backwoods eastern OH. Yankee Dry Hole isn't a lake at all. it's a big, flat, un-air-conditioned barn just east of nowhere. the only thing missing from this warehouse is the bucking bronco ride.. or, maybe i missed that amongst the open rafters and neon domestic beer lights.
TR-i is the only artist i'm aware of that can play such a remote venue and still pack a bunch of sweaty americans in for some good, loud, down- home cookin. this place was bigger than any venue on this tour and perhaps WaT, and they came from miles 'round to mix their perspiration. what was that movie in the 80's featuring that place 'Gilley's"?
the first set is LOUD. as in what?-i-can't-hear-you loud. TR's voice is way UP in the mix and he knows it. after 'ST', he instructs the crew to lower it and remove PP's hi-hat from the mix. 'black and white', 'unloved', and 'drive' are slow, steady & great. 'love in action' finds Joe Six-pack and all his friends thrusting their fists in the air.
TR is constantly pushing his hair back, but it just keeps sticking to his profusely sweating face. jesse is dripping by 'trapped'. kas is cool and dry. must be the gum.
no julie christensen sandwich. a quick, rejuvenating break between sets.
for the first time this writer's witnessed this tour, set two is as successful as set one. the lead vocal is still too loud, but it works given the material.
a mechanical fan is repositioned on stage to blow TR and Kas, later to be replaced with an enduring female fan's Runt album, which she waves religiously throughout the second set to cool OH.
Lou delivers a gibson in what seems to be a chrome or stainless steel martini glass. she rools enough to have TR redirect a gift of flowers to her from an on-stage patron. TR give us gold suit/pink shirt combo.
'BTS' is a hit, as usual. the crowd claps on two and four as jesse shreds through dozens of bars of 'George Benson on speed'. TR plays his nose during the ferenzik give and take.
the anomaly tonight, 'America Drinks and Goes Home' is added in it's old position, late in the second set, this time after 'espresso'.
Todd usually does a rap before 'i want you' about the band's guarantee that peoples go home with someone, or get laid, or at least fall asleep drunk with someone, waking up to smell their bad breath the next morning. tonight, that rap's a little too close to the truth at YL..
thanks for the blow job
romo