what a trip it has...

now before i go on, i was supposed to pst this last week (sorry carol!), but i've been swamped with homework, etc... so forgive me!

anywayour trip started out at about 4pm, when carol and i left champaign for st. louis. it's only about a 3.5 hr. drive, so we made it in plenty of time for the show. we went by wash u to pick up a good friend of carol's before the show, had pizza for dinner, and then proceeded to the venue for the show.

now, when carol got the tickets, the ticket agent had made no mention of the fact that the show was 21+. we didn't find out about the smll detail until about 2 days before the show. since we'd already bought tickets, and we wanted to go visit carol's friend at wash u anyway, we went...planning on using our 'feminine wiles' to work our way into the show if we had any problems.

when we got the side door, carol showed her credit card and id to the woman at the door, and she said i'm sorry i can't let you in. after a bit of pleading, she went and asked her manager if she could let usin if we hung out in back by the door, but her manager wouldn't budge. the woman sad we could sell our tickets to other concert goers, and that was about it! so we did that, but we hung around anyway (in the well lit alley) just in case her manager decided to be lenient. (keep in mind that all of us are 20. i'm 5 months away from being 21) the woman at the dor was REALLY cool and left the door open a crack when fruvous came on so that we could at least hear the band, since we'd driven al that way to go see them...(hey! i know c-u to st. luois is not that far as afr as fru-trips go, but SHE didn't know that)

so anyway, we listened to:

River valley 
Get in the Car
Your New Boyfriend
3D Plus Sign (improv)
Half As Much
Independence Day
Side Door/5 Years (kind of improv, drifting into the
Bowie song)
Sad Girl

whil standing outside the door of the side door. Every once in a while, some one would walk in or out of the club and we'd catch them lads playing at full blast. It sounded great!

eventually, the manager of the club decided to let us in if the woman at the door stamped or hands with a gigantic circle of x's. we had no objection, so they let us in, and the three of us got to see the rest of the show from the inside. and surprise surprise, they sounded even better!

the rest of the show rocked (but then again, what else would it do?) the only down thing happened when the lads exited the stage after psychokiller. the crowd started shouting to hear KoS...these cheers eventually gave way to more rowdy chants, including several request to sing some guy happy birthday...

anyway, i think the other reviews of this show have pretty much sid the same thing, so i'll stop rambling now. anyway, what an adventure!

thanks for reading this, if you got this far...you deserve a medal or something!

From Tim:

River Valley
Get in the Car
Your New Boyfriend
3D Plus Sign (improv)
Half As Much
Independence Day
Side Door/5 Years (kind of improv, drifting into the
Bowie song)
Sad Girl
Pisco
Lazy Boy
The Kids' Song
My Poor Generation
Minnie the Moocher
Darlington Darling
Splatter Splatter
I Will Hold On
Present Tense Tureen
Johnny Saucep'n
Michigan Milita
Psycho Killer

Encore 1: 
Happy Birthday (to somebody up front)
Disco Bargainville

Encore 2:
King Of Spain 
You're Gonna Lose That Girl (YES!!!!!)
Drinking Song

Beatles song makes it a great show on the Cain-o-meter, outweighing the obnoxious drunks in the back who insisted on yelling their conversations back and forth.

See y'all in Champaign Friday.

From Brian/Michele:

My husband and I tripped down from Decatur - 2 hour drive. The difference for us was that we both had to work the next morning! Gee, I haven't operated on three hours of sleep since college 12 years ago.

One thing I wanted to add was the improv bit about the 3-D plus sign. Some guy had made this huge "origami" of a plus sign and gave it to the boys. Jian was pretty good-natured about it but couldn't figure out what the connection to the band was. It was pretty funny because it was such an odd thing to give the guys. Then, of course, they launched into the improv "3D Plus Sign" song. At the end of the song, they tossed the plus sign back to the guy who gave it to them. All I could think was "That poor guy is probably crushed!"

Oh, and one more thing, my husband ran into Jian in the bathroom before the show. They chatted for a few minutes (I thought guys didn't do that in the john...). Jian wanted to know why we came down for the St. Louis show instead of going to Urbana in two days. (The truth was that I had to go back down to St. Louis Friday night for a weekend event with my company.) My husband said he was pretty cool. We ran into Dave last year at the Canopy Club in Urbana before the show. Now that just leaves Mike and Murray!

Some other tidbits from the performance include:

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