Fitzgerald Theater Review

I saw the show at the Fitzgererald Theater in St. Paul last night. I thought it was a great show. It was a ful house. Ethel was fantastic! They covered a lot of different styles, classical, Indian music, and the definately rocked out. I like the modern day string quarted, and will be buying one of their CD's. You know they rock out when they have broken strings hanging off their violin bows. Joe Jackson is a very accomplished musician. I enjoyed his set very much. I am not that familiar with his music, but will be buying some of his CD's for my collection. I knew 3 or 4 songs he performed. He is a great piano player. What I didn't appreciate was some of the audience members behavior, but I will get to that later. Todd Rundgren put on a great show starting out with Love Of The Common Man, the one of my favorites Tiny Demons. He mentioned he was breaking in a brand new guitar, and it sounded great, no broken strings. I didn't get the impression he was drunk. His piano playing was solid. He did a special rendition of Viking Man where he improvised into a little section about the hat with horns, which was hilarious. The Todd humor was there, and he was in a good mood. The encore was stellar! Joe sounded great with Ethel. Pretending To Care was awesome. Ethel took the place of the backing voices. It don't get much better than that. Black Mariah was really cool with Ethel backing. The sound guy cranked it up a little for that one and it sounded huge. And here is my commentary on a few of the audience members behavior: You should first get a clue when you buy a ticket, when it says "Theater". That means don't go get hammered and expect to yell all night. Maybe smoke a little before the show and have a beer when you get there to get the Theater vibe going. I had some lady down the aisle that kept yelling in between songs requests and other stuff. She had a voice louder the two people. Finally people started yelling shut up! I piped in with Jerry, Jerry, Jerry! She shut up after that. Which leads me to my next point: Just because you pay 44 bucks for a ticket, that doesn't mean the artist onstage becomes your bitch. Kick back, enjoy the show, relax, let the artist deliver what they have prepared. I am a musician and can't believe the behavior of people these days. Jumping on stage trying to carry on a conversation with the band while they are in the middle of a song etc. I think there should be a special venue for these people with chicken wire in front of the stage. I also read some homophobic commentary about Joe Jackson. I thought he was a great performer and should be treated with respect. Maybe some of these people should save up for a ticket to the Jerry Springer show! Jerry, Jerry, Jerry! Lightnin'