[Introspective] Fundamental Chicago - PaulDj is back!

mikea7 at provide.net mikea7 at provide.net
Sat Oct 28 13:34:59 PDT 2006


On Sat, 28 Oct 2006 13:33:32 -0400
 Paolo Bientinesi <pauldj at cs.utexas.edu> wrote:
> The show is simply fantastic. The crowd (not just me)
> loved it. 
> Great song selection and tracklist (the order).

My brother and I went to the Detroit show Thursday and also
had a great time. Not only because the show was so good but
because we were right up at the front of the stage. Now I
am not sure how the stage set-up has been in other venues
but at the State Theater in Detroit the audience was
allowed to stand right at the edge of the stage, no
barriers and just a single security person at each end. It
was like being in a high school auditorium right up at the
stage except freaking Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe were the
ones performing. We were close at a couple Nightlife shows
but nothing like this. When Neil did the acoustic guitar
version of "Home & Dry" he was literally sitting right in
front of us on the chair. Seeing the show from this vantage
point was amazing and I got some great pictures being so
close. 

Like you said, the setlist was a great mix of old and new
and they played all of my favorites off the new CD sans
"Made My Excuses..." which I figured they wouldn't anyways.


>The crowd was also predominantly gay, so that
> worked perfectly. 

The Detroit crowd was very diverse and I have to say, one
of the friendliest, most well behaved concert crowds I've
ever been around. My brother and I are straight but
obviously I know PSB has a large gay following and I don't
like to get into what percentage of the crowd was what. All
I know was you had gays, straights, women, men, children,
different colors and ethnicities and everyone was having a
great time and respecting each other. I have been really
down lately and the whole vibe of this show gave me the
kick in the ass I needed, I'm still on a high from it. 

One really neat thing, there was a young girl there with
her parents, maybe 8-9 years old? Obviously they have
taught her some taste in music. She was SO excited for the
show and the folks next to us made room for her to have a
spot right up at the front of the stage to the far left so
she got to experience the whole show right at the foot of
the stage, she was singing along to the songs so she knew
most of them, she caught Neil's eye and he came by her and
smiled and said hi at one point and one of the dancers and
Sylvia came by to shake her hand too during the show. One
of the cutest things you ever want to see. She'll remember
that show for the rest of her life I'm sure.


> Also, in these past years I was under the impression that
> Neil's voice was 
> getting weaker and weaker and he would need more and more
> support singers to 
> back him up. Last night that was not the case. Sure there
> were backup 
> singers, but his voice would always stand out.

I caught this right away and my brother mentioned it too.
Neil sounded awesome in Detroit, his voice only seems to
get stronger live as he gets older. 

MikeA
 




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