(let's do the time warp again...let's do the time warp again...)
At the end of this show, all I could say was "Ow." Not because it was a bad performance, but because I had a shooting pain running through my left shoulder/arm and neck. Somehow, in the process of standing more or less stock-still for twelve hours over the past ten days, I'd developed some nasty limitation to the movement of my left arm anytime I tried to raise it above my waist to pretend to clap (to avoid suspicion, of course...the more you look like you're having fun at a show, the less the chance you're doing something you're not supposed to. Except drugs, I suppose. Let's move on.)
After the traffic debacle of the previous night, we made the decision to park on the street before we got to the venue rather than past it, to facilitate the getaway. Since the show was on a Sunday, it was easier to get in quicker, and we decided to patronize the Barking Crab, a local landmark seafood restaurant at the city-side end of the street (the street that the Pavilion is on ends way out on the end of a pier). Found a great unmetered parking spot, facing out (obviating the need for a post-show U-turn), dropped the car there, and after a 5-minute walk and 10-minute wait, we had a seat. The tables at the Barking Crab are shared - at least on the deck - and our water-side seat placed us next to an out-of-towner smashing...no, OBLITERATING crabs with a restaurant-provided rock. Now THERE's a marketing opportunity they've missed: "Come bash seafood senseless with authentic Boston rocks!" Seriously, the thing was so big, it looked as though it might have flattened Wile E. Coyote in a previous life, and after accidentally getting a few drops of crab juice on his companion (thankfully, we were outside the blast radius) the poor guy wasn't quite sure how to wield it for the rest of his meal. After plowing through a few plates of appetizers (none of us felt like ordering an overpriced entree when we weren't starving) and about ten minutes of being ignored by our waitress, we decided it was time to head venue-ward.
Turns out we had timed it perfectly - gates were just opening up and there was a swarm of people gathered round, anxious to get in and... wait for another hour, overpay for stale, pre-cooked food, warm beer, and bask in ever-so-earnest attention from tent-dwellers shilling the venue's sponsor's mouse pads in exchange for signing up for a checking account or wireless ball-and-ch...er, phone plan. Suffice it to say, this is behavior I never really understood. I did my weird "no, I did NOT just visit the proctologist" walk around for a while, saw my brother's best friend Joe and his girlfriend (Joe's girlfriend, not Joe and my brother's girlfriend. Not that he has a girlfriend. My brother, not Joe. Ah, screw it, Joe and Joe's girlfriend. Wait, I have a brother named Joe. This is confusing. New paragraph!)
Our seats were better than Thursday's - while we'd been a good bit right-of-center then (thus having to put up with people's need to pass in front of us, and my mics, on their way out of the aisle), we were dead center. Unfortunately, our neighbors were not as considerate. We were forced to endure a flock of "Daddy's little girls" in the luxury box directly behind us, gabbing and squealing their way through Rufus' set (not that I was that intent on listening, but rarely have gums been flapped so irritatingly). Thankfully, they disappeared during the first intermission and didn't return until halfway through Guster, only to resume with the squealing and the gabbing and the OH MY GOD SHUT THE HELL UP. One kind soul next to us even turned to (politely) register his displeasure with their behavior, which of course made him a target of their derision for the rest of the night. They even had the unmitigated gall (is gall ever mitigated, by the way?) to invite a few other similarly-aged male idiots to dance around and make nice with them (and make annoying with the rest of us). On one particular occasion, security came by to kindly return them to their seats, and one of the guys jumped over the barrier, landed on the seat behind me, and scampered off, narrowly avoiding stepping on the bag I had my gear hidden in. I *just* missed grabbing the back of his shirt, which surely would have ended up with him taking a face plant in the back of our row. Which truly would have been a shame, of course.
The show itself wasn't bad, when I was able to concentrate on it, but the Oakdale sets had been so good that just about anything would be a letdown after that. Guster brought the horns back for the same tunes and then everyone jammed together on a wholly unsatisfying Boy With The Arab Strap (straight from the "Hey, let's all mangle a cover tune together" school of thought...Ben's piano and Dan/Chris' horns were entirely wasted in the effort and mostly lost in the mix) and closed with one last All The Way Up To Heaven with Ben. Ben's set was considerably slower than it was in Connecticut, and even compared to Thursday night's set, due to his desire to vary things as much as possible. We did get one more Kate (for Kat, who was ecstatic to hear it again), one last drummers' duel, one last Fair with Guster, and a surprise Not The Same, ALSO with Guster. They had covered it a few times in 2003, and I'd heard Ben play it by himself, but hearing both together was a nice treat. The encore closer of One Angry Dwarf sent everyone home happy, and then after some chitchat with Guster office folk, we made the short trek back to the car and made a relatively easy escape. Back home to rest and relax for a day or so...
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