I don’t think I’ve ever gone to a show at the Chop Suey space before. On the way down, even though I looked up the address online, I was still thinking it was going to be the closer to the pike/pine/broadway side of madison, and so thought my parking space was horrible. When I realized it was the space across from Piecora, then I knew it was only a half-bad space.
By the time they opened the doors around 9, there was a small group waiting. I ended up being 3rd in the door, and so had the entire place to pick over for seating, but as soon as the club started filling up, and some really tall dude with a big head of fuzzy hair kept standing right in front of my view line, and I decided I wanted to get my groove on anyways, so moved up to stage right, which ended up being the perfect spot for all three acts.
The first opener was Absolute Madman, who performed a decent set of mashup/turntableism-y stuff. He had a few moments of discord between a couple of songs, but was otherwise quite good.
The second opener, Lynx, was amazing in one of those ways that I suspect I’ll end up following her stuff just as religiously as I have Pogo’s, if not more-so since her stuff is easier to listen to and keep track of since she’s got a few albums on Rhapsody for stream/purchase/etc. I do wonder how much she see’s from those plays, since it looks like rhapsody has another artist named lynx, mixed in with her.
By the time it was Pogo‘s turn, the place was fairly well packed and I was glad for my spot where no one could block my view. There was an interesting mix of people in terms of ages and apparent subculture affiliations. When a song would get to a shout-along point, they all knew the words and timing well, so definitely fans who wanted to be there, not people exploring a Thursday night with nothing else to do. He played lots of the tracks he’s well known for, and quite a few that I’d never heard/seen. Casablanca, Wizard of Oz, some RomCom with a guy/girl couple I didn’t recognize at all, a second song from Alice, but sadly not “Go Out and Love Someone”. It was funny listening to a couple of 20-something girls behind me going “WTF” at the H R Puffenstuff based song. Ah those crazy croft seventies.
I can’t wait for him to finish the trip to Tibet.