From 76370.326@compuserve.com Sun Nov 3 15:10:25 1996 Date: 03 Nov 96 18:05:52 EST From: "m.j.vasko" <76370.326@compuserve.com> To: app Subject: Milwaukee brief Content-Length: 2626 Status: RO Wow! Just a quick note about the Milwaukee show. I ended up sitting in the front row, pretty much right in front of John and Stuart. What a view! And what luck...I had a ticket at will call, but somebody was selling tickets outside the front door and they had a "pit" ticket, general admission. After I bought it, I figured, "gee, general admission and it's like fifteen minutes to showtime, well, that'll make a great souvenir". I am getting old and (wise?) and can't take too much pushing and shoving, so I figured I'd just use my original ticket. But it turned out the pit was only two rows, had seats, and wasn't too hard to deal with at all. I've been lucky, lucky, lucky this year and this was my fourth show. I had intended to do a little notetaking, but all that went out the window after two or three songs, and I just (totally) enjoyed the experience. It's impossible for me to compare the Milwaukee show to any of the other three I saw this year...the conditions were just so different. I think maybe the Akron show was better, but I can tell you that at that show I didn't end up bone-wearingly tired, hot, sweat, and totally exhilarated; which I certainly did in Milwaukee! After the show I got to meet Matt and Andy for about three minutes, and quite a few other Avenuers, but they were headed backstage and I'd had my turn earlier this year, so I wandered back out to my car in a total daze, got lost leaving downtown Milwaukee and finally got back to my hotel room where I sorta just collapsed. (Okay, I exaggerate a tad: but I did get lost, and I do think it was because I was still burning the Parsons vibe; my heart was still pounding half an hour later). One last note (eventually I'll post a more substantive "report"): call me totally stupid, but I had no idea that like 85% of the wild stuff in the middle of live Psychobabble is Ian delicately destroying his guitar in little bits and stages. To watch his face as his fingers...just... b..a..r..e..l..y...touch the strings and these totally awesome sounds come belting out is a lot like dying and going to some kind of wonderful afterlife. Blam! I thought I was gonna faint. Blue skies! Martin p.s. mucho gracias to Mike Mantei and his wife Carol for welcoming me to Milwaukee...they are truly super folks p.p.s. Mike tells me that last year's audience response in Milwaukee was better than this year's, but I know that out of the times I've seen Alan this year, there were just two or three times in the sets where I felt the cheering seemed to get him a bit tongue-tied between songs... and they all happened last night From Scott.Holder@fhwa.dot.gov Mon Nov 4 14:21:32 1996 Content-Identifier: 0029C327E692412A Content-Return: Allowed Conversion: Allowed Date: 04 Nov 1996 17:07:32 -0500 From: "Holder, Scott " To: app@roadkill.com (Return requested) (Receipt notification requested) (Reply requested) Subject: Milwaukee Review Content-Length: 10236 Status: RO NOTE: My system sometimes has problems with cutting and pasting into the message so many of you got crap. Sorry. Now follows original message. Aaaaaaahhhhhhh. Siiiigggghhhhhh. I thought I'd be depressed since Milwaukee was my last show of the tour. Instead, I feel sated. It was enough. No it wasn't enough but it sufficed. Actually, coming back to work and two days of mandatory "quality" training made me wish I'd driven to Cincinnati for tonites show. There were a number of repeat customers up from Chicago who included Steve Martin, M@, and @y. Not to mention a number of Avenue subscribers. A couple of people identified themselves as also being from Chicago commented on the fact they were in Milwaukee because they chose the Who's concert on the night of the Chicago AP show. My comment back to them was at least the KNEW about the show were had to make some of life's tough choices. Of course they responded about having to dig real hard to even find out about the Chicago AP show much less Milwaukee. Or as Steve put it, last year 7000 people went to the Detroit show, this year, 500. I don't think AP lost that many fans in 12 months. Oops, I'm lapsing into my broken record mode on promotions. Someone hit me to move the needle arm. The Riverside is a wonderful venue. I'd say about 2000 people were in attendence (the bottom was full, the balcony slightly less than half). Everyone seemed more aware of the new album and (gasp!) some had actually found copies. I also spread the gospel of the web sites and the Avenue and a number of people actually wrote down the various addresses. Even more people approached me (this custom t shirt does wonders for meeting people) about band news/info. Like I'M the font of all knowledge (Steve should have been around for that). I wasn't suprised by the number of 30somethings discussing their 20 year love affair with the music and had no idea about some things considered everyday knowledge by list subscribers. Not that any of these "fan islands" (just like me until the Avenue and more recently this list) were interested in being as obsessive as some of us (or as one of the crew called us "Steve's People"), but they did want a little bit more. Which is why the web sites and the Avenue are so important. It also highlights the double-edged sword of a newsgroup. My highly subjective impression of many I met is that they would be turned off by the worst excesses of a newsgroup. On the other hand, it could also do a lot of good preaching to the choir that's, right now, standing outside the church AND spreading the gospel. I think I even sold a few people on Freudiana. This was the band's most enthusiastic performance of the four I've seen this year although it did have a glitch or two. These guys gotta be tired. A couple of them are not feeling well, Ian just got over something, and the rest are paranoid about catching anything. Apparently the hot lights and then all this cold weather is playing havoc with a few. You'd not know it from the show. The second encore was the best I've seen! An earlier review discussed how drained the band appeared after the regular set. At least here, the opposite occurred. It's a credit to these guys that obviously they are not gonna play everyones favorite song but you still leave blown away by the music. That and the fact the On Air songs are strong onstage. The crowd was less wild than Chicago but probably more enthusiastic (sounds oxymoronic I know). They WERE loud and obviously remembered last year's show. One lady in the balcony tried to swing herself over onto the stage. It started with her leaning over real far. This caught Alan's attention and she then promptly put both legs over the railing. All we saw at one point was two legs sticking up in the air until the venue gorillas pulled her back. You'd think these people were at a Metallica concert or something. So much for my less wild than Chicago statement. In what can best be described as a sweet moment, two women sitting behind us, again more 30somethings (I'm 35 so please don't take this reference as perjorative), toward the end of the show and after yet another of Ian's trips to our side of the stage for a little guitar virtuosity, began throwing roses at his feet. He did come back to get them and shake their hands after his guitar cooled down. He got his usual sheepish, somewhat embarrassed look at this display of appreciation. The show was the loudest (my ears were still muffled 12 hours later-I refuse to wear ear plugs and Alan will probably be the cause of my deafness in 20 years both from the stage shows and the volume I use for AP in the car) and Psychobabble did its usual job of drawing blood. Note to Wesley: we should put the 1996 live version on the planned rarities CD. On the rarities note, apparently their is a pre-release version of On Air that went out to some radio stations as a promo (I had trouble following Alan on this one). Alan saw it just once and commented that it was probably real rare (or something like that). He also said that it was very different from the final version so this should be something the rabid collectors need to find and some cuts from it might also make another good addition to the now-double CD rarities album. This show I focused on Alan. A number of postings to the list earlier in this tour raised the understandable question about just what does this man do onstage. Admittedly, Alan has less stage experience than anybody else up there; the rest have toured with any number of groups over the years and some, like Ian, have gone thru the whole screaming teeny bopper experience (his with Pilot; side digression: although we didn't do it, those of us there before the show wanted to go down the street and buy cheese head hats and greet Ian after the show with a chorus of "oh oh oh it's Magic"-maybe next time AND after I've had a lot more beer; end side digression). Also, Alan made the comment last year that when they were first putting the tour together, the thought was to have him back at the mixing board or something like that. They figured out pretty quick that the public wanted to see him onstage which was possibly not the most comfortable position for him at first. So my approach was to look at him last year and this year, both onstage and off. Last year he was definitely quiet and reserved after the show and that meeting was well into the tour itself. The same thing could be said about his stage presence. On the other hand, at least onstage, I think Alan's taken the approach he's taken in the studio, surround himself with excellent musicians and let their talents shine. Ian and the vocalists are the show foci so why be something you ain't? Having said that, it doesn't really answer the question what does Alan do onstage? At Milwaukee we were lucky that during one song Ian's guitar needed a little adjustment so all we heard was Alan's rythym work. It's amazing what you hear when elements of the composition drop. The same applied to some of his keyboard work. I came away with the certainty that Alan's presence was more than window dressing. This year, I felt Alan really showed a new comfort and enjoyment of being onstage. For the second encore at Milwaukee he actually danced/hopped back out. During the show, he showed real vigour (it's getting deep here so bear with me) on his guitar work and he talked to the audience more than any of the other shows I've seen (okay I've only got 5 data points to draw from; when I hit the lottery I'm going to every show-aaaacccckkkkk, Holder's gonna write MORE reviews-don't worry since my chances of hitting the lottery are well, 1 in 7 million). This show he appeared really "into it". Don't get me wrong, I don't think any of us expect Alan to act like Mick Jagger up there (although it does kinda conjure up an image) but I'm glad to see tham man apparently enjoying something he's not done in his professional career. Backstage, I've seen the same difference. Last year, he was very nice and polite but again, a bit reserved. Some of this went both ways. As Steve said in an Avenue mailing, don't be shy, these guys don't bite. This year, I still saw plenty of shy fans basking in the glow of meeting these people for the first time. However, this time it was Alan out there doing the ice breaking. Okay, he wasn't pressing the flesh or kissing babies like someone running for office but the difference from last year was marked. I saw it best at the shows with large aftershow gatherings. He just waded in with a Heineken in one hand and talking glibly thru all the questions. Again, a comfort level that comes with experience. I kept telling myself, he doesn't have to do this and how many rock bands are this way? Certainly most others that have a similar recording track record. The bottom line here is that if he was not growing into the stage job or had to force himself to do this, all of us would miss something that, as everyone repeatedly says, we've waited 20 years to see. Of course even Alan "slips" from time to time. While discussing the rarities CD (makes it sound like you'll see it in records stores early next year), he mentioned that a DJ in Chicago approached him about doing a dance remix of Sirius. In Alan's words: "I'll take anybody's money". It was like the high priest uttered a blasphemy in front of the acolytes. After we indignantly (grin) harassed, he quickly added: "but not at the expense of my art". We all heaved a collective sigh of relief. The man does have a sense of humor. So much for my character study. With just two more shows to go, everyone splits up for a couple of weeks down time. Stuart mentioned they were doing a short promotional tour of Spain, then vacation time, then the European tour (and nothing's been set in terms of dates and places), and then off to South America. We won't see them again until 1998 at the earliest but we are a patient lot although now slightly spoiled. One final note, I think I discovered the one thing that makes touring bands (at least this one) the happiest: washing machines and dryers. Just ask Gary (ha ha). Scott H From mmantei@execpc.com Mon Nov 4 19:49:54 1996 From: "Mike Mantei" To: "Alan Parsons Mailing List" Date: Mon, 04 Nov 96 21:41:13 -0600 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Milwaukee show Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 2765 Status: RO I've never been much of a writter, and others have done a very good job writting about the Milwaukee show that I won't bother trying to do much of a review. Here are some of my observations... 1. The first album that I ever bought was "I Robot" back in 1977 when I was 13 years old. AP has been my idol for most of my life. Last year was a dream come true because I had never seen him (or thought that I ever would for that matter) so the concert had special meaning. I spent the whole concert concentrating on the crowd and on him. This year I tended to watch more of the band and pay closer attention to how the others fit in. I can say this without fear of contradiction... IAN ROCKS. 2. While others have commented on the volume from the Milwaukee crowd, having been there last year I think that the crowd was a lot more into it last year. We did however have our high points this year. There were several points in the concert where the band had to stop and wait for the crowd to stop going nuts so they could say something, or continue on. 3. Alan looked a lot more relaxed than last year. Last year they were in Milwaukee early in the tour and I don't think he felt comfortable in front of the crowd. He talked a lot more this year and just seemed in better spirits all around. 4. The after show was another dream come true. I can't believe that I actually talked with "THE MAN" and actually shook his hand. Ian was great and I loved talking to him. I didn't get to talk much with Neil or Stuart but did manage some time with them. We also had a visitor that no other city got. Joe Puerta from ToMaI came to the concert with his family and came to the "after show" for a short time. 5. I got to meet some nice people and I can't even tell you all of their names. There was Martin Vasko who came in from TN. We went out for dinner before the show and had more food than we could handle. (Martin, how were the leftovers that night back at the hotel?) I also met Andy(?) from roadkill.com. (Sorry if I got your name wrong, but I'm horrible with names.) I have to thank you for providing this great mailing list. I also met Steve Martin. I hope security here was easier on you than they were in Chicago. Also thank-you very, very much for the chance to meet the band that I have loved to listen to for so long. I met a number of other people from the Avenue as well as the mailing list. It was great meeting you all. 6. Once again, it was a night that I'll never forget. I couldn't make more than one show like many of you could, but I'll never forget the one that I did get to. Mike Mantei Sussex, WI mmantei@execpc.com mmantei@juno.com PMMail 1.52 Registered OS/2 Warp 3.0 FP17