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Gypsy Tea Room, Dallas, TX
Thursday, 25 January 2001

with Ghostcar

Review #1 | Review #2

So here I am again, operating on three hours of sleep after driving to Dallas for the Low performance there and back to Austin in one night. Thankfully, Low went on first to try to avoid the noise coming from the other, bigger stage at the venue. This resulted in an earlier departure time, for which I am thankful.

I'll try to list the songs but after the first four, the order gets hazy. Perhaps some other list denizens whom I met will offer corrections. And it was nice to put faces to names I've been seeing for a long time.

John Prine
Sunflower
Medicine Magazines
Dinosaur Act
Shame
Tomorrow One
Starfire
(some song Catherine & I could not identify)
Soon (forgotten lyrics provided some humor)
(note)
Closer
In Metal
a cappella snippet of the Police's "King of Pain" by Alan while Zak danced a jig or something. Weird.

encore:
Transmission (although Alan played it under protest)

The band was a bit annoyed that they had to "compete" with the band playing at the same club in another part. The sound bleedover was noticeable but not horrid. Low just played louder to counteract. Alan also made an annoucement for their Sat show at the Rubber Gloves in Denton (a college town a bit north of Dallas) which clearly showed his preference for that venue.

Quite plesantly surprised they did Tomorrow One. Though I did not get to see the instore at Good Records, the band played I Started A Joke. Sadly, Zak did not sing it. By the way, let's all encourage Zak to sing more, he's quite good.

Not entirely receptive to Catherine & I's suggestion of Hands So Small, Mimi issued a terse "Quiet down Catherine", or something to that effect, on mic. So cute. (ed. note - *grin* actually, that came after I called for "When You Walked Out On Me" (the Shanti2 song). . . . Alan claims that they've played it live before.)

Will check back in after the instore & tonight's show in Austin,
- st. denis
saintdenis@hotmail.com


* This happened after there was some loud screeching noise, causing Zak to sort of giggle and look up at the ceiling trying to figure out what was going on . . . . Alan looked over at Zak and in trying to figure out what he was doing, got distracted -- and when the song picked back up again, he sang, "I think that I forgot the words . . . . and now your face is like the birds" or something like that. --ed.


Drawn out of the warm bosom of obscurity by the entreats of our lovely (though rather short) web mistress and Mr. (I don't want to look like Dennis Miller) St. Dennis, I shall stop reading and write a short little "review", if you will, of last night's proceedings.

So, here I was quietly minding my own business before one of my classes, reading "The Last Of The Mohicans" (which for some reason, I didn't read in high school as everyone else seems to have) when I half way over hear the people next to me discussing their plans for the evening. Ignoring it, I just went back to reading until my ears perked up again about them maybe going to Denton on Saturday. Wait a second. So I turned and asked the strangers, "Wait, are you guys talking about the Low show tonight?" And that they were. To make it even more of an interesting coincidence, Brian (the male "stranger") then asked if I was on the Low list. "Uh, yeah, actually." So after class I ran to my car, which I sadly forgot the location of, and we sped to Dallas.

If you ever go to the Gypsy Tea Room in Dallas, it apparently has two sides. Now, I've lived in Dallas since 1980. Been to the Gypsy Tea Room on many occasions. But my powers of observation are apparently not that keen so we went to the wrong side first. Finally, we make it to the right part of the building and make our way in. We both wanted to thank Mademoiselle Catherine for various and sundry reasons so we tried to second guess which short blond was her, but finally Brian's wisdom prevailed and we just asked Alan and Zak. Alan, Brian, and I started wondering through the crowd and I asked him what he thought of people coming to his show and asking for other people. He just kind of laughed and said, "Happens all the time". So, we search to no avail until Zak calmly steps over and points down on Alan and over at Catherine. Brian and I walk over and introduce ourselves. I tip over some poor girl's drink and then proceed to compliment her on her lovely Mickey Mouse ears hat (Smooth is my middle name ; )) and then sensing that we were a little tall to be squatting in the front, Brian and I went back in the back, which was apparently the Land of The Titans as there were a good 20 - 25 people in front of me who were significantly taller than me and I'm 6'1".

I will now refer you back to the two previous reviews of the evening for a set list as I still do not have "Things We Lost" yet (though I will remedy that on Saturday!!). Though my personal favorite was probably "Soon" with the aforementioned "You think that I don't know the words . . . And now your face is all in birds" line (which I almost prefer oddly). There was a really nice song that Alan played the twelve string on I think but I've never heard it and I can't remember the words so that's no help. But a good show, though they were obviously distressed by the band in the room behind them. It was kind of cool to hear them fight back in their "Battle Of The Bands".

So, shows over, I go to get a T-shirt (which is black with the word low and a silver "fire" above it), come back and ooh and ahh over Mr. St. Dennis's Bedhead shirt, discuss height with Ms. Lewis, and Mimi tells me a nifty little trick for the new drum set I just decided I would finally buy myself. Brian and I decide its time to go and head back to the car. On the way to the highway, I threatened to run over our fellow listees who were crossing the street but decide that's a bit rash so I let them cross unharmed. I take Brian back to his house and discover that he has not only a nice collection of Low live shows on CD-R but almost the entire Kranky back catalog and a whole bunch of other fun stuff which he was kind enough to lend me a few items from (and which I am listening to now as fate would have it). So, all in all, I'd say that was a pretty decent "Low" evening! See, Low even brings strangers together.

Well, now that I've bored you all to tears, I shall go back to reading and trying to recover from judging a high school talent show tonight (There was a band that did a song about date rape in the first person view of the antagonist followed by a group of girls dancing to "Shake Your Thang". Ahh, irony! Neither of those won by the way.). Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Oh, and Brian, Mr. St. Dennis, and Ms. Lewis, I shall see you all Saturday evening, as well as any other listees who come out of the shadows to say hi. I hope to see a lot of you there!

Yours,
Rajesh Michael
mommysays@juno.com


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