2021-08-08 The Saturn (Birmingham, AL)
Setlist
Recording 1, Recording 2
Banter
- I am glad that every one of you is alive, and hopefully has stayed healthy in this awful time. [cheering] We got a ways to go yet, but I'm glad you're okay. The people in this song...cannot say the same thing. [some excellent rocking is had] Thank you! Recorded right up the road in Muscle Shoals. [lots of cheering] We have a special relationship to this place. I mean, my grandfather on my mother's side is actually from here, moved to. But beyond that, this is where we were at hte beginning of the fuckin' pandemic. We were in Muscle Shoals, lookin' at the river, [unintelligible] seemed pretty nice, we're recording a couple albums, and then we will release them in the fall, and tour... what a thought that was. We were - and it was all happening! It was like March 7th through 15th or something like that, 2020, and you know, go next door to the CVS to buy some tissues and everybody had bought 'em all. It's what human beings tend to do, go, aw shit, something's going down, better buy a whole bunch of one thing. And that was where we were at. (The Destruction of the Kola Superdeep Borehole Tower)
- Well, keep a good thought, this is the live debut of this one. And in case there's anybody on the stage who hasn't seen it, who might be sitting down, the young lady in the front with the sash, the Rat Queen! [raucous cheering] You know what time it is! (Rat Queen)
- JD (off mic): Which one is it? OK. [acoustic tuning etc sounds] I - I have a lot to say about this song, but it's all kinda formless. Not really entertaining. More personal. It's just a song about fish. I have...I have strong feelings for the fish. I'm very excited for this intro. This is a song about my strong feelings for the fish. (Pez Dorado)
- The gunslinger, Mr. Matt Douglass. (between Pez Dorado and Never Quite Free)
- How's it going? It's so good to be here. [cheering] Y'all vaccinated? [YEAH! WOO! cheering] Y'all having any luck convincing your coworkers to get vaccinated? [NOOOO, other sad yelling] I'm up the road in North Carolina, and I live in Durham, and Durham's kind of, like, a pocket, y'know, in Durham we all feel like, North Carolina's pretty mellow actually. Sure, we have our problems, and we're working through structural racism, and stuff like that, but y'know. And then you get about 40 miles outside of Durham, and you start talking like that, and...[long pause] You say, "y'all vaccinated?" and get "well, that's how they getcha." Kind of terrifying these days. It's really good to be in a room full of people who I know will take care of each other. [raucous cheering] In the middle part of the set I've been throwing in old stuff, and there's two kinds of old stuff. There's stuff that people really wanna hear, that are well known, among the subset of old songs that most of the world will never give a shit about, but within the fanbase, it's, oh, nah, there's that one. And then there's the other ones that I think are cool, that people in the fanbase are like "oh, okay, uh..." This is one of those. I was messing around with the guitar upstairs and thought I'd play Going to Kirby Sigston. (Going to Kirby Sigston)
- This one is even more obscure than that one [Going to Kirby Sigston]. I will confide - I used to have a, a thing I would do if I was playing a set. You know, prior to 96 or 97, I was probably not headlining, right? So I had to come out, with an acoustic guitar that didn't have a pickup in it usually, and I would have a seat - I was a mess. And I'd tell the sound guy to set up three microphones, put one there, and one there, and hte other one down there. And he'd go [deadpan] 'okay...you have your own microphones?' Nah, I don't. You got me covered, right? The thing is, if you are the dude with the acoustic guitar in the opening slot in a club where people have come to drink and see the headliner, you have exactly two minutes to get their attention. As it happens, I had some pretty effective strategies for getting their attention. And this was one of those. (That Hippolytine Feeling)
- This is the other one from Transcendental Youth. It's about something I assume [giggles] One key to my songs is that I assume they're all universal and they're not. But then I would contend that the narrator of this song is doing something everybody does, as people just do it without obvious signs and signals. So this is about that sort of time in your life when you notice you're not calling your friends. At all. Or answering the phone when they call you. Because you don't want to talk to anybody or see anybody or be with anybody for an extended period of time. (In Memory of Satan)
- This is a revenge fantasy. [woo!] YEEEAHHHH. I am inordinately fond of this song. Because it's really mellow, you know, you can play it around a campfire. A campfire in your burning field [unintelligible] property of the enemy. A warm and nourishing campfire......for you... (Getting into Knives)
- JD: Thank you, and a very special thanks to my band, who didn't know I was gonna do that, 'cause I didn't know I was gonna do that. And I sorta got the idea and ran with it. Erin's never even heard the song before...[cheering] Thank you so much. [band discusses set list off mic and unintelligibly]
Peter: I'm trying to remember what key that song, we usually play that song in.
JD: Oh, that song would normally be in A. I think it's in A. And it's in kind of a drop drone A.
Peter: Yeah. I think we just played it in E.
JD: Maybe we play it in E too. Maybe we play it in whatever key I happen to be in when I think I wanna sing it.
Peter: [laughs on mic]
JD: Probably what key that song is in. (After the Whole Wide World/Against Pollution medley)
- Oddly enough, this is a song about how when people insist that you're a horrible villain, sometimes you turn around and say, you know what? What if I'm a horrible villain? What about this? (Heel Turn 2)
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