| What luck! I take a work trip to the East Coast and guess what? BNL is a short driveaway. While planning to attend the Inc. 500 conference in Philadelphia, a colleaguebrought to my attention that BNL would be in DC the night that we arrived, so a short roadtrip down to the Nation's Capitol was quickly planned. I'm very glad I didn't miss thisone 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 hardlyknow it was a concert venue due to the lack of signage. The only way we were sure thatanything was happening there was that there was a line of concert goers already formingwhen we drove up at 6:45pm. Around 8:15, we finally get inside. The room is generaladmission with a couple of balcony levels and an open floor area. The dcor was in thetheme of Georgetown Victorian homes in that a faade behind the stage had been built thatlooked like the interior of a nice house with large windows and molding. Two balconiesflanked the stage and we later found out they these balconies were adjacent to thedressing rooms, as band members came out to check out the happenings below. The crowd wasgood for the most part, with most people really into BNL and knowing the lyrics to thesongs. Only a few people were obnoxiously aggressive about the floor space, but that isalways to be expected near the front at an open seating place. BNL opened with "Life In a Nutshell" and proceeded into the setlist that hadbecome standard since mid-December, but surprised me by throwing in some tunes we haven'theard in a while, like "I Live With It", a song about a tragedy of youth, and acover of Madonna's "Material Girl", sans Steve's flute. The "I Live WithIt" rendition was accompanied by Jim on an electric stand-up bass, which added ahaunting introduction and an exciting bass line throughout. Of course, some things had togo 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 BarenakedRap. An added delight during Enid was Tyler, Jim, and Kevin providing Bah, Bah, hornsounding vocals during the chorus. The banter that night started with a fan passing up a jar of walnuts, making referenceto a comment that was obviously from the previous night regarding "wet nuts" asan ice cream topping. The band delivered one "nut" reference after the otherwith comments about "shaved nuts", "salted nuts", and the"honey-roasted" variety. Later a comment about "Inspiration" launchedSteve 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 ArePeople" (Depeche Mode), and Kevin finishing it off with "Who are the People inYour 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 acomment that wet noodles, raw chicken, and ketchup were called the "CanadaRoll". One last note, Steve, jumped into the oldie, "Those Were the Days MyFriends", with his usual "poop your pants" theme and Ed somehow turned itout with lyrics to "OPP". Quite a hysterical time and an evening I was happy tohave attended. As always, BNL offers top notch opening acts, this one called "From GoodHomes". They hail from the New Jersey area and offer a quality acoustic sound withseveral guitarists and one very talented member that played sax, clarinet, and kischmerkeyboard. The lead singer reminded me a little of a scrubby looking Scott Bakula (QuantumLeap, anyone?). Anyway, some good tunes of theirs that I remember were "RainDance", "Forgiveness", and the closer "I Am A Mess". Next stop on my Barenaked journey will be a couple of shows in North Carolina at theend of May. On That Note, I'm outta here...... C |
