Wow! What a great night. I'm thoroughly exhausted however. You'll find out why in a moment.

It all started off as a normal Tuesday. Me, quietly working at my desk and making plans to go play darts with friends that night and quietly envious of my sister who was going to the Troub that night. Around 1:30 I decide to call her to tell her about something I received in the mail at work. She begins to tell me that the person who was going to see Fruvous that night with her had backed out and so she had this extra ticket. Maybe I'd like to go? I laughed a little at first then said, well, I could always take the red eye home.

(This is where I tell you that I live in St. Paul.)

To shorten up the story, I decided to check the flights (I work at an airline, so it makes a trip like this more feasable), and found that I could get there and back if I left work a little early and got in a little late on Wednesday. With my boss's blessing, I rushed home to feed the kitties and put on another dress before running through the airport to catch my flight. Whew!!! Just made it!

For only my 2nd show, it was quite an experience! I met some new people (who, by the way, were VERY funny!), and finally got to meet the guys. We had to rush after the show, however, as my flight left at 2:30 and my sister had a long drive home from the airport as well as trying to get enough sleep to go to work today.

Murray shook my hand twice when he heard I had flown out to LA from Minneapolis just to catch their show.

(Well, I got to see my sister as well. That was a SUPER bonus! :-) )

Nat's proposal, by the way, almost made us cry! They were so adorable and when they played IWHO for them, we almost broke down...so we went out for a smoke instead. (Cough! Cough!)

I am sorry if this is disjointed and nonsensical. It is 9:30 am and I've flown 2000 miles, saw a show, flew 2000 more miles and now I'm at work like I had never left. Can't wait for 4:30!

From Nat:

Okay, here's what happened:

About halfway through the show, around 11:15 or so, Jian asks if Nat Gertler is in the crowd. I wave a hand. He starts spinning the story of the fan suggestions for names for the second album, and how some guy named Nat Gertler from California had suggested one of their fave names: Songs For Nat Gertler. The audience seems amused by this, and I'm acting a little embarrassed for all the attention. Then Jian beckons me on-stage, and I start to wave it off, but at the urging of the crowd I go up. Jian asks if I came with someone today (couples at the show having already been a theme of the night), and I point out my girlfriend, The Lovely Lara. The Frus start playing Lara's Theme (from Dr. Zhivago), and she gets beckoned on stage.

Jian then confesses to Lara that I knew I'd be dragged on stage, that this was all planned, but that I have something to say to her. I'm handed a mike. I drop to one knee, and at this point the crowd is going while and I have to pause for a few second to make sure that I'll be heard. I say something to the effect of: "Lara Hughes, I love you and I adore you. Will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?" At this point, she appears to be laughing and crying all at once, and she leans over to hug me and says yes. We hug and smooch, and head off-stage.

One kindly and faithful Fruhead (and forgive me, but I've forgotten your name... I hope you can understand that a lot was racing through my head last night) gave us Murray's set list, which includes the notation of where this event was to take place during the performance I'll be getting that framed along with the tickets for the night.

DID ANYONE TAPE LAST NIGHT'S SHOW? I hope you understand that I would really, really like to have a copy of that show, particularly the proposal portion. (And if any of the photographers happen to snap our presence on the stage, we'd also like copies of those shots.)

Big thanks go out to the lads... and to Judith Coombe, of their management group, who helped in setting this crazy thing up.

From Eric:

Wow. It's late, and I'm tired, but I successfully got 6 people to lose their Fruginity, and I'm pretty sure they all came away fans. At least they bought a CD or so each, so my work has been done.

Mike's setlist:
1/2
Laika
Horse
2 Care
Sad (Girl)
Lazy
Moon
Indy
Booty (Boo Time, I think)
King
nat--This was pretty cool.  They talked a bit about how they held a contest to
name their second album, and Nat Gerbler(sp?) sent in a suggestion, "Songs For
Nat G____".  They then dragged him up on stage, along with his girlfriend, and
he proposed to her on stage.  Pretty interesting, and I'm sure I'd have more to
say if it weren't so late.  Also, it was kind of bizarre because it was
followed up by....
Splatt.
Hold (dedicated to Nat & Lara)
MPG
Author "spending all my money on-jars of Bovril"
Car
Shit (Your New Boyfriend)
Psych
______________
They did a little snippet of "Believe" by Cher in here.
Mich
Video (Disco Bargainville) "...say no no raja/at Video Bargainville"
_______________
Drink

His notes for Boo Time were on there too:

Melrose Shoppin'/Ploppers Ploppin'
Troubadorin'/Guts & Gorin'
Staples Centre/Sports Placenta
Mallet Swingin'/Rodney Kingin'
Robitaille Lukin'/LA Flukin'

Somewhere in there they did a little bit of "Someday" by Sugar Ray, and a couple of little improv bits on LA.

It's way too late. Hopefully one of the more dedicated fruheads there will post a better review. Steph? Beth?

From Kristofer:

10/26/99 Los Angeles, CA The Troubadour By Kris "Omar" Kataoka

Fun-filled Fruvous festivities featuring fluffy, fragrant fabric.

Are these guys awesome or what? Being stuck in So. Cal. this was only my second time seeing the frulads live. (The first time was earlier this year at the Roxy in L.A. which, apparently, the band wasn't too fond of).But the Troubadour was great and my record stands that I have seen Moxy Fruvous (or "the Fruve" as they have come to be known as in my circle of friends)every time they have headlined in L.A. Cool, eh? Anyway, the night went something like this:

First off was Cindy Bullens. I must say, she was one of the better opening acts I have seen. Her style was condusive to what I was there to hear and her set was relatively short. She's also a very personable performer.

After what seemed like an eternity, the quartet of crooning Canucks took to the stage and proceeded to dazzle a pretty good sized crowd which was nice since sometimes I feel like the only Southern Californian with every Fruvous album. I got Jian's set list:

1/2
Laika
Horse
2 Caref
Sad
Lazy
Moon
Indy
Booty
King
ng  <--very touching
Splat
Hold
MPG
Author
Car
Shit
Psycho
------
Mich
------
Vid
Drinking

Anyway, after energetic renditions of "Half as Much" and "Laika" (one of my faves), Jian and the guys joked about the high quality sweat towels provided by the venue and how they smelled like "Canadian Bounce". Murray was quick to notice the abundance of fluff and speculated that fluffy towels were the cause of smog in L.A.. From that point on, if there was a lull in the show, one of the guys would resort to towel sniffing. It was hilarous. Maybe you had to be there. Moving on. They went on to do "Too Careful", "Sad Girl", "Lazy Boy", "You Will Go To The Moon", and "Independance Day" all with much emotion and of course interjecting their special brand of Fruvous humor (or humour depending on the region) between tunes. "Boo Time" is always a pleaser and I always say, you can't go wrong with props. (All the guys wore hats) Then another crowd favorite, "King of Spain" and talk about how every group needs a little dictatorship. Dave, excuse me, the King came out wearing one of those new MF bucket hats, but Mike promised "a complete costume change by verse three." (Didn't happen, but I got over it) Besides, where else can you hear Laissez-Faire rhymed with "I'm not wearing underwear"? From where I was I had a pretty good view of Jian's upside-down (to me) set list and as I followed along, I wondered what "ng" could be. As it turns out, ng stood for Nat Gertler, a long time frufan. At this point in the set Nat was invited onstage which he accepted and then had his girlfriend Lara join him. He then proceeded to propse to her. From what I could tell, she accepted. It was quite moving. (By the way, Nat and Lara congratulations and if you want Jian's set list from the evening, it's yours.) The mood quickly shifted when the guys played the song they performed on Conan O'Brien's show two weeks prior, "Splatter, Splatter", a fun one and probably a staple in the live show for a while. That was quickly followed by the beautiful "I Will Hold On" which was dedicated to the newly engaged couple. The set was rounded out with "My Poor Generation", "My Baby Loves a Bunch of Authors", "Get in the Car", "Your New Boyfriend", and naturally, "Psycho Killer". Which were all a lot of fun. After much cheering, the guys came back out and did "Michigan Militia" for their first encore. After much more cheering, they took the stage once more. Jian called all us L.A. people predictable, said that sometimes "you just gotta dance." The band then played a dance version of "Video Bargainville". And as always, they ended the show with the great ballad, "The Drinking Song".

After seeing them again, I have come to the conclusion that they need to come to So. Cal. more often. This time I was able to defruginize one friend of mine (wish I could've rounded up more, but maybe NEXT time....hint hint).

From Beth:

This is just a quick LA show review, because- well, it was a good one. A really good one, and in LA! It was the first one they've played here that wasn't a tough gig. For some reason, all the shows here have seemed to be lower in energy, larger in numbers of obnoxious security people/ rude audiences/power outages, etc than other shows. But this one took off after bout the third song, and climaxed (as far as I was concerned) in the middle of the show...

It seems that there's this guy called Nat Gertler who first came to their attention when they were taking suggestions for the title of "Wood". One of the many amusing titles that came in was his: "Songs for Nat Gertler". They asked in the audience if he was there, and he was! So they called him up on stage and introduced him, and everybody clapped, thinking that was the end of it.

They chatted a bit more- where are you from, are you here with anyone, etc; and we all clapped for the answers (Pasadena(?), his girlfriend Lara), and they called Lara up on stage just to be gratuitous. And we all clapped some more.

And then, Jian mentioned- "Well, actually, we knew Nat was going to be in the audience tonight. This was kind of arranged, because he has something to ask you." And there, in front of Fruvous and everybody, Nat drops to his knees and asks her to marry him. :-D

So anyway, the rest of the show, fine though it was, just couldn't compare. This will probably be one of my last Fruvous shows for a while (except for the convention in Feb), and I have to say, it was one of the best. And in my hometown (homemetropolis?), too.

Fruhead sightings: I happened to identify Eric (wave) as he waited by the door, and also caught up with Tara and Kyle, who had been to the Sting show across town and had floored it over to the Troubadour in time for the encores. I missed getting to talk with any other Fruheads in the audience. I did bring a fruvirgin, though - always gotta bring a fruvirgin - and he had the predictable wonderful time and bought a CD. Chalk up one more devotee of MF here in the southwest reaches.

From Rodney:

First of all this was a very special show for me as a friend had gotten the band to autograph a promo photo and send it to me and she had it framed and it was by my bedside almost every day while I was in the hospital I’m sorry for any typing errors because I still have no use of my left side so I am typing this with one hand which is much more difficult than you would otherwise imagine

First of all my older brother Leslie had taken the day off to see the show and my father being paranoid about traffic in Los Angeles insisted that we leave by 2:30 in the afternoon for what is normally a two hour drive. We left at 2:30and began driving north through Orange County. Since there were three of us we got to use the diamond lane allthe way up which was a real boon to traffic We made it up to Culver City, where my aunt lives by just after five. My aunt had dinner prepared and waiting which was very nice of her. She was real excited to see me come up to visit for the first time since I got home we finished dinner about 45 minutes later and left for the 45 minute drive down Sunset Boulevard to the Troubadour the show was scheduled to start at eight and when we pulled in front of the club, which by the way is spelled Troubadour there were stanchions in front of the door and they said that they were running late and they wouldn’t even be done with the sound check for another 45 minutes. It was already 7:15 so we drove down Sunset for a while trying to look at the sights but it was kind of hard after dark. We pulled up about 45 minutes later and met Dave my brother’s friend from High school who works in LA we unloaded my wheelchair and gave the keys to the valet parking attendant and wheeled in to the club. The ticket takers reminded me of the wonderful new law that prohibits smoking in any club or bar in California we waited around for about 20 minutes when I remembered to go and see Toby who was real glad to see me and we talked for about 10 minutes when he stamped my card it turned out that I had filled my frumiles card up, we talked a little about the logo for frucon 2 that brent and Marianne had licensed to the band. By the time I wheeled out of the merchandise table the opening act was just starting. Her name was Cindy Bullens or something like that she made a couple of references to having been playing together for some twenty years or so. She was not terribly interesting to listen to but I was understandibly excited to see the band. Cindy finished her set in about six songs. The club was very small and had a rather large stage with a sort of catwalk balcony up over the audience From my perspective not being able to see over anyone’s heads I would say that they were bordering on a capacity crowd. I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to see around the people standing in my way then the band came out and as soon as they started the intro for half As Much Leslie and Dave grabbed the rear of my wheelchair and lifted it up to swing me around so I could sit right in front of stage Dave. I had a really poor view of Murray but the seating turned out pretty good they opened with Half As Much and moved straight on into Liaka and then paused so Jian could introduce themselves to the audience and while wiping his brow he really seemed to like the fresh smell of the towels and tried to get everyone else to smell their towels they proceeded to do a little snippet of Towels from Home and then came Horseshoes then they played You Can’t Be Too Careful during which I sent Leslie to the bar to by a shot of Tequila and I placed it onstage at Dave’s feet and got a nod of thanks from Dave who proceeded to ignore it for the rest of the show until after the encore. Then came Sad Girl which Jian introduced as being about girls in our popular culture obsessed society then they went on to perform Lazy Boy which came off sounding clean and tight and is one of my two favorite MF songs. (The other is Poor Mary Lane)Mike started to intro the next song by talking about a “Saturn Vee” rocket and was quickly corrected but not before Dave could start making fun of Mike by calling it a”Saturn Vee five” they then had trouble getting the tone from Dave’s Pitch pike(is it pipe or Pike?)they finally got started on You Will go to the Moon. Next was Independence Day. They segued right into the intro to Boo Time All this time my brother's friendDave who is a professional musician keeps commenting on how good Dave is and how well he playing guitar. His band is BigFins you can check out their site at http://www.bigfins.com then they move on to the King of Spain intro and Mike seems to spend an inordinate amount of time slappin’ the bongos for the KOS opening and Dave is not wearing his jester hat but instead a black fishing cap like they have for sale at the merch table and then they performed a song Idon’t remember. It might have been Your New Boyfriend I know they performed that at sometime during the evening It’s listed on the setlist as NG Then they performed Splatter Spltter and Iwill Hold On with brilliant harmonies. It was such a joy to hear them perform it because that is the song that they dedicated to me when I was in hospital. Then comes My Poor Generation and from that Jian started banging out the opening rhythm forMy Baby Loves A Bunch Of Authors complete with the requisite “We’re Moxy Fruvous from Toronto and My Baby Loves A Bunch Of Authors!” They moved into a very good version of Get in the Car where Leslie’s friend Dave again Marveled at what an amazing musician Dave isthen a song listed as Boy on the setlist Probably Your New Boyfriend then they finished up with Psycho killer where they performed an extended intro with about three false starts on the song. Jian finally got the song started and they were all jumping around the stage during the song. .They ran offstage at the end to thunderous applause They came out for an encore to perform Michigan Militia then they left the stage again then came out to perform “the final song from their live album” The Drinking Song and the audience was so into it. It’s like the entire audience sang on key when Jian had everyone sing the chorus. When they finished two startling things occurred. Jian leapt from behind his mic and came out to right where I was sitting just off of Dave’s spot on stage and he knelt down to shake my hand and thank me for coming to the show he seemed genuinely excited to see me and told me to wait a few minutes for the guys to come out. The other thing was that Dave put down his accordion and ran to the shot that I had placed there at the beginning of the show and slammed it down and reached out for my hand and shook it thanking me for the drink. The place cleared out relatively quickly and it was easy to maneuver my chair around the club after a few minutes Jian made an appearance in the audience and I got Leslie to snag Dave’s setlist. And I just realized whatNG was on the setlist. It was where they introduced Nat Gertler to make hisproposal toLara whose post you have probably already read

All-in-all it was a tremendous performance maybe because I have never been in a position to watch Dave perform so closely before but I thouhght that Dave put in an amazing performance at this show eventually Mike and Murray and Dave came out and I got them to sign my Thornhill liner notes Jian spent a good deal of time embarrassing me by saying how good I look and how incredible it was that I made it to the show and I got to warn Jian that in case I fall into another coma what my two favorite songs were and when I thanked each one of them for performing Lazy Boy they each got to say how pleased they were with how well the performance came out Mike even told me how they did Poor Mary Lane each night when they were recording Live Noise and they just never got a version of it that they were pleased with though Mike admitted that he liked performing Poor Mary Lane. Mike even drew a little budgie dog on my liner notes and Dave wrote thanks for the drink on my liner notes. It was great getting o spend so much time with the band. And I think that at one time or another they each asked me to come up to Toronto in February for Frucon 3. This is not a show I’m going to forget for a long time

Some other tidbits from the performance include:

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