LOCATION: Moondog's, Pittsburgh, PA
LINEUP: Karin, Linford, Will Sayler, Paul Moak, Rick Plant
REVIEW BY: Rachel Gockley
Ohh. I haven't seen OtR in so very, very long. The must come back to pittsburgh more often, now that i'm officially a resident here, and over 21 to boot. I managed to convince The Boy (whose name is Nick) to come along (well, in fact, to drive me there). This was his first intro to OtR, as i have been derelict in my duty of forcing him to listen to my music. The location was Moondogs, a small pub just north of the city (in Blawnox, to be precise). As expected, it was entirely too smokey for my taste, and my throat is still a little funky from it. The stage was set into a corner, with the majority of seating in rows in front. The rest of the seats were off to the side, behind the organ -- the choir, in fact, as Linford put it. Nick and I were in the choir. (If any other lostees were there: i was in a black shirt and black skirt with fiery dragons at the bottom; Nick has long blond hair and was wearing a shiny silver shirt and black pants...) Opening acts were... ehn. Stephen Delopoulos was, admittedly, pretty fabulous on the guitar. Susan Enan was Irish, which made her between-song comments ever so much more entertaining (i'm a sucker for any form of british accent), but her music was... nothing special. Nick doesn't care for the slow music, so i could tell he wasn't particularly enjoying himself during their acts, which made it all the harder for me to enjoy. Oh, well. After the openers, there was a half-hour (!) break. Then OtR took the stage, and dove right into My Love is a Fever. Oh, wow. Oh, so good. Oh, it's been too long since i last saw them. I didn't write down the setlist. Though, from my seat (pretty much directly behind Linford), i could see Linford's copy clearly (My Love is a Fever wasn't on it). Being the until-recently-broke-college-student, i hadn't yet heard Ohio, so many of the songs they played were new to me. Oldies (at least, pre-Ohio) were Bothered (again i say, "oh, wow"), All I Need is Everything, and When I Go. (Nick, by the way, enjoyed OtR. He prefered the faster songs, of course, but i could tell he was having a good time. Woot!) Let me take a moment here to mention: Paul. The guitarist for the tour. One word: Daaaayyyy-aaammmmmn. Amazing guitarist, great falsetto back-up voice, and adorable to boot. And he does an excellent Linford impression. Karin and Linford had best hold onto this fellow. (Regarding his falsetto: I'll admit some amusement when i realized that, on All I Need, he was singing the same part that Terry used to sing... you know, the part - -above- Karin's part.) The fact that i lacked both Ohio and Cutting Room Floor has now been remedied. As has my lack of a girly "wine me, dine me, over the rhine me" shirt. And i even got a free Ohio poster out of the deal. Woot! Now, i should probably start doing some work, or something.