Happy to Pay for Thursday's Crowd

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I have seen a number of acts more than once in a week. There's a steadfast "rule" of sorts that I've learned over the years of doing that: when one night's audience is "bad" (for whatever reason), the next night's audience is going to pay for it -- in a good way, of course. All of that pent-up frustration of wanting to "give" to the audience, only to have the crowd reject it, has to come out, meaning the next night's audience will get a double dose of enjoyment. I didn't go to Robbie Fulks' Thursday show in Columbus, Ohio (not that it's too far away: I've seen him three times there, and we play a golf tournament east of Columbus this year) because of a project at work. Based on what Robbie's sound man told me, I didn't miss much: it was a high-priced ($100 for dinner and a show) show for high-end business types. He didn't have to go into detail, because I could smell a bunch of stuffy, mainstream country music lovers (if they liked any country music) being blindsided by Robbie's brilliant lyrics and terrific sense of humor ("my brain is losing power, 1200 neurons every hour," he laments in a new song, "My Brain") and not knowing what to do. So, guess who "paid" for the lack of enthusiasm from Thursday night? You betcha -- the Friday night audience at Birdy's in Indianapolis. To double the pleasure, the audience -- one of the bigger crowds this week -- was in a raucous mood. (Quick aside: there are two kinds of crowds in a bar: "happy," even if they're drunk; and "ugly," even without being drunk. This was the former.) Happily singing along with many of Fulks' songs (including almost drowning out the band on the chorus of "Let's Kill Saturday Night" and shouting the comical/truthful "Alabama's grand, the state not the band" from "Cigarette State"), the audience redoubled Fulks' desire to shake the previous night's show off. And, boy, did he. This was easily the most energetic and "fun" night of the three this week (not the best: hey, when John Cowan comes out and sings, nothing else is going to top it!). Robbie was in a highly comical mood, as was Noam Pikelny. Robbie asked Noam if he'd ever sat shiva (a period of mourning over one's death in Judaism). Pikelny replied, "Sat shiva? Sure. That's what I feel I'm doing right now." Most of the song list was the same as the rest of the week. "Fare Thee Well, Carolina Gals" was dropped because it just wouldn't have worked. Instead, the upbeat "Long I Ride" kept the crowd happy and (in a couple of places) dancing along. The funniest thing -- and kudos to Robbie for holding it together when this happened -- came during "That's Where I'm From." The song is a poignant look at the contrasts between growing up poor in the country and raising children in a middle-class suburban setting. One of the lines in the song contrasts the stuffiness of "a white collar, a neck tie" of "success" and the childhood innocence of running "half-naked in the moon shine." Well, when he got to that line, a woman who had been hooting and hollering the entire night (no, not me ) let out with a loud whoop of approval. Robbie grinned but continued the song. (And yes, I have seen him get so tickled the started laughing during a song.) It's sort of sad that this great band will dissolve after tonight's show in Chicago (Pikelny has a new solo album and his work in the Punch Brothers to return to, for instance), but it was a special week of music, capped off by a blast of a show where the audience got what the previous night's crowd wouldn't accept. I was happy to pay for what the Thursday night crowd did...or didn't do.