Chicago, Part 2

…Chicago was an interesting one, for a number of reasons. I had heard that the club was in a bad neighborhood, but it wasn’t…the venue was actually right next to the Ukrainian newspaper, which was cool. After shuttling it to Jazz Record Mart and back, we settled in…

It was a little worrisome at first, when an anonymous-sounding rock band from Montreal played to a handful disinterested people. The room brightened considerably when Anthony, one of our very first fans from Boston, showed up. It turned out he had moved to Boston. So Shannon and I hung out with him while Clint and Rebecca reconnected with old friends. The spirits lightened even further when Clint’s parents showed up – they drove up from Indiana to take in a second show.

Anthony, Clint's parents, and us:



Once Very Truly Yours kicked off their set, the crowd swooped in, and the energy ratcheted up. I wouldn’t say it was packed, but there was a fairly good-sized, devoted audience there…following their wonderfully charming set, local go-go troupe the Revellettes did four choreographed dance numbers as we set up. Having never really been around go-go dancers before, it really got the room charged up. Shannon had six gin and tonics, and we tore into the opening number with a nice mix of abandon and assurance. As the gig continued, we played it fast and loose, with a bit of talking and humor. The audience was really wonderful, and by the end, the Revellettes were back up dancing with us to a bunch of the songs. A fan requested “Potential,” and Clint’s dad requested “Earth’s Circumference.” We never get requests, and we got two tonight…

Us in action:



The Revelettes dancing to us:



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Afterward, we were interviewed by Lil’ Ratso from the cable access show Chick-a-go-go…we’d never been interviewed by a puppet before. A perfect ending to a pretty amazing night…

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