed it last time I saw them in concert.

The concert continued with much witty banter. Jian commented on how he decided to look cool by chewing gum on stage, but when he was making one of the sweeping head gestures that he always makes, his hair got caught in his mouth. He then presented the myriad of options he had including just biting the hair off and letting it intermingle with the gum, or just spitting it out and letting it swing back and forth from his hair.

Later, between songs, Mike rambled on about how a vicious Blanc Mange was going to take over the world, and we were all headed for impending doom, and then got angry that nobody cared, yet alone knew what a Blanc Mange was.

About half way through the show, when I had all but forgotten about my pre-show chat with Mike, he started on a bit of monologue which I will try to duplicate from memory...

"You know, 18th birthdays don't happen every day. Well, actually, there's probably about seven million 18th birthdays happening all over the world right now, but there's only one in this club. Victor, where are you?"

I raised my hand, everyone cheered, I felt grand. Mike than turned to dave and said, "You know, I wonder if Victor, at the tender age of eighteen, has had a chance to go down to the ravine, as we like to say." After a bit of ravine explaination which I forget the specifics of, they launched into The Present Tense Tureen and I was genuinely happy having had a Fruvous birthday song.

During the last encore, in the middle of Green Eggs & Ham, they did the usual "I don't even like the Beatles with the long long hair" bit, but this time Jian and Mike basically forced the audience to choose between their love for Dave and their loyalty to The Beatles. Mike got so enraged that he ended up jumping down into the audience berzerker-style and kicking some Dave-loving ass. But despite my shouts of "I love the Beatles!" he still managed to punch me in the head (not hard enough to hurt) and shoulder, and pseudo-tackle me.

Then, following a nice Drinking Song sing-a-long, the show was over. I took a stroll over to the mechandise booth and purchased a copy of Thornhill, then went back over near the stairs to wait for the band to emerge. When they did, I thanked each of them for the best birthday ever, and then they each signed a birthday wish for me on their own picture in the Thornhill booklet.

So I left Santa Cruz and all its weirdness, knowing I just had a birthday that I would never forget, and the album cover to prove it.

From Nicole:

Yes, so it's a week late. :) Moral of the story: when one blows off work for three solid consective days in order to see Fruvous, one should not be surprised to a) find said work waiting for one upon one's return, and b) find that said work has grown, blancmange-like, and taken over one's desk and life.

Thursday afternoon the Wondermobile and I rolled out of Davis, destination Santa Cruz. I stopped off in San Jose, home of Increasingly Bad Traffic, to pick up a coupla friends, and we headed off. Fortunately we were late (and isn't that a peculiar statement), and traffic over the hill had died down. Once in Santa Cruz, I met a dear high school friend and a bunch of local Fruheads (*wave*), and some of us headed off for a slow but delicious dinner. None of us cared for the opener, a bland guitar-playing singer-songwriter--Jessica dubbed her "the Lady Lee of folk". So we wandered around looking for people... "Hey," said Jessica, "I think I saw somebody from Falcon Ridge over there." "You sure?" I said, trying to think of who this could be. We moseyed over and found--Ladywench! Squee! :D Hugs and chocolates all around! She'd landed only a half-hour or hour ago, apparently, and had come straight from the airport.

Shortly after this, the opener finished, and the Frulads came on. I won't say Thursday night was a great concert. I never really got into it. The energy and verve picked up dramatically during the encore, but by then there wasn't much they could do with it... I found that particular show decent at best, although it was nice to hear River Valley, and I think someone already mentioned the great "We love Dave!" chant during "Not the Beatles!" (which was the longest I've seen, and one of the better ones).

Armed with chocolate-covered espresso beans [1], I stayed awake during the drive back up to Sacramento, and even took semi-coherent notes in class the next morning. [2]

[1] People who know me tend to find that the thought of me eating chocolate covered espresso beans is inherently frightening. I wish to assure such people that I don't get nearly as wired as they probably think.

[2] Yes, there was a reason why I drove back up instead of staying in the Bay Area, but it's a long and boring story.

Thanks to Taylor for these:
• Cool blurry pic
• The whole band

Some other tidbits from the performance include:

• Feel free to help contribute to this section!