Femmes show at Summerfest (original) (raw)

It was a late show, starting at 11:00. I guess that was because of the fireworks show at 10:30. Opening day of the fest.

My memory is pretty bad. I'd forgotten half the stuff by the time it happened. I'll see what I can remember.

They started out as the trio plus John Sparrow on cajon. They did a song off their debut album. Umm... "Promise." For the second song, "Out the Window" a guy joined them on washboard (didn't catch his name). The next song was also from Why do Birds Sing?. "Hey Nonny Nonny." To continue with the country flavor, the next song was "Country Death Song." A little bit into the song, Jeff Hamilton came on stage, quickly trying to plug in his mandolin. Ritchie seemed amused.

They did "Jesus Walking on the Water," with a country sounding bass solo, a mandolin solo and a violin solo. They did "Color Me Once," "Freak Magnet," "Hallowed Ground," and "Children of the Revolution." Hamilton played a lot of guitar, often taking solos, and sometimes duetting with Gano. Gano often sounds irrelevant with his guitar, but he stood out in a couple of spots, showing that he still knows how to play. The first song of the encore was "Kiss Off," and he and DeLorenzo played it by themsleves. Gano was able to fill in the high and the low parts.

It was the smallest Horns of Dilemma I've seen in many years. Aside from Sparrow, Hamilton and the washboard player, there were only Darren Brown (tour manager and "big man on a little horn"), somebody Kaminski on trombone and Silas Ritchie on harmonica. They did "Black Girls," as usual, and followed that up with a different song than usual (can't remember what).

Ritchie started with his acoustic, then switched back and forth between electric and one-string basses. He had some kind of heavy distortion unit on the electric. Huge fuzz, and a high pitch. He used it mostly for noise, and often in places I thought inappropriate. Didn't seem quite in tune, either. His washtub bass was on stage, but he didn't play it. He did the conch during "Black Girls." His xylopnone sounded really weird, for "Gone Daddy Gone." It sounded really... squeaky, and not quite in tune. He had some technical issues early in the show.

Victor was his usual zany self.

There didn't seem to be any animosity between the guys, but they didn't seem as close as they used to be.