Thursday, November 12, 2009

The Return of Sid 'n' Susie!

Went to see an encore performance of Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs last night at City Winery. Another fun show, this time with fewer technical glitches and WAY BETTER seats. They did essentially the same line-up as when they came through in September, with the notable exception of George Harrison's Beatles classic "Here Comes the Sun," below, which was so beautiful it's hard to believe it didn't make it onto the '60s collection.

Like last time, a bit too much chatting from the gregarious Sweet (he's selling homemade pottery and wants EVERYONE to know about it) and barely a peep out of the enchanting Hoffs. Fortunately, several people screamed out questions for her, which forced her to talk a bit. They're picking songs for an '80s collection. Right now, the dB's, Split Enz ("I Got You," which just barely squeaked in coming out in January 1980!), Squeeze (maybe "Cool for Cats," because sweet "loves cats") and R.E.M. are under consideration. Sue got her lost guitar back from the cabbie. One of her kids had swine flu. And the new Bangles album is coming along nicely and has a "garage" feel to like, like their earliest work.

I asked her if she knew what had become of Annette Zilinskas, the group's original blond bassist, which seemed to make her smile as she said, "I don't know, but she was very talented." (Are you reading, Miss Blood on the Saddle?) Someone then asked what had become of Annette's replace, Michael Steele, who "retired" from the Bangles in 2005. Again, Sue said she didn't know (really?), which kind of made me sad, although she did say wherever she is, she bets she's having a great time.

Unfortunately, my front-row purchase came at a price -- that being that we were forced to stare at Sweet's gross feet all night, which he COULD NOT stop talking about. (I think heavy people are obsessed with their feet because they're in so much pain lugging all that weight around or something so when they find comfortable shoes -- in his case those stupid running sock things that were written up in The New York Times -- they LOVE talking about them.) We were in the front row, but all the way to the left, which was about as far away from Susanna as you could be while still being that close. (Jumbo shrimp, anyone?) As I said in my previous review, the best show I've seen of them was at the Roxy on the Sunset Strip. They were standing -- with a full band -- so there was a lot less talking and a lot more playing. Sweet's a talented musician (most of the people there were clearly fans of his), but if you're not a mega fan, his persona gets old fast. That said, he's the one who gets these performances out of the underappreciated and underutilized Hoffs -- her "Different Drummer" may now be the definitive version -- so for that I am most grateful.


And kudos to Susie for picking a less-obvious Bangles song for "her" encore!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Thanks for the review of last night's show. I had the same seats Tuesday night. Can you list the setlist, I was wondering if they deviated from the show I went to?