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What luck! I take a work trip to the East Coast and guess what? BNL is a short drive
away. While planning to attend the Inc. 500 conference in Philadelphia, a colleague
brought to my attention that BNL would be in DC the night that we arrived, so a short road
trip down to the Nation's Capitol was quickly planned. I'm very glad I didn't miss this
one because the guys were on, they added a couple of different songs to the set list, and the venue was great.
The 930 Club is a great little place in DC on the corner of 9th and V St. You'd hardly
know it was a concert venue due to the lack of signage. The only way we were sure that
anything was happening there was that there was a line of concert goers already forming
when we drove up at 6:45pm. Around 8:15, we finally get inside. The room is general
admission with a couple of balcony levels and an open floor area. The dcor was in the
theme of Georgetown Victorian homes in that a faade behind the stage had been built that
looked like the interior of a nice house with large windows and molding. Two balconies
flanked the stage and we later found out they these balconies were adjacent to the
dressing rooms, as band members came out to check out the happenings below. The crowd was
good for the most part, with most people really into BNL and knowing the lyrics to the
songs. Only a few people were obnoxiously aggressive about the floor space, but that is
always to be expected near the front at an open seating place.
BNL opened with "Life In a Nutshell" and proceeded into the setlist that had
become standard since mid-December, but surprised me by throwing in some tunes we haven't
heard in a while, like "I Live With It", a song about a tragedy of youth, and a
cover of Madonna's "Material Girl", sans Steve's flute. The "I Live With
It" rendition was accompanied by Jim on an electric stand-up bass, which added a
haunting introduction and an exciting bass line throughout. Of course, some things had to
go to make room for these additions, so "Box Set" was discarded for this night.
Also, "$1M" was moved to the end of the regular set, just before the Barenaked
Rap. An added delight during Enid was Tyler, Jim, and Kevin providing Bah, Bah, horn
sounding vocals during the chorus.
The banter that night started with a fan passing up a jar of walnuts, making reference
to a comment that was obviously from the previous night regarding "wet nuts" as
an ice cream topping. The band delivered one "nut" reference after the other
with comments about "shaved nuts", "salted nuts", and the
"honey-roasted" variety. Later a comment about "Inspiration" launched
Steve into a rendition of the Chicago song of the same name, followed up by Tyler on
"People Who Need People" (Streisand), Ed and Steve with "People Are
People" (Depeche Mode), and Kevin finishing it off with "Who are the People in
Your Neighborhood" (Sesame Street). Check out the diversity of their pop references.
Since they were in the neighborhood of the White House, Ed talked about how much the movie
"Murder at 1600" sucked. As always, they made fun of their meal that evening,
which was sushi. "How about some sticky rice and raw fish?" Steve added a
comment that wet noodles, raw chicken, and ketchup were called the "Canada
Roll". One last note, Steve, jumped into the oldie, "Those Were the Days My
Friends", with his usual "poop your pants" theme and Ed somehow turned it
out with lyrics to "OPP". Quite a hysterical time and an evening I was happy to
have attended.
As always, BNL offers top notch opening acts, this one called "From Good
Homes". They hail from the New Jersey area and offer a quality acoustic sound with
several guitarists and one very talented member that played sax, clarinet, and kischmer
keyboard. The lead singer reminded me a little of a scrubby looking Scott Bakula (Quantum
Leap, anyone?). Anyway, some good tunes of theirs that I remember were "Rain
Dance", "Forgiveness", and the closer "I Am A Mess".
Next stop on my Barenaked journey will be a couple of shows in North Carolina at the
end of May.
On That Note, I'm outta here......
C
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