Tressider Union Cafeteria, Stanford 10/22/99
Fruvous Round-up Part 2
Well, never let it be said that one cannot operate after only five hours sleep. I was up nice and early to skip class and get some errands done before the show. At 11am, I picked up Fruwench from her hotel room and off we went toward Stanford! We made one stop along the way for...umm, sundries (grin) and found a child's arcade ride that consisted of Spiderman driving a racecar (Spidey goes Speed Racing!). We rushed back to the car and got the cameras. Heehee, these pictures shall never see the light of day. (big grin)
We killed a few hours hanging out at the Stanford Shopping Center. Note on Palo Alto (home of Stanford): it is sickly yuppie-ville! Porsches, Mercedes, BMWs...everywhere!! Anyone who's made money in the computer business seems to live in this area and home prices easily jump over the million-dollar mark! So imagine two crazy looking fruheads wandering around after arriving in the Amazing Racing Beetle [tm]. Well, sick and freaky 'heads that we are, we arrived at the Union around 2.30pm! Now, I did this mainly because a lot of people needed directions to the venue (which I got out thanks to FHDC) and I figured a good meeting place would help us find each other. So the previous week I made up my "Fruheads West" sign! And it worked...people were able to find each other because of it. (and after the show many people told me that they were able to make it here especially because of the directions I provided *gush*)
Well, as we're sitting down to hang out and do some homework, the band happens to show up like 15 minutes after we got there! Eek! :D Well, Tobey comes walking by, sees us, and asks if we know where it's happening. Since I had gone to Stanford twice just to get info on the show, I got up and took Tobey inside to meet the manager and get things arranged. That was more than just a little cool! But the cafeteria seemed a little small and I figured this would be an interest, if not intimate, show.
I'm going to cut out a lot of the story I could put in here...cause we spent six hours sharing Frustories and so forth. At one point, Fruwench broke her anklet and needed some needlenose pliers to fix 'em. I replied, "Well, I've got some in the car, it's not too far." without even thinking about it. We paused, looked at each other, realising the reference...I fought it, fought it, but nooooo! "Just pick up the boxes, all the boxes you can use!" I quickly blurted out. :D And this was after saying "The Egyptian grrrrrrl" everytime one of us said "My god!" LOL That was the highlight of the wait...aside from the swill-a-licious French Roast (which for some reason Dave really liked).
Well, as everyone was doing sound check, a small group of us had arrived to get seats...yes, there were seats! For a while, it looked like there'd be about 60 of us at most. Well, by showtime, there had to be closer to 200 and more wandering in! Cindy Bullins opened up and she was pretty cool...no Chapman stick (Slim's '98 attendees will get that reference)...and it's worth picking her new CD up. :) However, a lot of us took the time to go outside and catch up on things and missed the note that Cindy would be playing with a very special guest the next night in SF.
Fruvous came on around 9pm and I scored a decent place to record and get pics. The lighting sucked and the speakers weren't much, but that kinda helped the recording. The banter was excellent...some really cool stuff! They even pulled one of the posters off the wall and made mention of the seven German acapella singers from the turn of the century on it. "It looks like a regular late night frat gathering." (Later, I scored a poster and had everyone [but Mike :/ ] sign who they think they'd be) There's a small grocery store next to the room (even the walls were windows, so we could all see in) and they spent a lot of time commenting on the sundries and various other things this place had. Sundries even made references into I Love My Boss. When King of Spain came around, Dave disappeared out the side door and into the store while Jian did the intro. He comes back in with a bucket hat on and carrying what looked like a bag of chips...so again we are treated to the wonders of sundries and the joys of the Gap! Lots of sarcastic reference to how hard working and employed the students of Stanford are. Hey, a school that costs that much...oh yeah, you're gonna work. ;D And of course they completely dissed the locale. "Hey," Jian said, "looking at all the beautiful buildings on campus, they decide to put the Canadians in the shittiest building here." We were also treated to interludes from Doctor Zhivago! Anyway, the Leafs became the Sharks in KoS and there were a few "Do you know the way to San Jose" references later on (woohoo!). Possibly the biggest treat of the show was "Walk on the Dancing Queen" (at least that's what I call it) mainly because I had never heard it before and had only heard fabulous stories about it! It was possibly my highlight of the weekend between the banter-filled Green Eggs & Ham from Palookaville and the Disco Bargainville from SF. A very cool cover came when Dave had to bolt from the stage and around the corner to the bathroom while the rest did Elvis Costello's "Oliver's Army." We were also treated to Ash Hash which I don't think I'd heard live before....not to mention a random improv of Surfin USA! Seriously, there was so much neat stuff during this show that I don't think I can cover it all. That was a big surprise for a small, free show. :D
Talking with Murray afterward, he had started to catch a small bug and so I offered a few Echinacea and menthol mint herbal throat drops I had been keeping handy. He said the next night that they really helped. (big grin) Also, I seem to recall getting into a long discussion with Dave and other local friends about the best computer system to get and the benefits of the Mac G4 over the G3...lol...only in Silicon Valley!
Stanford is also where I parted ways with Fruwench who met up with her room and board for the rest of the weekend. Thanks again for keeping this poor left coaster company! Also big thanks to Elena, Rachael, the band geeks from Los Gatos High, Nicole, Nicole's friend whose name I can't recall, Caitlin and Doug (who were here after putting in many 16hr days at work), Sarah Bum and mom, and all the new fruheads that were made at this show!!
From Nicole:
After class (this is now Friday at noon, if anyone's keeping track), I once again filled up the Wondermobile (amazing how those 5-hour car trips will drain a gas tank...) and headed off. Jessica and I got to Stanford at about six, met Taylor and ladywench (hi guys!), who were kindly running a central meeting point. We chattered with them for a while, then went inside to claim spots.
Y'know, even though they said the concert would be in a cafeteria, I wasn't really expecting... well, a cafeteria. There was the coffee bar behind us. The frozen-yogurt dispenser to one side. The closed-off food lines to the other side. The long fluorescent lights overhead. It was a... cafeteria.
And in that cafeteria were a bunch of people from Los Gatos High. This deserves special mention. I went to Los Gatos High. Nobody had heard of Moxy Fruvous until I, five years ago, got my friends hooked. "Holy cow," thunk I, "What have I started?"
The opener Friday night, Cindy Bullens, was a definite cut or two above Thursday night's. I really dug a couple of her songs, but not enough to buy the album.
And then, the concert. Ahhh. Friday night's concert was MUCH better than Thursday night's, I found, despite the really crummy acoustics. We got Pisco (only time all weekend!), Ash Hash (!), Dancing Queen (!!), and Oliver's Army (!!!) (unplanned; they just launched into it while Dave had wandered offstage), which I'd never heard before. In fact, it inspired me to get my very first Elvis Costello CD when I went home.
From Kyla/LGHS Band Geeks:
i realise it has been a (very) long time since the 10/22/99 show at stanford, but i just remembered to send this, here's a review from the LGHS band geeks (*please* put that as our name!!)
well, we showed up at stanford and located the cafeteria. we met
taylor and früwench, and she fed us very good chocolates. then we went
off the the bookstore there to get a camera and try to locate some of
those nifty, screwed-up concert advertisement poster, which featured 6
german a capella singers from the 1800s, i believe. we went into the
cafeteria and sat down in the chairs that they had set up for us and
watched the stage be set up. as wonderful as it was, we got bored of
this, so we went and got food. two of us went to get some pizza and were
found by a guy who was handing out miniatures of the poster on neon pink
paper. he gave them some and we handed some out, but we didn't meet too
many people to give them to, so we brought them to school and gave them to
our chemistry teacher to use as little pieces of paper for our quizzes.
anyway, we eventually headed inside and talked to tobey, who sold us just
about one of everything there (excepting the i *heart* canadian boys shirt
and the hockey jersey) since there were 6 of us who wanted stuff. he
taught us a nifty thing to do when sticking up posters, also. you put a
piece of tape on the back of the poster and put the piece of tape you want
to use to stick the poster to something with on that piece of tape. it's
very handy, btw. anyway, we ended up sitting behind nicole and her
friends. she taught us "je suis un poisson lesbiane" (i am a lesbian
fish) which none of us have found a use for as of yet. cindy bullens was
very cool. very emotional music. and then früvous came on. it was very
very awesome!! only two of us had seen them live before, and only once
then, so we were all very impressed. pisco was awesome!!!! and the
drinking song, which they didn't do at our other concert, so we all
finally understood why people were laughing after "opened the
windos/played some nintendo" on live noise. one of us, who is a complete
80s music person, was thrilled by dancing queen. and i loved oliver's
army, which was kinda impromptu while dave was getting a hat for KoS and
buying sundries from the store next door. it was a super cool concert but
we were forced to leave by our ride to leave before we could finally meet
the frülads (well, all right, we *did* have to be at school for 5ish the
next morning for a competition, but who cares? it's früvous!) but we had a
very good time anyway. and just a thank you to nicole here, for creating
a little frühead community at LGHS for me to find when i arrived. its
very awesome!
Some other tidbits from the performance include:
Back to the tour dates 1999 page