Saturday, July 12, 2008

An Evening at The Beachland Ballroom

Posted by Laura / 5 comments » / , cleveland, funny, geekiness, music

Last night, Johnathan and I went to the Beachland Ballroom to see Jonathan Coulton live. We got there early enough to see the “opening” act, which I can say now is more like a co-headliner who I hadn’t actually given a listen yet. I’d heard that Paul and Storm were enjoyable for those who’ve heard Jonathan Coulton’s music and liked it.

I have to say, it’s hard not to like a couple of guys who start their set with a song called “Opening Band.” There’s a particular line in the song that goes And sad to say, as of today, no panties have been thrown. Well, it’s clear this is a recurring event because when someone threw something just as that line finished, they stopped in perfect unison and looked at the item. I was expecting it to be panties, because that would be appropriate to the lyric, and I’m pretty sure they were, too. They (and we by proxy) discovered that, lo! This was not a pair of panties, but a beanie animal toy that looked like a cross between a rat and a cat. The tag declared, apprently, that it was a scrat. The scrat stayed on the middle microphone for much of the rest of the evening, even after Jonathan Coulton came out to do his set. It was pretty funny. Actually, our audience was engaged and entertaining as well as being entertained. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a crowd that animated, and it made the whole evening a joy. I’m pretty sure the guys on stage were enjoying us, too.

After that, they did a song that was a knock-off of schoolhouse rock themes, a song about chicken nuggets (sort of), a song about boxing nuns, some imitations, a lewd song about a sea captain’s wife, and a song in the style of Jonathan Coulton, which was written as part of a “Song Fu” competition. I really enjoyed their set and was genuinely sad to see them leave the stage until I remembered that I got to have more geeky fun after that. It wasn’t the last we saw of them, either.

Jonathan Coulton started his set with a song called “The Future Soon,” which could go either way for me. It was both amusing and sad in its sentiment, maybe because I remember feelings like that all too well, and I’m a freaking bleeding heart about everything. He then sang the Ikea song (always funny) and Shop Vac (love it!). After that was Skullcrusher Mountain, which I had never heard before (I know, shame on me!), and I really enjoyed it. Paul and Storm joined him onstage after that to sing Tom Cruise Crazy (funnnyyyyy), Code Monkey (yay!), Soft Rocked by Me (not one of my favorites, but still enjoyable), Birdhouse in Your Soul (never heard it, and couldn’t exactly figure it out…), Creepy Doll (much better live), I Feel Fantastic (very amusing – I hadn’t heard it before), and then Paul and Storm left the stage and oh. “Mr. Fancy Pants” came next. He didn’t sing it straight through, which is probably for the better, because it is a fairly short song. He had a crazy-looking instrument onto which I assume one can record bits of sound. He started a repeating beat, then sang the first verse and chorus, then started riffing on it with some of the sounds. At some point in there, we heard a song that was actually not Fancy Pants. “Never gonna give…” OH MY GOD. We got Rickrolled by Jonathan Coulton. Yup. It was hilarious and also monumentally lame at the same time. Which made it more awesome. We did move on, and he sang a song about a giant squid who crushes everything he loves named, aptly, “I Crush Everything.” Then it was Mandelbrot Set (which made very little sense to me – hey, I’m just being honest), You Ruined Everything (which I never actually listened to past the first occurrence of the line “You Ruined Everything”. It’s a very sweet song when the actual meaning is explained), and we ended up with the ever-popular Re: Your Brains. I love that one, and hey, audience participation for the win! We got to sound like zombies!

After much persistent stomping and clapping, we did get them to come back out, and they did two more songs together: First of May (which was so hilarious) and Sweet Caroline (with stil more audience participation).

It was a really good night. If my head hadn’t been pounding because I’ve been without glasses for over a week now, I would have liked to have stayed and met the guys and maybe had some things signed. Johnathan got hit in the leg with Jonathan Coulton’s guitar pick (which, incidentally, has an illustration of his face on it), so we kept that as a souvenir, and I’m going to make him either take a picture of it or scan it and post it up here later. Really, it was a good night, and I hope that we can go and do more things like that. (And maybe demand that they come back this way sooner rather than later.)

If you haven’t already, check out Jonathan Coulton and Paul and Storm.

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