10,000 Maniacs Concert Report

[MTARR@EAGLE.WESLEYAN.EDU]

Hi!

Valerie and I just got back from seeing 10,000 Maniacs perform in Danbury, at
the Charles Ives Performing Arts Center on the Westside campus of Western
Connecticut State University.  It was outside, and I'm fried to a crisp, but it
was definitely worth it!

The venue was a gazebo literally on a lake (so much for stage-diving :), and
the audience hung out on blankets and with coolers on the hill rising up from
the water.  There was a moat around the front of the stage, and since the lake
had fish in it the roadies spent quite a bit of time fishing during the show
(but nobody caught anything).

The opening band was The Heartbeats, a bluegrass-cajun-type band featuring four
women, three of whom sang. One played banjo and accordion, one fiddled, one was
on double bass, and the other played guitar.  They were pretty good, a good
background soundtrack to what was going on around the stage.  Off to
the side in the restricted area, Natalie was hanging out with some friends of
hers who had little kids, and watching her play with them was a scream.

They finally came on at 2:45, after the opening act had started at 1:30 (on
time!  Unbelievable).  They opened with three new songs, then played everything
from _In My Tribe_ except "Peace Train" (of course), "Don't Talk" and "The
Painted Desert"; they played "Maddox Table" and "Scorpio Rising" (at my request,
with some help from Val :) :) :) from _The Wishing Chair_, and "Trouble Me" and
"Eat For Two" from  _Blind Man's Zoo_.  "Eat For Two" was a request- someone
asked for "Dust Bowl", but Natalie apologized and said they don't know the
chords any more. :P :)  Aside from all that, in all I think they played 8 new
ones, and if they're any indication, the new album is going to be their best
yet.

There were also a few surprises, all of them absolute gems.  As usual during "A
Campfire Song" Natalie headed to the side of the stage to recruit someone to
sing the duet part, and two HUGE guys jumped up and volunteered, and she wasn't
about to say no.  They were pretty horrible, and afterwards she "complimented"
them on their booming voices.  During "My Sister Rose", which she dedicated to
two people in the audience who are getting married soon, she yelled "Make a
chain!" and ran off to the area where people were dancing wildly. 
Unfortunately they hadn't been paying attention and all rushed around her
trying to get autographs, while she ran around trying to get a chain going. 
Two women followed her back on stage, and she let them sing along the end of the
song.  After the music stopped she explained to "You lame-o people dancing
there" that "the idea of that was to get a chain going and dance all around the
field, but no, you all had to crowd around me yelling for autographs".  She
wasn't really mad, just bemused.

One of the new ones is entitled "Tolerance", and they did it as an
instrumental.  I yelled "Put lyrics to it" and Natalie replied that she had,
she just can't play the piano part and sing it at the same time.  If the lyrics
are anything like the music, this is going to be the most powerful song they've
ever done.  It went over the best of all the new songs, which sound more like
_In My Tribe_ than anything else- since they weren't too big on playing stuff
from _Blind Man's Zoo_, I think they didn't like that album too much
themselves.

Another amusing bit was when she noticed a guy in the front wearing a Cure
T-shirt.  She said, "Oh no, not Robert SMITH!!!" and launched into a parody of
"Boys Don't Cry" that had everyone, including the band, in stitches. 
Afterwards she said, "Now before this all gets back to them I just want you all
to know that they're label-mates of ours and we like them a lot, really.  Why
just last year at the Elektra picnic I went up to Robert Smith and said, `Hey
Bob, can I borrow your lipstick?'" :)

Definitely the highlight of the afternoon was when Natalie took Robert Buck's
guitar and started fooling around with it.  With his help she got some serious
feedback going, and she took the three chords she knows and started jamming.
Jerome came with a thrash-beat and then Steven added some thrash-bass and they
treated us to thirty seconds of hysterically funny hardcore- she gave the
guitar back to Robert and he kept it going, so she went to the mike and started
crooning something that sounded like something by Nirvana (that wasn't "Smells
Like Teen Spirit").  By that point not even they could keep from cracking up,
so they slid into "Hey Jack Kerouac" and things settled down a bit.

The two encores consisted of requests: they played "Scorpio Rising" for me and
Val, then "City of Angels" for someone else and finally "Gun Shy".  Then since
we weren't about to leave Natalie came back and struggled through "Verdi
Cries", which she obviously hadn't played in a LONG time- we had to help her
out with the lyrics, but it was beautiful anyway. :)

Look for them in the area, if you're in the Northeast- they're recording the
new album and taking Sundays off to play at colleges and stuff.  The whole
thing was completely informal, in case you haven't noticed, and they seemed to
be having as much fun playing as we had listening and watching.  Natalie was
cool about taking questions from the audience, no matter how bizarre, and the
request thing was awesome (even if she did leave out my favorite verse of SR).
One thing was, she didn't spin!  Someone asked her about that and she said,
"Not without the hair"- her hair is now in a chin-length bob, and spinning
doesn't do anything to it so she doesn't spin any more.  She still dances like
a, well, like a maniac though. :)

It was the most utterly *FUN* concert I've been to in my life- Natalie is
wonderful even if she does refuse to sign autographs (but I did manage to get
Robert and Steven to sign my _Hope Chest_ CD), her stage presence is great and
it was neat to see the band having so much fun.  I think it's great that
they're playing shows on their "days off" from recording- there's no pressure
to be promoting something and they'll always have a willing audience.

So I guess we can look for an album by the end of the year.  Yay!
  ======================================================================
  |Meredith Tarr                      "Get to the point you sappy wimps|
  |Wesleyan University                 I haven't got a lifetime        |
  |Middletown, CT                      Simplicity is beauty            |
  |USA, Earth                          Are there poets less sublime?"  |
  |mtarr@eagle.wesleyan.edu                            -Happy Rhodes   |
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