I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: October 18, 2013] Barenaked Ladies

Sarah and I saw BNL this summer with our friend Megan, and the show was great.  That marked the fourth or fifth time that I’d seen them.  When we found out that they were coming through again (to the close to us and cool Bethlehem Sands) we thought it might be fun to see them again.  Especially with our friends Matt and Marisa who like them but had never seen them.  So we met up and had a very fun time.  We ate at Emeril’s Burgers and More.  The burger was good (although it took an incredibly long time for it to arrive).  The strange thing about the burger was that it was very crispy on the outside (which was good) but rather and odd shade of  pink on the inside (which may have been the lighting, but it was certainly pinker than usual for medium), but it was not juicy/bloody—how is something pink but not juicy?  It was weird.  But still rather tasty.

But back to the show.  Our seats were in Row 20, which was much better than our seats this summer. The pictures here are mine taken with my phone—they’re blurrier than I’d like, but not terrible.

And this show was a ton of fun and full of surprises.  They started with “Limits” an unexpected song from their new album.  And then they jumped into “Never is Enough” a surprise old song.  Ed always does an introductory rap (which no one ever includes in the setlists online for some reason).  This one, while not as good as the PNC Bank Center one was enjoyable.  Ed explained that he ran a half marathon that day on the Sands grounds.  Well, actually he ran a block but did cross the finish line (the band played along with Da Don’t Run Run).  It was very funny.  “Pinch Me” is the new crowd favorite.  Whereas they used to throw Mac and Cheese during $1,000,000, now they throw underwear.  And much hilarity ensues.

Incidentally, we probably could have walked much closer to the stage.  People were all milling about near the front with no crowd control.  But we’re old now and didn’t bother.  The next huge surprise for me was “King of Beside Manor.”  They have been playing songs from their first album as part of their 25^th anniversary tour.  At PNC it was the awesome “Yoko Ono” (which they did not play tonight–Megan, you picked the better show) and the obscure “Enid”  This time it was the crazy “King of Bedside Manor” which they had a ton of fun with, doing improvs in the middle and really emphasizing the “Mr Roboto” section of the song.

“Gonna Walk” remains one of their most accessible and fun singles and I wish it was bigger for them.

The next big surprise for me came with their little acoustic section.  They all came to the center of the stage, even Tyler came off the drums.  They stood like a barbershop quartet.  Tyler originally harmonized with them (and played tambourine) and then played what I thought were amusingly larger and larger drums (bongos and then a snare drum).

“Blame It on Me” was another big surprise (as i said, a lot of surprises this night) as was “Maybe Katie, although I see they did play it at Balloonfest too (but that was two years ago).  [I included setlists from all three shows below].

Before they moved into the popular song section, they played “Easy,” a really great older song with excellent harmonies (Jim Creeggan is really underappreciated, I think–oh, and lighting people, when Creeggan is playing that awesome bass section of Brian Wilson, you have to spotlight him!).  Then came “Falling for the First Time” yet another surprise track, this one from Maroon.

Then came the popular section—”The Big Bang Theory,” “One Week” and “$1,000,000.”  One thing I love about BNL shows is how much fun they have up there, goofing off and making puns and generally showing how quick witted they are.  They have lots of silly talk during “$1,000,000” and there was a great moment when Ed shouted about Kevin Hearn—”He puts the “Beth” in Bethlehem, ladies and gentlemen Peter Criss!” or when after teasing Kevin for playing such a pretty song (“Smile”) Kevin started teasing him back about the “plectrum” he was using.  Which made Tyler jump in with “on the next edition of “Who Gives a Fuck”…”

As usual the set ended with the Barenaked Rap and a bunch of dancing and covers (again, I don’t really know any of these pop covers, although this time I recognized Daft Punk’s Get Lucky” and I really liked Ed’s version of David Guetta’s “Titanium” (I had to look that song up and I liked his more than the original).

The encore was a real treat because they did “The Old Apartment,” which I was really psyched to hear.  And then they did the crazy version of “Alcohol” (Tyler, the bundle of energy, on vocals–“Release the Kraken!”) and their insane version of “Blister in the Sun”.  This time they ended with yet another surprise (I imagine they looked and saw that it was 2 minutes to eleven) so they busted out a quickie version of Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love.” (Tyler did an amazing Robert Plant).

The show this summer was short because there were actually three opening acts.  With only the one, BNL was able to play a much longer show which meant even more surprises–and more fun.

After 25 years, the guys are still having a ton of fun, and while, yes I will admit I still miss Steven Page, it’s getting a lot easier to forget that he’s no longer a part of the band.   I would definitely see them again, especially if their next album is as good as Grinning Streak.

Set list comparison

I just saw that in other shows Luke and Melissa from Whitehorse came out and played with them.  That might have been fun to see, but I enjoyed the show so much that it was unnecessary.