AiYume

 Home after another great Jonathan Coulton concert. Paul and Storm opened for him, as usual, and a great time was had by all, including Adam Savage and presumably John Scalzi who were in attendance. Earlier in the day, I twittered at Jonathan that if he was still taking requests, I'd love to hear Famous Blue Raincoat. During the concert, he said he'd gotten a request "for a song that was a bit of a downer. ...from that guy right there" and pointed me out in the front row and named the song. There was a bigger audience reaction to the song than he (or I) expected (as he said after the concert). He did a great job of it, and I wish I could get a copy of the live version.

 

I'm tired, so I'm gonna jump straight to the setlist, and will probably edit the hell out of this entry tomorrow.

 

Paul & Storm

Opening Band ("and as of today 6 panties have been thrown", though I understand Denver was a 4 panty show)

Count To Ten

Nugget Man

Commercials:

Dominos
Twister
Fresh Step Kittie Litter
Kleenex
Cheetos
Pilsbury Cookie Dough

Nun Fight

Ten-Fingered Johnny (dedicated to people who like to blow things up; now who could that be...?)

Live

If James Taylor Were On Fire

If Bob Dylan Were Hiding At The Bottom Of A Well

Randy Newman's Theme to Lord Of The Rings

Randy Newman's Theme to The Crying Game

If Aaron Neville Were Looking For A Parking Space And Someone Stole It From Him

If They Might Be Giants Were The Ice Cream Man

The Captain's Wife's Lament

 

Jonathan Coulton

Big Bad World

Shop Vac

Skullcrusher Mountain

Still Alive

Millionaire Girlfriend (mention of Washington Mutual stopped him in his tracks)

Drinking With You

Famous Blue Raincoat

Tom Cruise Crazy

Code Monkey

My Monkey (with Paul & Storm)

Chiron Beta Prime (with Paul & Storm & Andy Bates)

Always The Moon (with Paul & Storm)

Birdhouse In Your Soul (with Paul & Storm)

Creepy Doll (with Paul & Storm)

Mr. Fancy Pants

Someone Is Crazy

The Presidents (updated to include Obama)

The Future Soon

Space Doggity ("This song is also a downer. See, this is what I do, I lift you up then I punch you in the face.")

Re: Your Brains

---Encore

First Of May (with Paul & Storm)

Sweet Caroline (with Paul & Storm)

 

Although other people have written about seeing Jonathan Coulton in concert on Friday night, I thought I'd add my two cents worth. Since I work in downtown San Francisco about a mile away from the Great American Music Hall, I walked over after I got out for the day. I suppose I could have found a way to kill time besides showing up 3 hours before they let in, but I've waited in longer lines. arianrhodstorm had kindly lent me her MiniDV camera as Jonathan had been soliciting the fans to bring extra cameras. (Oh, yeah. Did I mention he was making a live concert video? Well, I am now...) I got some exterior shots including a 180 of the marque of the Adult Sex Entertainment place around to the marquee of the GAMH.

A nice lady whose name I don't remember even though I heard it several times showed up eventually and set up a Zombification Station. By eating your brains applying makeup she would make you look like a zombie for the show. I was tempted, but was concerned about getting makeup on the camera. Unfortunately, we were told at the door that tripods would not be admitted, in spite of the request for extra camera work. Well, crap. Even if the resolution on the MiniDV was okay, I didn't want my picture shaking all around.

Around 6:30 or 7:00 I was joined by brigideire , cerulean_me , and zdashamber. I stowed the tripod and my heavy-ish backpack in the car and came back. Spiff and his wife arrived soon thereafter and I pulled him into line. I knew he had dinner tickets and that we'd get separated out together anyway, so I didn't feel too bad about it.

We interrupt this post for a public service message: It has come to my attention that some of my friends have not seen my video for Skullcrusher Mountain or any of Spiff's videos. If you haven't seen them, and/or are not familiar with Jonathan's music, I highly recommend them.

( Read more about the concert )

zdashamber commented after that it was one of the best times she'd had at a concert. I'd have to agree, though there were some times the cameras made him and the audience a little self-conscious. The performance last year was missing some of that, but both performances and audiences had a lot of energy to them.

There are more more photos on Flickr, some better than others.