NYE '08 - Part 1 - ATL Airport Pubcrawl

Happy NYE from ATL! MB and I started the day with a car service ride to the airport at 6am. Which airport, you ask? Good question.

As we went around the Grand Army Plaza roundabout and exited onto Eastern Parkway, headed towards JFK, I asked MB to double check our tickets for the time and place, just in case. We always ask this question but we've never had a problem before. All I can say is thank God that's become part of our travel strategy. I thought MB was joking when she leaned up to the cabbie and said in her cutest tone, "Hey there, I'm so sorry but would you mind going to LGA instead of JFK?"

Other than this minor mental hiccup, we had no problems getting to ATL.

Throughout the day, I'll be checking in with updates about our adventures. I've always wanted to have a multi-blog-post day but I know that while my intentions are great and wonderful, it remains to be seen if I'll follow through. Among the other things standing in my way are the 4 pints of Sweet Water beers sitting on the table in front of us. Oh, I guess it's also important to point out that its 11:30am (and we arrived about 45 min ago).

Why are MB and I downing half a gallon of beer a half hour before noon on a Wednesday? Well, to start, its NYE. Technically, no further explanation required. But, we're also sitting in an airport, despite that fact that no one we no is flying to our from this location, and no one we know is planning to pick us up. So, why they hell are we doing this.
Well, the answer is we ran into a Sweet Water Brewing Co. bar. We love Sweet Water beers. Under the hot sun at Bonnaroo and Echo Fest, we've fallen in love with the brewer's 420 and Blue beers. Upon seeing the bar, MB declared "AIRPORT PUBCRAWL!" once again confirming my decision to marry her.

Perhaps my favorite Southeastern Brewing Co.

What are we drinking? These delicious brews:

• 420 - A west coast style extra pale ale that I swear has a nose of peach. Can it be that we're just in Georgia and I'm smelling things? Maybe. 
• Blue - MB's favorite festival brew, this "blueberry pancake" beer gets a big thumbs up in my book. Normally, I hate fruity beers but this particular brew tastes like fresh blueberries and a beer, all at the same time.
• Sweet Georgia Brown - I assume this is a brown ale. Nothing too special here but a decent beer all around.
• IPA - Take the 420 and make it any IPA you can get anywhere else in the country. 'Nuff said. 

Ok, enough for now. We'll check in again at the next stop along the way.

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Les Paul: A Living Legend

Monday night, MB and I joined our friends Kristin and Dave and headed back to the Iridium to see Les Paul. I'm not sure what was better, shaking hands with a pioneer of solid body electric guitar (Fender and Rickenbacher also get credit for the innovation) or watching him stop mid-solo to pose for a picture. Probably the latter. As the middle-aged man in the front row raised up from his chair for a close-up, Les stopped, smiled... and flipped the the most cheerful "bird" I've ever seen.

Les is an old man. Like, really old. 93 years old, to be exact. And yet every Monday, the dude plays two shows, one at 8 and another at 10:30. The shows are a mix of classic jazz numbers like All of Me and Somewhere Over the Rainbow and hilarious, often dirty stories featuring classic characters like Bing Crosby and Bob Hope. And because Les is literally from another generation, he gets away with a level of sexism that plays really well against the sass his female bassist dishes back in his direction. My favorite line from the evening? "I feel like a flagpole sitting on top of a condemned building."



The music/comedy portion of the show lasted a little over an hour and Les often used stories and guests performances to rest between solos. After a short break, he comes back out to meet any audience member who wants to shake hands or get the autograph of a living legend. Several people brought their own Gibson Les Paul guitars to be signed and it even looked like you could buy a guitar on the spot for him to sign. As I gave that concept a few fleeting moments of consideration, I confirmed, yet again, that I'd married the right woman when MB gave the sign of approval should I decide the opportunity was too good to pass up. It was also pretty wonderful when she leaned over and whispered in my ear, "We should catch more live jazz." In the end, I was satisfied with a handshake and a signed ticket.
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Back in the Kitchen Again - Prepping for Tomorrow's Risotto

First off, i need to get rid of the "Read More" link at the bottom of these posts --- or I need to figure out how to get them to work.

MB is up in Toronto for the rest of the week but, as fate would have it, her mother and aunt are in town. I'm in the process of prepping the dinner I'll be serving them tomorrow night. They're going to arrive at my apartment around 7:30 so I need to get my act together in under an hour. As I was about to head out the door to Union Market without a plan, I decided to look in my risotto cookbook for something featuring fall ingredients.

I landed on a pumpkin and apple risotto, which should be easy enough since I prepped the pumpkin tonight. Unfortunately, i think I may have over-steamed it but it should still add some nice flavor and color to the dish, regardless. The recipe doesn't call for any spices but I'm thinking of adding a dash of nutmeg and cinnamon to enhance the fall flavors. I'm also going to add a few baby portabellas cause, well, why the hell not?

Before I serve dinner, I'm going to have a cheese platter with some fontina, rustico with red pepper, havarti and some smoked cheddar (if its still any good -- it's been in the fridge for awhile now). I grabbed some crostini and grapes to accompany the cheese. I'm also going to serve a simple salad with romaine, red onion, beets and a red wine vinegar dressing from Stonewall Kitchen. I've never cut my own beets before but I decided why not start now. I love the flavor and texture of beets --- and they definitely go with the fall theme.

As for dessert, I haven't made any decisions yet. I'm thinking I might take the easy way out and just grab something at a bakery on the way home but I'm not entirely sold yet. What do you think?



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Drums and Keys

You'd think a guy who's been playing music his whole life would have owned at least one drum but, somehow, it just never came up. That all changed last night.

Paul and I are finally getting around to playing some tunes again and this time we're attempting something a bit more interesting than a pair of acoustic guitars. Our concept is to loop and layer music we record in the live setting. It'll be something between DJing and a regular band. Basically four hands, a pair of computers and as many instruments as we can get our hands on.

Prior to yesterday, the majority of our collection consisted of different types of guitars. That's been the story of my life for the past 3-4 years and it has really limited my ability to produce anything of value. Slowly, over the past few months, things have started to improve. First came the MacBook Pro I'm using to write this post. Obviously, this is the most integral piece of the puzzle but it's not really an "instrument" on its own. Next came an iPhone. Technically, i had this before the computer but I've only recently started to discover a couple of apps I think are going to be really interesting to try in the live setting like BeatMaker and miniSynth.

But yesterday, things really started to roll. Thanks to the incredible used music instrument market that is craigslist, I managed to find a deal on a 61 key Korg Triton LE workstation and a "cocktail" drum set. The former is an older keyboard from 2003 but its a Korg and its certainly going to do what we need it to do. The latter is basically a small set with a kick pedal attached to a 16" tom and a few attached drums and cymbals. I'd never heard of anything like it before but the size was just what Paul and I were looking for --- something we can play around with without spending an arm and a leg or having to worry about lugging around a full set.

So what's left? Not much really. Aside from a few extra mics and cables, really were just looking at a pair of audio interfaces for our computers. Eventually, I'd really like to add a pair of digital turntables to the mix but that's hardly necessary in the short term.

I'll be sure to post pictures once we set up the space. Maybe there's even some tune-age in the near future?
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Election Day - Sixpoint Hop Obama

After MB and I left the polls at around 4:45 on Tuesday, we headed over to Miracle Grill for a celebratory drink. As we walked in, we were greeted by Chris Jansing - formerly Chris Kapotosky of WNYT 13 in the Capital Region - who was filling time on MSNBC while the country waited anxiously for the first polls to close at 7. We ponied up to the bar and MB browsed the drink list while I asked the bartender what was on tap. After rattling through the regulars (Brooklyn Brown Ale, Stella, etc.), he paused and looked up at the chalkboard above the bar and said, "Oh, and we have this Sixpoint brew called Hop Obama." Within moments, we had two frothy glasses sitting in front of us.


The Brooklyn brewer came out with its Obama brew back in March and initially intended to produce it for a limited time during the hiatus between the Democratic primaries and the election. According to an interview with brewmaster Shane Welch, the brewery did "not intend [the] beer to be a direct Sixpoint endorsement of Obama," but instead found inspiration in the now president-elect's grassroots campaign. Clearly, the brewery decided to extend production...either that or the management at Miracle decided to hold onto a few kegs for election day. Wise decision.

At 5.2% ABV, the ale was sharp but decidedly drinkable - milder than an IPA with a deeper hue but still packing a similar bite. MB and I liked it enough that we decided to call Bierkraft right from our seats at the bar to see if we could fill up our growlers for the election party we were headed to later that night. Sure enough, Hop Obama was the one Sixpoint they had on tap so off we went. Fast forward about 5 hours and the next thing I know, we're dancing in the street.
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Jazz and Drinks with Dan and Heike

Just as I was getting ready to write up the rest of our experiences last weekend with Dan and Heike, I noticed they already posted a on their own blog. You can read it here. In response to their questions, I think it's both excessive and just another night in NY.

This past weekend, our friend Marcus was in town from Atlanta to celebrate Halloween at the Roseland where Armin van Burren was spinning tunes. More details on this event a little later but, safe to say, it was a ridiculous "evening" that started Friday night and ended Sunday morning. Read Full Entry

Back in Business

I'm back. Finally finished a huge project at work so there's time to catch up on all of the happenings from this summer. But where to start? Why not with this past Saturday.

Dan and Heike were in from Boston for the weekend. We hadn't seen them since a ski trip back in the beginning of the year. As we looked for an excuse to get together about a month ago, we considered seeing an opera at the Met but we decided on Arturo Sandoval instead. If you've never heard of him, he's a Cuban-born jazz trumpet player who was basically discovered by Dizzy Gillespie. He plays the keys a lot at his shows too, as well as some percussion.

Arturo Leaning Back and Wailin'

The show was at the Iridium, a relatively new jazz club in Midtown Manhattan that I'd never been to before. We're actually headed back there in about a month to see Les Paul who plays every Monday night - not bad for a 93-year-old.

It's late, so I'll have to finish this story tomorrow but, rest assured, there was plenty of food to talk about on this night. Read Full Entry

Long time, no post

Hey everyone. I know it's been a long time since I've had the chance to post but, don't worry, Slopey Seconds isn't just another here-today-gone-tomorrow blog. I'm currently working on a major report but once that's finished, they'll be lots to talk about including the Sigur Ros show I saw last month and the Beck show I'll be seeing tomorrow night, both at the beautiful United Palace Theater.  Read Full Entry

Thursday Night Grub - Olive Vine

Thursday night, MB and I headed to the Olive Vine Cafe on 7th Ave between Lincoln and St. John Place with a couple of couples - Chuck & Lilla and Kwami & Abbie. Olive Vine has a few other locations in the area, one on 7th Ave at 15th St. and another on Court St. between Degraw and Sackett, but we'd never eaten at any of the locations before.

The ladies

The Mediterranean menu is simple, straight forward, and very afforable; none of the entrees are more than $12. Plus, it's BYOB, which makes for a very cheap evening. That said, "You get what you pay for," as Chuck likes to say. Our waitress, who was very pleasant, brought us paper cups for our wine. When we asked for real wine glasses, like the ones we saw being used at other tables, she tried to tell us that they didn't have any. Eventually, as other patrons left the restaurant, she managed to round up 6 glasses but it was definitely strange they didn't have enough place settings for the entire restaurant.

To start, we split two orders of zatter bread and some pita bread; we tried to order some spinach pie but they were out. It was entirely too much food to start the meal but we were all starving by the time we were able to put our order in. As for wine, MB and I brought a Gewurztraminer and the other couples brought a pair of cabernets, one from Cali and the other from Australia.

For entrees, MB had a Olive Vine pizza and I had a an ouzi. The 10" pie, one of nine on the menu, features zucchini, eggplant, garlic, onions, cilantro, mozzarella and a homemade, Med-style sauce. The ouzi is a huge phylo-crust pie filled with chicken, rice, raisins and spices. Mine was a little dry but the yogurt sauce accompanying the dish did the trick.

Candle-lit Olive Vine Pizza

Chicken Ouzi

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Internet Explorer Issues

As I continue to adjust the layout and appearance of this blog, I've noticed a major sidebar issue when the site is viewed in Internet Explorer. I think I've been able to resolve the issue but if you notice anything unusual, please send me an email or leave a comment. I'm also aware of the "Read More" issue which appears at the end of each post despite the fact that there is often no additional content. This is a known issue but I haven't been able to find a solution. If you know of a fix, keep me in the loop.

(Author's Note - As for the new issue with the tiny text in the sidebar and the main body halfway down the page, I have no idea what the issue is and I'm giving up for the evening. As a short-term fix, do yourself a favor and grab the new Firefox 3.0 browser)

(Author's Idiotic Note from Later in the "Evening" - Fixed the tiny-text issue) Read Full Entry

Tunes @ Work; Opus 1, No. 12

8/27/2008

• Beercan - Beck; Mellow Gold
• Dreadful Wind and Rain - Jerry Garcia & David Grisman; Shady Grove
• You Can't Lose a Broken Heart - Louis Armstrong
• The Great Gig in the Sky - Pink Floyd; Echoes
• Press Play - Stone Temple Pilots; Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop
• Stand - Blues Traveler; Four
• Silly Putty - Stanley Clarke; The Bass-ic Collection
• Happy Jack - The Who; My Generation: The Very Best of the Who
• Donegan's Gone - Mark Knopfler; Shangri-La
• Misty Mountain Hop - Led Zeppelin; IV
• You Don't Know How It Feels - Tom Petty; Wildflowers
• Old Man on the Back Porch - The Presidents of the United States of America; The Presidents of the United States of America
• Pearline - Son House; Original Delta Blues
• Gone Daddy Gone - Gnarls Barkley; St. Elsewhere
• High On a Mountain Top - Loretta Lynn
• Army of Me (Beastie Boys Remix) - Bjork; Army of Me Single
• Lady Madonna - The Beatles; 1
• Cecilia Ann - The Pixies; Death to the Pixies (1987-1991)
• Cold Blooded Old Times - Smog; High Fidelity Soundtrack
• Oh, Heaven Isn't Real - David Karsten Daniels; Fear of Flying
• When Love Comes to Town - U2/B.B. King; Rattle and Hum
  

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Meat Fest '08: Part 3 - Duck and Fig Pizza

Sunday morning, we awoke to another beautiful day in the Slope and headed back over to Union Market. Huevos rancheros and bellinis were on the menu for brunch but Paul, MB and I hadn't come to any conclusion as to what we should do for dinner. We knew we were going to use the duck, we just weren't sure how we should prepare it.

The bellinis didn't work out quite the way we intended. I guess I should say we didn't end up making bellinis at all. There were a few extra grill-roasted peaches from the night before and I was hoping to puree them and add a little champagne to the mix but no dice; the liquor store was closed. Instead, I ended up pureeing the peaches with a mix of rums - Goslings Dark and Captain Morgan's Spiced - and peach juice and then topped it off with Sprite. The end result? A foamy, sweet brunch cocktail with just a hint of the roasted flavor from the night before. As for the huevos rancheros, we did them on the grill, the same way we did them back in June.

Any ideas for a good name for this rum/peach concoction?

Chefs Mary and Paul

As for dinner, we came up with something on the fly. And by "something" I mean the most decadent meal of all time. It all started as we were tossing ideas around about how to use the duck when we passed Pizza Plus, the joint where we grab dough for our grill pizzas. I half-jokingly said, "What about duck pizza?" and the next thing I knew, we were listing off ingredients that would work with the duck. In the end, we decided on a mix of dates, figs, pecans, black truffles and chevre.

Earlier in the afternoon, I marinated the duck breast in some Stonewall Kitchen Fig & Vidalia Onion Sauce. Once the duck was on the grill, I cut the dates, figs and black truffles while Paul smashed the pecans and MB separated the chevre into small chunks. When the duck was a nice medium rare, I pulled it off the grill, sliced it into bite-sized pieces and tossed it with the date/fig/truffle/pecan mixture and a little black truffle oil. This mix went on top of the dough which I'd coated with more of the Fig & Vidalia Onion sauce. As you can imagine, the meal was extremely rich...but that didn't stop us from having 3 pieces each. We paired the pizza with some Blue Point Summer Ale; weird that the first time I sampled their summer brew was on the last day of summer.

Yum

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Meat Fest '08: Part 2 - Ribeye Steak, Saucisson and Andouille

Paul and I spent most of the afternoon contemplating song ideas and concept albums. All the while, we continued our Festival of Meats with a platter of meat (saucisson and the leftover andouille from the day before), cheese (Guinness cheddar, Brie de Meaux and havarti) and fresh bread from Balthazar by way of Union Market. Paired with the platter, we had a duo of West Coast beers - Stone IPA, brewed in North Country San Diego, and Anchor Steam Beer from San Francisco.

Meat and Cheese Platter

Buy local? Try "buy"-coastal.

For the main course, it was on to the ribeyes...

As the grill was heating up, I finely diced some shallots and coarsely chopped a white onion. When the shallots were sweating in two separate skillets, I ran outside and tossed halved red and yellow peppers on the grill. Then it was back inside to add port to shallots in one saucepan and veggies to the other. The veggie dish is something I came up with back in July for my mom's birthday; MB has been raving about ever since. It's simple enough - spinach, onions, shallots, roasted peppers and grilled corn - but there's something about the mix that works really well.

As for the steaks, I seasoned them, got the grill super hot and threw them on for about a minute and a half per side. Once they rested off the grill for a little while, I topped them with some port sauce and served them with the vegetables.

The main course

For dessert, I went back to the summer playbook one more time for another crowd pleaser. Earlier in the summer, we were up in Argyle, NY to see MB's family. When we were there, I tried a dish my sister and brother-in-law turned me onto - grilled peaches. Here's the recipe:

Take ripe peaches, halve them and remove the pits. Put them in a container with some brown sugar (between 1/2 and a 1 full cup) and rum (you can use any type but I would recommend Gosling's dark rum - it makes a beautiful sauce). If the mixture doesn't cover the peaches, add a little water. After marinating the peaches for several hours in the sugar/rum mix, throw them on the grill. The grill should be as hot as possible in order to get some nice grill marks on the peaches but once you've flipped them over, pull back the heat to make sure they heat evenly throughout.

Once the peaches are on the grill, take the rum/sugar mixture and put them in a skillet. Reduce the mixture just like you were making a caramel (if you've never down that before, watch this video). You'll know it's ready once it coats the back of the spoon. To serve, put the peaches in a small dish and top with a scoop of ice cream and, finally, the sauce.

More grilled peaches than we could eat. Stay tuned for tomorrow's post to see how we used the leftovers.

Blurry, but delicious

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Meat Fest '08: Part 1 - Andouille

I've been concentrating a lot of my posts on music lately but now I'm ready to switch things up a bit. When I'm not playing/recording/writing music with Paul this Labor Day weekend, I'll be preparing a variety of meats in a variety of styles. On the agenda: ribeye steaks, boneless center cut pork chops, lamb loin chops, and duck breast. For snacking between meals, we grabbed some saucisson, andouille, and cheese - Havarti, Guinness Cheddar and Brie de Meaux.


After MB and I grabbed the groceries from Union Market, we came back and fired up the grill to prepare the andouille for later in the weekend. We also decided to have a few links for dinner. While the sausage was cooking, I threw the pair of ciabatta rolls of to the side of the grill to heat them through. When the andouille was just about ready to come off the grill, I drizzled a little olive oil on the rolls and toasted them directly on the flame.

In the meantime, I split the sausages and cut some havarti. Once the rolls were ready, I put a few pieces of cheese down, then the sausage, and then a little more cheese; this allows the cheese to act as a binding agent between the meat and bread. If I were to do this again, I would have put something heavy on the sandwiches to smush them together but all in all, a pretty quick and easy meal for a Friday afternoon. Paired with the sandwiches, we had a couple of Magic Hat beers - Circus Boy Hefeweizen and Lucky Kat.

Crispy, melty, spicy goodness

Cheshire grin beers?

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Tunes @ Work; Opus 1, No. 11

I've got a bunch of ideas for improvements to this ongoing series, mainly providing access to streaming music via sites like lastfm or uploading tunes to a site like iMeem or muxxtape. Eitherway, I'll still provide access to purchase the songs via iTunes or Amazon's music store. In the meantime, I'm still backlogged with lists (not to mention food and music reviews from the summer) so I'll do whatever I can until I'm caught up. Now onto the music!

(author's note - The iTunes Music Store Link Maker site isn't working at the moment so I can't provide the iTunes buttons. I'll try to remember to come back and add them later on. In the meantime, the hyperlinked song titles lead to streams on lastfm.)

8/13/2008

• Walking the Sea - Skip James; Rare and Unreleased
• Three or Four - The New Pornographers; Twin Cinema
• Microphone Fiend - Rage Against the Machine, Renegades
• The King of Carrot Flowers, Pt. 1 - Neutral Milk Hotel; In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
• Join Together - The Who, My Generation: The Very Best of The Who
• See See Rider - Ray Charles; The Best of Ray Charles Vol. 2
• Roundabout - Yes; Fragile
• End of the Movie - Cake; Pressure Chief
• Sukie in the Graveyard - Belle and Sebastian; The Life Pursuit
• Sour Girl - Stone Temple Pilots; No. 4
• Austin Groove - Kid Crème; Live On Brighton Beach
• Baby's Got Sauce - G. Love & Special Sauce; Best of G. Love and Special Sauce
• The Rat Cage - Beastie Boys; The Mix-Up
• Stairway to Heaven - Rodrigo y Gabriela; Rodrigo y Gabriela
  
• Flurries - Soulive; Next

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I've Got a Cheshire Cat Grin

For a night spent on the couch, watching TV, tonight was pretty intense.

First, Barack Obama took the stage (or I guess field would be more accurate) in Denver to accept his party's nomination for the presidency of the United States of America. Regardless of party affiliation, I like to think most Americans can appreciate the significance of this event in our nation's history. I could say plenty more about the substance of his speech but there are enough political pundits in the world so I'll keep my thoughts to myself.

Once the confetti was flying, MB and I turned our attention to Radiohead.

Sometime today, a message on the band's blog kindly informed fans that it might be a good idea to update some A/V software. Later on, Colin posted a second message letting everyone know they would stream the final show of the North American tour, live, from the Santa Barbara Bowl. Make it four and a half shows I got to see on this tour.

Chalk up one more coup for Radiohead. What a way to end a tour that all started with the unorthodox release of In Rainbows, their seventh studio album. The quality of the feed was incredible, all things considered, even on my 37" TV.

Either I'm on stage and my camera sucks or the live feed is pretty good
(on the laptop, shot taken with my iPhone camera)

Oh, and apparently sometime between the time we caught them at APW and the West Coast leg of the tour, they changed the song they play at the end of the show. Instead of the harmonic minor tune that reminded me of a bazaar someplace in the Middle East, they played the Flight of the Conchords' If You're Into It.

On the TV with MB's star-light in the background

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Tunes @ Work; Opus 1, No. 10

08/06/2008

• Cabin Down Below - Tom Petty; Wildflowers
• Blue Hour - Turin Brakes; Ether Song
• Free Man In Paris - Joni Mitchell; Court and Spark
• Hats Off - Primus; The Brown Album
• Houston - Soul Coughing; El Oso
• She's Electric - Oasis; (What's the Story) Morning Glory?
• The Gash - The Flaming Lips; The Soft Bulletin
• Golden Years - David Bowie; Best of Bowie
• The Sheik of Araby - Various Artists; The DJango Reinhardt New York Festival Live At Birdland
• Oh My Gosh (Radio Edit) - Basement Jaxx
• Bebe Bo Nadero - Boubacar Traore; Macire
• Sinner's Prayer - Eric Clapton; From the Cradle
• Flashlight - Parliament; The Best of Parliament - Give Up the Funk
• Aeroplane - Red Hot Chili Peppers; One Hot Minute
• Superstar - Sonic Youth; Juno Soundtrack

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Backtracking - Part 1: Radiohead in Charlotte (05/08)

The day after MB's birthday, we headed down to Charlotte to catch Radiohead at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater. We hadn't seen the boys from Oxford since the last show of the 2006 tour at the Heineken Music Hall in Amsterdam so we were pretty amped up for the show. They didn't disappoint. After all, how could a show like that be anything short of mind blowing when you've managed to score pit tickets and you end up watching the show 10 feet from the stage.

Here's how they looked with a little zoom...

...and this is how close they looked to the naked eye.

As would turn into a familiar theme throughout the tour, there was a little rain. Apt for an album named In Rainbows. Fortunately, we were on the very edge of an enormous storm and managed to escape with only a short drizzle. Later on, we found out a few tornadoes touched down just north of the venue.

Before the show began, we made friends with a pair of dudes standing near us. One was a fellow ND alum and the other works about 4 blocks away from my office in NYC. By the end of the first set, we had agreed to purchase their tickets to the Montreal show later in the tour which they couldn't use. And that's when we made the reckless decision to follow Radiohead all over the east coast in the summer of 2008 was laid.

Oh, and of the 4 of us, we managed to grab 2 setlists.

I guess they couldn't decided between Exit Music and No Surprises (crossed out)

Recycled paper. Go figure.

Clay, our new friend from New York City, cheered as loud as the rest of us when the show was over but as Ed left the stage at the end of Everything In It's Right Place, he put his hand on a C-note and got into position. When the first list landed in the audience, he landed right behind next to it. I can't imagine giving up a setlist for a band like Radiohead for a measly 100 bucks but I gotta believe the shock and awe of this well formulated plan simply overwhelmed the poor bastard.

By the time Clay came back to celebrate his victory, MB had managed her way up against the rail. Maybe it was because she was screaming "IT'S MY BIRTHDAY!" at the top of her lungs, or perhaps it was just her feminine wiles, but when the roadie picked up Jonny's sheet, he crumpled it up and tossed it right to Mary.

Time seemed to slow down as I watched the ball of paper arc through the air. As it deflected off my wife's hands into the no-mans-land between the rail and the stage, I have to admit I briefly lost faith in my wife. But as the security guard reached down to pick it up, I remembered that her powers of persuasion are much better than her ability to catch. Moments later, we were deliriously pushing our way out of the crowd still assembled in front of the stage, eyeing everyone around us like they were Slugworth.

As for the performance, its hard for me to describe without comparing it to the other shows I caught this summer but there are a few things that come to mind when I look at the set. First, we heard a number of the In Rainbows songs in a very raw state at the Amsterdam gig and the legendary 28-song Bonnaroo show during the 2006 tour. By the time they'd finished Weird Fishes/Arpeggi, it was clear that they'd worked out all of the kinks in the interim. At the same time, it was obvious that this was only the fourth show of the tour.

As for particular songs, I just about lost my mind when they went into Planet Telex. I was also pretty luck to catch Talk Show Host for the second time, the first one coming at the MSG show on 10/10/2003. And how do I properly describe the light show. It was unlike anything I've seen before. True to form, they waited until the very end of the show to unleash their most impressive visuals as the entire system went "in rainbows."

In Rainbows

Quite possibly one of the best pictures I've ever taken.

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