Aimee Mann Day 1

Friday got off to a bit of a shaky start. I had planned to get up at 8 and leave at 9 so I could get to Austin in plenty of time for the in-store performance at Waterloo Records. The day began with neighbor dog barking her ass off and waking me up. I tried to ignore it as best as I could, but eventually I decided to look at my alarm clock to see if it was close to 8. It was 8:25! Maybe I actually owe neighbor dog for waking me up before I really overslept. Thanks neighbor dog!

So, my 9 o’clock departure eventually turned into 10 o’clock. I knew I would be stopping for gas along the way, and I had to stop to get some 400 speed film for my camera. I stopped in Waco and got film and gas, and I wanted to get a couple of tacos from Taco Bell for lunch. There wasn’t a Taco Bell at the exit where I had pulled off. By the time I finished filling up my car I realized that it was already noon, and Austin was still 100 miles away, so I decided to skip lunch because I thought it would be the only way to get to the store on time. The time situation was getting a little hairy, but I tried not to worry about it since there was nothing I could do. Nothing that is except drive like a bat out of hell between Waco and Austin. I was going around 80 and people were still passing me!

I got to the intersection where the record store was located and found a Whole Foods caddy corner to the record store. This Whole Foods had a huge underground parking garage so I parked there and walked over to the record store. It was 10 minutes to 2, so skipping lunch turned out to be a good idea. I found a spot where I could see the stage pretty well. Aimee and band came out and played 5 songs. It was pretty cool to see them with such a small setup. They played for about 25 minutes. When it was over I heard someone bitching about how this was the shortest in-store he had ever seen. I didn’t really care about that since I was going to the concert later. I took a bunch of pictures, but I’m not sure how well they will turn out. I abided by the no-flash rule, and it was pretty dark in there.

I was under the impression that Aimee would be signing CDs after the show, so I stuck my copy of ‘The Forgotten Arm’ in my camera bag. This turned out to not be the case. I hung around waiting to see if she would eventually come out to sign stuff but she never did. I hung out in the store for about an hour. It’s a pretty cool record store. I was browsing the used CDs when I had my first run-in with Julian Coryell, the guitarist for Aimee’s band. He was browsing the CDs too. I told him that I enjoyed his work and about how I used to play guitar. He was very nice and asked me my name. I’m sure Holli will have some things to say about Julian and the camera incident on Saturday. I think the rest of the band members were pretty much browsing the store too.

By this point it was about 3:20 or so, and I was really hungry. I decided I would head over to Whole Foods and maybe eat something there. After entering the store, all I could think was ‘WOW!’. This Whole Foods is huge! Apparently this store is their flagship store. It makes the one that I usually shop at look like a closet in comparison. They had a lot more prepared food areas than the store I go to, including pizza, barbecue, and seafood. They also had their own coffee bean roaster so all of their beans were freshly roasted. The patio outside was actually full, so I decided to go eat somewhere else. I bought some of their coffee and a bottled water (I hadn’t had any water all day either!) And headed to one of my favorite restaurants - Freebirds! I used to always go to Freebirds when I was in Austin because they didn’t have any in Dallas. Now we have 2 in Dallas so it’s not quite the rare treat it used to be, but it still hit the spot.

I went and checked in to my hotel room. I’m glad the concert was on Friday instead of Saturday, because many hotels were booked Saturday night because of the UT football game on Saturday. I kicked back for about an hour and a half before heading out to the concert. I’ve heard a lot in the last few years about how traffic in Austin really sucks. Well, now that I’ve seen it first hand, I agree. I-35 going south was a parking lot as I made my way to my hotel about 6 miles north of town. I was actually planning to take side streets to the concert since traffic was so bad. By the time I left at about 10 minutes to 7, 35 didn’t look too bad so I got on it. Oops - about a mile south it was parking lot time again. I wasn’t worried though because we were moving a little bit and I didn’t have far to go. I made it to the UT campus where the concert would be and found a parking spot about 2 blocks from the auditorium.

The concert was supposed to start at 8, and it was about 7:25. I decided to go in and just wait in my seat, but I discovered that they weren’t letting anyone in to the seating area yet. So, I went outside and sat on a bench outside the auditorium until about 10 minutes to 8. It was a very pleasant evening. I scoped out where the bus was located for my stalking activities after the concert.

The opening act was something called ‘Teitur’. I had no idea what to expect. A guy who looked a lot like Beck came out on stage with an acoustic guitar. This was Teitur. I admit I was as skeptical as most of the audience, but damn if Teitur isn’t one hell of a singer. To me he sounds a lot like Paul Simon with a dash of Sting thrown in. His songs were great, and he was really funny in his between-song banter. I think he won most of the crowd over since the applause seemed to grow after each song of his set. I enjoyed it so much I bought one of his CDs and he signed it for me. I was waiting in line to get my Teitur CD when Aimee Mann took the stage, but I ended up missing only a couple of minutes.

The Aimee Mann show was great! She played a lot of songs from the new album and took quite a few requests as well. She actually played ‘Voices Carry’, which I didn’t think she ever did. She did ‘Save Me’ and ‘Wise Up’, and threw in ‘One’, which was great as I’ve always loved her version of this song. I wanted more stuff from ‘Lost In Space’ - she only did ‘Humpty Dumpty’ from that album. Altogether she played for about an hour and a half, which still seems a little short to me. Maybe I’ve been spoiled by Ween’s 2 and a half hour extravaganzas. The fact that this auditorium had seating meant that everyone was seated for most of the show. This makes it easier on the concertgoer, but I think Aimee likes it better when people are standing. She got really excited when everyone was standing as the band came out for the first encore: "You’re all standing!...Now, you’re sitting down again..." Lame ass crowd.

I decided that after the show I would try to get Aimee to sign my CD and that maybe I could get a picture with her. I went back to my car to get my CD and camera, and headed over to where the tour bus was waiting. There were 5 other people waiting, which I thought was good. I felt like if there were tons of people Aimee might not take the time to sign stuff. The keyboard player was the first to come out, and he went in the bus for a while and then left with his ‘lady friend’. As he was leaving I asked if he would sign my CD, and he did. He seemed really nice. Then Julian appeared and I talked to him again. He remembered me from the store and I got him to sign my CD as well. Aimee finally came out about an hour after the concert ended. She signed my CD and also allowed me to take a picture with her! I practically floated back to my car and drove back to the hotel. The combination of being so giddy and being in a strange bed resulted in a night of rather fitful sleep.

Saturday morning it was time to drive back to Dallas for the next concert. On the way, I actually saw the tour bus broken down on the side of the road! I hesitated with whether to stop or not, but I thought it might be a little too stalkerish, so I decided not to. I figured they knew how to change a flat.

As far as pictures, I still use the antiquated system of film. So, I have to get my film processed before I can post any of these pictures. I'm very modern!

To Be Continued...