Joe’s Chicago IL: August 17, 2002
The third and final night of the three-night midwest run, some might have thought it was going to be the last show in Chicago for a few months. It was an awesome show, to be sure, and we are lucky to have these soundboard recording available thanks to Kevin Browning and in this case, Jeff Kempka.
This time the track titles are correct at archive.org and on the Live Music app.
Near the end of the show after the encore break, Joel announces that “some of you may have heard that this is our last show in Chicago before New Year’s, but I found out tonight that’s not true. We’re gonna do at least one more, we’re going to do a show October 4th at the house of blues and Ekoostik Hookah is going to play with us, just so you guys know about that one, and we’re still taking pre-orders and stuff for our DVD that we filmed a couple weeks ago back at the Skyline, so check that out at the merch [table].”
Look up the Skyline shows from 7-26-02 and 7-27-02, both shows are on the archive, but most of the first night’s second set and the encore is missing.
Notable:
After the opening jam the Chicago crowd really responds to Divisions starting. It’s obvious the local crowd knows and loves that song at this point.
Pay the Snucka has the older lyrics, where Mikey Mirro pays the Snucka, not Joel Cummins.
After Anchor Drops before the final song of the first set, All in Time, Brendan mentions they’ll be getting a non-alcoholic beverage at setbreak. Again, it sounds it relates to the story about the band taking two weeks off of alcohol, and then naming the new song “13 days” for that reason. Debut of 13 days is coming up in two weeks on 8-29-02.
The Blue Echo jam has the roots of Jajunk, which the band is again playing with in this run (2 nights ago at The Vogue), which as I mentioned in that post will be debuting on 9-6-02 at Mishawaka. (labeled “moog jam” on the archive)
Good Old Boys is an awesome old country tune led by Jake with his southern country vocals and they have a lot of fun playing it. Of course you would recognize it as the theme song from the television show Dukes of Hazzard, and the song is by Waylon Jennings. It’s been played 54 times and only about once a year for the past 10 or 15 years. They last played it in 2016 in Knoxville, Tennessee, and then Mikey followed it up with the very short and very rare “Dazzey Duks” rap by Mike Mirro, where he raps and plays drums by himself for about 40 seconds. He only did that 3 times. Jake calls him out to the crowd and says “Mike Mirro [ladies and gentlemen]” afterward.
Then Padgett‘s Profile has Karl Engelmann on kazoo, during the jam he takes a kazoo solo backed by the band. Karl Engelmann is a founder of Jake’s former band Ali Baba’s Tahini in South Bend, IN. His current band is Mother Vinegar.
After Padgett‘s Jake starts right into Syncopated Strangers, but then stops and you can hear Brendan go awww, and they introduce Karl, and Brendan says “give it up for Karl, he’s an old friend. “Then Jake says “Darl can play anything; we asked him what he wanted to play tonight and he said kazoo, we figured fuck it.”
Then there’s some silence and Brendan asks the crowd “does anyone have any reasonable requests?” Of course everyone shouts at once and Brendan says “yes I can really tell what you’re saying,” sarcastically.
Mikey starts some “USA” chanting and then Joel plays a couple bars of ragtime with Scott Joplin’s Maple Leaf Rag, and then a few bars of Vince Guaraldi’s Linus and Lucy (from Charlie Brown). It’s quite the entertaining banter. Then Mike says “alright this next one’s called Sociable Jimmy.”
You can really hear Andy on the congas during Sociable. Like other early versions the jam on Sociable is short, and starts right into the ending riff for only a few bars, but then soon breaks into Joel on piano with a short solo section on E with Mike providing a quiet beat. It builds a bit with Ryan joining in while they riff on the single note, E. In the recording, this part of the jam is the Kimble track and they transition into Kimble with Joel leading, finally speeding up the tempo and moving into the 3/4 time that is the opening sequence of Kimble. It’s a brilliant transition.
That ends the set, with Brendan saying “thanks everybody, drive safely on your way home.”
The recording contains the encore break and Joel comes up and starts talking as usual and says thanks for being here and he says that “some of you may have heard that this is our last show in Chicago before New Year’s, but I found out tonight that’s not true we’re gonna do at least one more. We’re going to do a show October 4th at the House of Blues and Ekoostik Hookah is going to play with us, just so you guys know about that one, and we’re still taking pre-orders and stuff for our DVD that we filmed a couple weeks ago back at the Skyline, so check that out at the merch. Now, if you guys wanna hear a good song you’ve got a scream really loud because we’re not gonna play a good song unless we can really hear you.” Crowd noise ensues. As Mikey starts The Triple Wide on drums Joel says, “I don’t know, we’re going to play one of our worst songs, I don’t know if that does it. You’re gonna have to try a little harder, come on now, come on.”
The encore consists of short standalone versions of the new songs, The Tripe Wide and Push the Pig for the encore, about 4 minutes for 3x and 6 minutes for PTP.
Push the Pig is really feeling well developed now, the guitar harmony riff has taken its final form, its the same that it is 20 years later, after some experimentation during the whole first half of 2002.
It’s interesting to note that after they debuted Push the Pig on January 23, 2002 at Durty Nellie’s in Palatine, IN they proceeded to play the song at 17 consecutive shows. Originally, the song was called Fences.
Ending the show with a sudden ending of Push the Pig, Brendan says, “thanks everybody, have a good time all the time,” a line from Spinal Tap. And then Jake says “thanks for listenin.”
Take it for a listen, it’s a beautiful performance with a gorgeous sounding recording.
Setlist from allthings.umphreys.com
Set 1:
Intro > Divisions, Tribute to the Spinal Shaft, Out Of Order-> Pay the Snucka-> Anchor Drops, All In Time
Set 2:
Intro[1] > Hurt Bird Bath > Last Man Swerving > Blue Echo-> Resolution-> Kabump-> The Crooked One, Prowler, Good Ol’ Boys, Dazzey Duks[2], Padgett’s Profile[3], Sociable Jimmy[4]-> Kimble[5]
Encore:
The Triple Wide, Push the Pig
Footnotes:
[1] with Black or White (Michael Jackson) theme and Resolution tease
[2] debut, Duice; Mike on vocals
[3] Karl Engelmann on kazoo and vocals
[4] unfinished
[5] with The Safety Dance (Men Without Hats) tease
Show Notes:
with Syncopated Strangers, Maple Leaf Rag (Scott Joplin), and Linus and Lucy (Vince Guaraldi) teases after Padgett’s Profile
Links to Audio
The Live Music Archive app (iOS) and the Taper’s Section app (Android) is a great way to find and listen to these shows. You can stream, download for offline listening, save favorites, and mark shows as already listened to. The app pulls all data directly from the public repository of live music recordings posted at archive.org.
