Club Passim, Cambridge, MA 8/17/2010

[tanthalas]

early show:

augustine
whatever you want (with new looped vocal intro)
gravity
blue caravan (with audience keys and wind)
antebellum (with audience singing the bridge)
homecoming
don't be afraid
stray italian greyhound
the tower
no gringo
radio
harbor
grandmother song

encore:
eric's song (audience request; with alex on guitar)

[tanthalas]

late show

whatever you want (with looped vocal intro)
augustine
the tower
antebellum
stay italian greyhound
wonderwall (partial song; oasis cover)
green light go
i don't feel so well (alcoholics anonymous version, bridged into...
a whole new world (partial)
no gringo
my medea (feat. alex wong)
1 br/1 ba (late show version)
brooklyn blurs ("the new version")
radio
harbor
grandmother song

encore:
idioteque
in the creases

[aaparallel]

set 2

whatever you want (with looped vocal intro)
augustine
the tower
antebellum
stay italian greyhound
wonderwall (partial song; oasis cover)
green light go
i don't feel so well (alcoholics anonymous version, bridged into...
a whole new world (partial)
no gringo
my medea (feat. alex wong)
1 br/1 ba (late show version)
brooklyn blurs ("the new version")
radio
harbor
grandmother song

encore:
idioteque
in the creases

OK, I'm officially super jealous. She finally put My Medea back on the set?! And Alex played too? I requested that song at two different shows recently and they didn't have an arrangement for duo/trio...ahhh!

And there's a new version of Brooklyn Blurs? And an AA version of I Don't Feel So Well? And A Whole New World seems being playing a recurring role. Looks like a fun show!

[tanthalas]

OK, now that I'm on an actual computer, I can explain some of the parenthetical statements...

- Having just landed on the East Coast from Germany yesterday, Vienna and Alex were both quite a bit jetlagged. This didn't stop them from putting together two amazing shows, and added a bit to the humor and banter, if anything.

- For Blue Caravan of the first set, Vienna said that one of the things she's been doing for this show was to ask the audience to bring their keys out and to ring them during certain parts (on her cue). In return, Alex asked the audience to make wind/whoosing noises on his cue. Was a pretty cool overall effect.

The late show was particularly great with a really amazing audience (V after the initial cheers/applause from just getting on stage: "Wow, and we haven't even done anything yet!"). This led to them trying a few new things and general fun-ness.

- Story behind Wonderwall: it was the part of the set where Alex was supposed to pick one of his songs to play, so Vienna said something like, "Time for something on the guitar?" Alex didn't get this, so he picked up his guitar and started looking at Vienna waiting for her cue. So she then said, "Oh I just meant for you to pick up the guitar and play something, and I'll try to figure out what it is." So Alex started playing the intro to Wonderwall, and after laughing at first, Vienna realized that Alex was still playing, "Oh, we're actually going for it?" ...and so they did... for the first verse and chorus, at least.

- Story behind IDFSW/A Whole New World: Earlier in the set Vienna was talking about how she was allergic to alcohol and had "discovered it the interesting way." It was also during one of those episodes that she had one of the rare moments where she was recognized. She then talked about how the other time she was recognized was for singing A Whole New World at a karaoke place (I think she tweeted about this one recently). In both cases, someone had walked up to her and said, "Aren't you Vienna Teng?" to which she would shake her head furiously and respond "No!"

So after introducing IDFSW as the "jetlag song" for her and Alex, she went into the song... and by the second verse, she replaced "I don't feel so well" with "I can't drink alcohol" and another phrase I forgot. Then towards the end of the song after the big instrumental bridge (and entertaining the audience with the perfect sync between VT and AW on the beats), Vienna started breaking into the Whole New World. Without missing a beat, Alex started to sing "I can show you the world..." and, again with the encouragement of the audience, continued with the rest of the verse and Vienna followed up with the chorus.

- Story behind My Medea. This was apparently requested by an audience member before the show, and Vienna explained that it was a song that Alex was still working on and didn't think was quite ready yet, but that she thought it sounded great (and made reference to Sideways here). In any case, I guess she managed to convince him (or took advantage of his jetlagged state ) to do the song, so they did!

- Story behind Brooklyn Blurs. "the new version" is in quotes mostly because it was my fault for calling it that. They were actually getting ready to play In The Creases, but at that point Vienna and Alex said a very nice thank you to me (!) and then Alex asked me to make a request for a song on the spot. I guess I had a temporary brainfart earlier today during soundcheck when I heard Vienna play the amazing piano accompaniment to the verse for Brooklyn Blurs and somehow convinced myself that I'd never heard that before - and that it was new. So I requested for "the new Brooklyn Blurs," which perplexed both Vienna and Alex. "What new Brooklyn Blurs?" "The one with the piano in it!" And they were like "OK, so the new Brooklyn Blurs it is. Though neither of us know what that means!"

They went on to play Brooklyn Blurs normally (with vibratone & glock for the first verse, and the piano accompaniment for the second verse, which by then I'd realized was normal all along)... but during the bridge, Alex came up with a genius idea and asked everyone in the audience "sitting to the right of Calvin" (I was in the middle of the room, more or less) to hum one harmony, and asked the audience "sitting to the left of Calvin" to hum a different harmony. It actually turned out pretty well, I have to say... so perhaps thus is the birth of "the new Brooklyn Blurs."

- Random in-between set story: Vienna asked the audience to shout out some requests, and someone shouted out "In My Arrival!" Vienna responded, "Whoa, I'm not sure I remember how to play that one, but that gets you major Google stalking points!" At one point, the song names came out one directly after another, so I shouted out "Free Bird!" To which Vienna said, "That one had to be coming." Then Alex immediately started singing the opening line to the song (more laughter and cheers), and Vienna commented, "Hey, I like it when you're jetlagged!" (because Alex is more prone to bursting out into random stuff with reckless abandon)


And last but not least, I managed to catch a lot of the interesting moments/performances on video (including Eric's Song, Wonderwall, Whole New World, My Medea and Brooklyn Blurs), so I'll go through those and upload them if they get approved.

Pictures will follow once I get home tomorrow... I think I have a collection of good shots (*knocks wood*) of Vienna, but getting anything of Alex was a bit of a challenge tonight.

[aaparallel]

OK, now that I'm on an actual computer, I can explain some of the parenthetical statements...

- Having just landed on the East Coast from Germany yesterday, Vienna and Alex were both quite a bit jetlagged. This didn't stop them from putting together two amazing shows, and added a bit to the humor and banter, if anything.

- For Blue Caravan of the first set, Vienna said that one of the things she's been doing for this show was to ask the audience to bring their keys out and to ring them during certain parts (on her cue). In return, Alex asked the audience to make wind/whoosing noises on his cue. Was a pretty cool overall effect.

The late show was particularly great with a really amazing audience (V after the initial cheers/applause from just getting on stage: "Wow, and we haven't even done anything yet!"). This led to them trying a few new things and general fun-ness.

- Story behind Wonderwall: it was the part of the set where Alex was supposed to pick one of his songs to play, so Vienna said something like, "Time for something on the guitar?" Alex didn't get this, so he picked up his guitar and started looking at Vienna waiting for her cue. So she then said, "Oh, I thought you were going to play something and I was going to try to figure out how to follow you with it." So Alex started playing the chords to the intro to Wonderwall, and they both burst out laughing, and the audience started cheering and encouraging them to go with it, so they did... for the first verse and chorus, at least.

- Story behind IDFSW/A Whole New World: Earlier in the set Vienna was talking about how she was allergic to alcohol and had "discovered it the interesting way." It was also during one of those episodes that she had one of the rare moments where she was recognized. She then talked about how the other time she was recognized was for singing A Whole New World at a karaoke place (I think she tweeted about this one recently). In both cases, someone had walked up to her and said, "Aren't you Vienna Teng?" to which she would shake her head furiously and respond "No!"

So after introducing IDFSW as the "jetlag song" for her and Alex, she went into the song... and by the second verse, she replaced "I don't feel so well" with "I can't drink alcohol" and another phrase I forgot. Then towards the end of the song after the big instrumental bridge (and entertaining the audience with the perfect sync between VT and AW on the beats), Vienna started breaking into the Whole New World. Without missing a beat, Alex started to sing "I can show you the world..." and, again with the encouragement of the audience, continued with the rest of the verse and Vienna followed up with the chorus.

- Story behind My Medea. This was apparently requested by an audience member before the show, and Vienna explained that it was a song that Alex was still working on and didn't think was quite ready yet, but that she thought it sounded great (and made reference to Sideways here). In any case, I guess she managed to convince him (or took advantage of his jetlagged state ) to do the song, so they did!

- Story behind Brooklyn Blurs. "the new version" is in quotes mostly because it was my fault for calling it that. They were actually getting ready to play In The Creases, but at that point Vienna and Alex said a very nice thank you to me (!) and then Alex asked me to make a request for a song on the spot. I guess I had a temporary brainfart earlier today during soundcheck when I heard Vienna play the amazing piano accompaniment to the verse for Brooklyn Blurs and somehow convinced myself that I'd never heard that before - and that it was new. So I requested for "the new Brooklyn Blurs," which perplexed both Vienna and Alex. "What new Brooklyn Blurs?" "The one with the piano in it!" And they were like "OK, so the new Brooklyn Blurs it is. Though neither of us know what that means!"

They went on to play Brooklyn Blurs normally (with vibraphone & glock for the first verse, and the piano accompaniment for the second verse, which by then I'd realized was normal all along)... but during the bridge, Alex came up with a genius idea and asked everyone in the audience "sitting to the right of Calvin" (I was in the middle of the room, more or less) to hum one harmony, and asked the audience "sitting to the left of Calvin" to hum a different harmony. It actually turned out pretty well, I have to say... so perhaps thus is the birth of "the new Brooklyn Blurs."

- Random in-between set story: Vienna asked the audience to shout out some requests, and someone shouted out "In My Arrival!" Vienna responded, "Whoa, I'm not sure I remember how to play that one, but that gets you major Google stalking points!" At one point, the song names came out one directly after another, so I shouted out "Free Bird!" To which Vienna said, "That one had to be coming." Then Alex immediately started singing the opening line to the song (more laughter and cheers), and Vienna commented, "Hey, I like it when you're jetlagged!" (because Alex is more prone to bursting out into random stuff with reckless abandon)


And last but not least, I managed to catch a lot of the interesting moments/performances on video (including Eric's Song, Wonderwall, Whole New World, My Medea and Brooklyn Blurs), so I'll go through those and upload them if they get approved.

Pictures will follow once I get home tomorrow... I think I have a collection of good shots (*knocks wood*) of Vienna, but getting anything of Alex was a bit of a challenge tonight.

Okay, no more jealousy. Just love.

And I'm so very glad you got video! Should I have asked for approval for that first video of "A Whole New World"?

Oh, how did you like "Green Light Go"? (Was this the first time you heard it?)

[tanthalas]

Nah I'm pretty sure you're more than fine with that one.

[Fred]

Wow, thanks! I love long, detailed show reports, and this show sounds like it was epic (especially the late one). With just a little luck, maybe tonight's audience will help lift Vienna and Alex to the same level as last night's did. We'll see.

[tanthalas]

Photos up - though as usual, the shots that I thought were great (on the camera's tiny little screen) turned out to be just a bit (a lot) more blurry than I'd hoped...

http://picasaweb.google.com/tanthalas/V ... lubPassim#

Someone needs to teach me how to take pictures.

[tanthalas]

Videos got approved, so here they are:

My Medea, with percussion
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jG0WZ15fXJU

Whatever You Want, with new intro (though intro got cut out because I started recording this late on the second set... I might at some point patch in the intro from the first set where Vienna actually sets up the looping part)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c31wIEs828U

Brooklyn Blurs (+ Wong magic)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7AjENbsr4I

And here's a link that I'm posting here but keeping unlisted/unsearchable on Youtube - it's one that I imagine fans and forumgoers would be immensely entertained by, but random people searching for Wonderwall covers may not necessarily be looking for it...

Wonderwall cover & funny karaoke story:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cu2VHpIOG_c


And apologies for the annoyingly loud sound of me laughing/talking. I am a bad cameraman.

[Reileen]

OMG MY MEDEAAAAAA *squee*

Vienna seems to be having a hella lotta fun with that looper. I really do like that new intro to Whatever You Want!

[aaparallel]

Brooklyn Blurs (+ Wong magic)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7AjENbsr4I

Oh man. Just when I thought I couldn't love Alex more. That was gorgeous!

And here's a link that I'm posting here but keeping unlisted/unsearchable on Youtube - it's one that I imagine fans and forumgoers would be immensely entertained by, but random people searching for Wonderwall covers may not necessarily be looking for it...

Wonderwall cover & funny karaoke story:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cu2VHpIOG_c

There are weirder/worse covers on Youtube. BTW, what was she talking about at the beginning of the video? Funny names? Oh, and is there video of "A Whole New World" with Alex singing?

[tanthalas]

Vienna was talking about Asian parents trying to picking American names for their children, and how "creative" they got with it sometimes. I think it started out with mentioning how Alex's name is just Alex - but I don't remember how we got to *that* in the first place.

[Fred]

OMG MY MEDEAAAAAA *squee*...

By the time Vienna performed this and 1000 Oceans at the Highline show (neither of which I had heard live before--1000 Oceans never before by Vienna at all) I was in overload. I don't squee, fortunately , but if I did I would have. It's tough to maintain an alleged "preference" for Vienna's later, jazzier, more sophisticated, more story-telling songs in the face of such an emo onslaught. So I just go with it; it's all good.