(With apologies to Wally Shawn)
goboy took me up on my offer for my extra ticket to see Aimee Mann and Michael Penn last night, and he proved to be excellent company. I had the honor of being the first Doper he’s met IRL. He was one of the nicest Dopers I’ve met so far, good for some interesting conversation, and able to switch topics quickly and intelligently. Having met a lot of Dopers (hush, Falc!), I believe meeting someone IRL provides some insight into their posting style, and that was no less true in this case. He struck me as simply a genuinely nice person with broad interests and an excellent education. And he thought the bass player was cute.
The show itself was terrific. It started with a pleasant surprise: An opening act in the person of David Cross, from HBO’s Mr. Show. He did about a half-hour of standup; then, during the rest of the show, since Aimee and Michael said they are bad at talking to audiences, he served as their “designated banterer.” A very funny guy, as those of you familiar with him know. Some typical banter: “Aimee, Michael and I went antiquing this morning, and we were walking down the street when Aimee stopped in front of a window with a television and said, ‘Come here, you have to see this news report! It’s President Reagan, and he’s sitting up in a chair and eating ice cream!’ So after that, we all ran back to the hotel and wrote this song.”
The band was absolutely spot-on, and Aimee and Michael traded off doing a few of their songs at a time. Probably not surprisingly, Aimee’s songs drew almost completely from her two most recent offerings, Bachelor No. 2 and the Magnolia soundtrack. She didn’t sing anything from Whatever, which was sort of a disappointment, but I understand. Michael’s songs pulled mostly from his last two as well, but his first song was one of my favorites, “Long Way Down (Look What The Cat Dragged In)”; and he went back to his first album for “Bedlam Boys” and “Brave New World,” for which he forgot the lyrics to the last verse, leading to an amusing exchange with the audience. The last song of the night was his first hit, “No Myth,” on which he and Aimee traded verses, which was pretty cool.
Aimee provided excellent performances of “Save Me,” “Wise Up,” “That’s Just What You Are” and many others. At various times, depending on what song was being performed and whose it was, she played guitar, bass and percussion instruments.
All in all, it was a great show, and a fun evening. I’m looking forward to seeing goboy again with the rest of the DC Dopers on Sunday!
