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Let me tell you a little story about Hartford... A story, you ask? Why yes, little Suzie, a story. For that is indeed the theme of tonight's show. And as I think we all know, I like to type up fairly long and rambling set reviews. So if yer all sick of that schmo, just skip on down to the meaty parts. But I'm going to add a ton of completely unnecessary filler to my story tonight because that was also the theme of the dada show. What, you ask? Aha! Read on, little grasshoppers...
First of all, as this afternoon started, I still had no idea if I was going to tonight's show. None of my friends were going, and I couldn't even get my girlfriend to go with me, which was my last resort. So if I did this thing, it would be alone. And if you know me, and you probably don't, then you know how much I hate driving to foreign places by myself, especially if long distances are involved. So it was gonna take something big to get me off my lazy ass and head down to Hartford.
So I'm chillin' (like a villain) on my couch, like a potato all day (I actually hadn't done much more than vegetate since I got back from the Providence show Friday night), and just generally feeling tired and lazy. The woman and kids were gone for the day so I had the place to my lonesome and I planned to watch the hometown teams and yell at the TV telling them how much they suck. It was gonna be a great day. But then I remembered the dada Hartford show, and I knew I would regret it if I didn't go and I made a deal with myself that if the Sox won this afternoon, I'd PROBABLY go, even if by myself.
So I spent the afternoon flipping channels between the Sox and the Pats and after much yelling at the TV, both teams actually pulled it together at the end and won their games. I was shocked. And it left me with no choice. The New England double whammy. It was a divine sign that I had to get dressed, cowboy up, and trek down to Hartford. (If the Sox can do it, so can I)
An hour later, I'm on the road with some shoddy directions, a wee-inkling of where I was headed, a wing, a prayer, and some drivin' music (Zep - how the west was won). Surprisingly, I made it in one piece. Two hours later, I was at the Webster.
Here is where the fun begins... from outside, the place looked like it was going to be a great venue. It's a really big theater type building. So I go to get a ticket and it turns out that dada is not playing at the Webster. They are playing at the "Webster underground", a little tiny bar right next to the real Webster. I was kind of shocked when I first walked in because it really wasn't what I was expecting at all. Picture the cavern club in Liverpool, except not underground. The place was semi-packed with young folks listening to the opening bands (who all sounded amazingly alike to me). After each band came and went, the crowd thinned slightly more.
I was left with no choice but to drown the music out with alcohol (naturally). So I got a beer at the bar and tried to go into the stage area to at least look at the opening band and maybe see if anyone else I knew was there, only come to find out that alcohol isn't allowed in that area. Total bummer, and another strike in my book against this place. So I meandered back up to the bar area and heard some folks chatting about dada and I had finally found some comfort... turned out to be lembob, his friend, and Dean (TheShapeOfRain). They were cool enough to let me hang around with them while we waited for the other bands to finish up and clear out. Downed a couple more beers (thanks lembob!) and then set off to the stage area to secure a spot for dada.
Now, before we begin the next portion of the story, I must provide some background info. dada's setup got all screwed up when all the other bands were moving their stuff on and off the stage. Also, they were not prepared for this small venue. They were originally told they would be playing the Webster theater, but then the show got moved into this smaller bar, so consequently they were not too happy about this and by the time dada got on stage, they actually hadn't done a proper sound check.
So finally the boys took the stage (I think around 11 or so). Jeremy had to do some final taping down of equipment and other minor details at this point, because of the stage fiasco. Mike then made a comment (jokingly - sort of) about not being able to do a sound check. It was obvious the guys weren't too happy about the whole situation. The attendance at this point for the show way maybe 30 people, 50 at the most. But probably closer to 30. Not too good. I think all of these things combined got the guys in a rare (not bad, just different) mood. Before they started the first song, I heard Phil say to Mike something like, let's do something different.
It is at this point that I started getting excited. Because different is exactly what I like best about dada shows. I mean, they're still great even if they play the same thing every single night, but what really makes me happy is to hear different stuff, and to hear more banter in between songs and stuff like that. Tonight I would be a very happy man.
So after Phil said the thing about trying something different, they go into "playboy in outserspace". Yay! Like whoa, dude. They skipped "dim"... this made me really happy.
After the first song, Mike started playing "dim", but Joie and Phil weren't ready. It was pretty funny. But then they got it all together and launched into the song as usual.
After "dim", Phil took the mic and said that they should try something different tonight and maybe do a VH1 storytellers type thing, where they'd tell stories about the songs they were playing. Y'all see what I mean when I said they were all a little kooky tonight? And that's what they did. For most of the songs for the rest of the set, they did tell interesting little stories about all sorts of things. What follows is the rest of the set list as I remember it, as well as what I can still remember from the anecdotes they told:
Phil told Mike to take the introduction of the next song, so this is basically what he said: on (or around?) thanksgiving they were laying down the rhythm track for this song ("surround") with their producer Ken Scott. And Ken kept going on about how Jimmy Page and Robert Plant got rich and famous by selling their souls to the devil in exchange for "stairway to heaven", and if you play stairway to heaven backwards, it's all about Satan, etc, etc. (by the way, if you have never tried it, it's really fun, you can definitely hear "here's to my sweet Satan" at one point). Anyhow. Joie chimed in and said that Scott was CONVINCED that this was true, and they found it really funny. Anyways, that was the gist of the story. What does this have to do with the song? Nothing really, except that it just happened to be the song they were working on when this all happened. And I think maybe if you play "surround" backward, it sounds like "stairway to heaven"
After this, Phil took the mic again and said something to this effect: I'm sure you all know the story of the next song, but here you go again. When he was 19, his dad told him he had some acid and asked him to take a trip with him. So they drove out up in the mountains of Nevada near Vegas (Phil said Mount Charleston? something like that). He had told Mike this story, and the next thing you know, they had a new song, "a trip with my dad"
Next, Joie was implored to tell a story about the next song. This is what he related: way back when, when they were first recording the Puzzle album, they had a bunch of songs they'd worked on and finished and they took the album to the head of IRS records, Miles Copeland. Basically, he told them he hated it. They were called dada, so he wanted it to be more fucked up, for lack of a better term. As in, add all sorts of weird stuff to it and make it artsy... By way of example, Joie was saying stuff like filling a room with animals and recording it, stuff like that. So they told him, ok, we'll try that, but we need more money. So they gave them more money. Then they scrapped a bunch of songs, wrote new ones, and re-did some, and came up with Puzzle 2.0, or 1.1, or 1.2 (as Joie joked), the Puzzle album that we know today. And one of the new songs that they worked on with the money that was given to them was the next song, and they made the song instead of adding weird stuff to their album (like they were supposed to). And then they went into "here today, gone tomorrow"
After that song, they launched straight away into "sick in santorini" (no story).
After that, there was a slight lull in the action, so I yelled out "MORE STORIES" and they kind of laughed and said, ok... Mike was starting to play "heaven and nowhere" and then started telling a story about their second album. He was talking about how they came up with the title of the album, and he said they were just searching through lyrics to come up with something. Joie agreed and laughed because it had nothing to do with the next song they were playing. Then Mike said something like. "And this was the song"... and he launched into "ask the dust", which was not supposed to be the next song, but Joie and Phil came aboard in time and all was well.
After "ask the dust", Joie said he remembered a story about one of the songs they already played, which they didn't tell a story about (sick in santorini). This is what he related: the song originally had completely different music set to it. It was nothing like what it is now. So while they were recording the 3rd album, he had to go take a piss... on his way to the bathroom (or when he was in it?), he heard Mike and Phil jamming in the studio to the famous riff (that we know now), and it came to him that that was the music for those lyrics, so he ran back from the bathroom zipping up his pants and started singing his lyrics over the music. And that's how that song came about.
After that, they went back and played "heaven and nowhere". During the middle of this song, Joie's amp went on the fritz big time. It sounded like a 747 landing in the club. Jeremy quickly jumped up to try and figure out the problem. Meanwhile Joie's bass completely dropped out so Mike & Phil carried on improvising. Phil kept drumming, and Mike started playing some chords (different from the progression that the song normally follows) and he and Joie did some cool harmonizing and improvising lyrics. It was really cool. They ended ending it like that instead of the way it usually does.
By this time, the amp problem was fixed. Mike left the stage to "change his wardrobe", while Joie and Phil did the "it's all mine" thang. Same arrangement as before, except Mike took longer than usual to come back from his rest, so some of the harmony parts that I heard on previous nights were missing. No big deal, though. It still sounded great. After the song, Joie told a quick story about the song, saying "this version is not at all like what will be on the record, this is just how we're playing it live for now". I think most people probably figured that already, but it was nice to have it confirmed.
After that, Mike introduced the next song very briefly... how did we come up with this song? I think we just wanted to write a song with the word "fuck" in it. Everyone laughed, and they tore up the place with a great version of "feel me don't you"
After that, you could tell they were still feeling in the wacky mood. So Joie said they were going to take a request. He pointed to the front row and asked one of the people to come up. It was Mick? one of Eric's friends. He introduced him and said something about him being the guy who bought one of his paintings (down in VA), but I think it was actually someone else who bought it? So Joie called him up onto the stage as well. I don't think I caught his name, sorry. I'm thinking Chris, but I don't know why. Anyhow. So Joie asked them, if you could request one song, what would it be? I don't know what they said, but I think at first they (or someone) said, "I'm feeling nothing". And it seemed like they were going to play it, but for some reason, that didn't happen... and the next thing you know, Joie is saying "earl grey". So the two guys go back to their spots in the audience, and Mike introduced it saying this would be a very special version for all of us. And they did indeed proceed to attempt "earl grey". No one really knew all of the lyrics, and they fumbled through a few parts, but still, it was so cool to hear that for probably the first and last time ever. That was worth the 2-hour trip to Hartford alone for me.
Then someone asked Mike what the song was about. He said that he used to drink earl grey and his girlfriend drank chamomile before they'd go to bed and get shagadelic (my words) and that all its really about. It's just about love, baby.
Then people started going crazy with requests, but Phil started paying the drum solos for "posters" instead. Once again, he stopped at one point, and asked us if we wanted Ringo. We all screamed and he quickly threw in a Beatle drum solo snippet again. During all of this, Mike was off again for a minute or two. Joie brought his bass over to Phil's drum kit and held it over one of the cymbals on his right side. Then Phil used the bass as another drum (sort of) for a bout 30 seconds or so. He played the bass strings with the drumsticks while Joie held it there and fingered some notes. Everyone cheered after that. It was really cool.
Eventually Mike made his way back. I noticed that he's been throwing in quick snippets of classic rock riffs toward the end of the "posters" solo recently. The other night on Providence it was "stairway to heaven". Tonight, it was "smoke on the water". Everyone cheered and laughed.
After posters, they went straight into "dizz knee land" (no story). There was no break after the song, and no encores. (I think most people figured it would be an abbreviated set list tonight anyways because of all the problems. turns out we were right)
After "dizz knee land", they only played one more song, "dorina" of course. Joie told this story about the song: he and Mike used to live about a block away from each other and they'd be writing songs all the time. They wrote this song in Joie's apartment, and they knew that it would be really cool. Phil then remarked that this was the first song that he ever jammed together with them on.
After that, there was no more... but all of the great banter, and the mixing it up of the set list (no bob the drummer, etc.), really made this night extremely enjoyable for me, even with all of the technical and venue problems. I know I would have been really upset if I hadn't gone to this show and then heard about all the cool happenings that I'd missed.
So that's the end of my long rambling story. I think I just spent an hour typing this in. whoa. Its 4:30 am now and I should probably get some sleep. Here is the set list by itself (as I remember it). Anybody else who was there, please correct me if I got any of the set list of story anecdotes wrong!
playboy in outerspace
dim
surround
a trip with my dad
here today, gone tomorrow
sick in santorini
ask the dust
heaven and nowhere
it's all mine
feel me don't you
the ballad of earl grey and chamomile
posters
dizz knee land
dorina
good night, dada peeps.
