september 2000 - the diary

Friday 29th

Tonight Juliana will be playing no less than 2 shows at the Mercury Lounge in NYC, and naturally I've got tickets to both of them! My only previous visit to the "The City" was a very short one - something like 5 hours in between flights going home from Florida. Therefore I certainly won't mind spending most of today visiting this strange place.

I did not plan on visiting large parts of Long Island while driving down there, but hey sometimes you happen to make a wrong turn and things like that happen. Anyway I get there around 10AM so I have most of the day ahead of me. I find parking space right next to the Mercury Lounge on East Houston St. and start exploring the city on foot. I'll spare you the details but nice places like Central Park and the top of Empire State building are on the agenda, and I have a terrific day in a sunny New York City.

The Mercury Lounge is probably the smallest venue of them all. I manage to get there a bit late for the opener for the first show, Bonfire Madigan, which is a bit unfortunate since they seem to be the most interesting warm up of the week.

 
The place is packed with a crowd that's initially very quiet, but they do come awake once the show started (by Juliana whispering "Here we go" into the mike). This set also starts with "Hotels" and "Live it up" like the night before, but this time we get absolutely perfect renditions. Really great acoustics too. And on she goes - voice perfect, great songs ending it all with "Fleur de Lys" this time. No talk of any encores - just "keeping it real" like she'd talked about the night before.  

 


Musical highlight:

"Slow motion"
One of my BC favorites - and this was definitely the best version of the week. Not that I heard any bad ones at all!


Quote of the show:

" Not that one - I'm trying to keep it modern you know" - after one of the usual requests for Nirvana. A bit of talk about nostalgia after that. And sure lots of people still wants to hear the old stuff. Here's a list of requests I remember being called out during the week:

  • Nirvana
  • Feeling Massachusetts
  • Mabel
  • Ugly
  • Dying Proof
  • Daniel

 
  While waiting on the street to get into the second show I spot a guy that I recognize from the night before at the Tune Inn. I start talking to him and it turns out that he's originally from Germany, but he's moved to Boston to finish his Physics Phd, and I realize that I actually know him from the old Juliana utexas mailing list, so that's quite fun meeting one of the old Juliana fans in person. And of course it turns out that he was a the show in Boston too.
The second show has a slightly different set list, and a crowd that seems a bit more lively, but all in all it's quite similar to the first - and that's definitely not a bad thing. I think she manages to set a personal record on how many times she can sing "Drugs" at the outro of "Choose Drugs" - even goes on after the song has ended. Perfect show to end of my personal mini tour. This time "Tomorrow never comes" is back as the last song, and of course at this point in time I can't help making special notice of the opening line which goes "You're sailing away to another shore".  

Musical highlight:

"My Sister"
This was the first time she played it on this tour - in fact she told us that before this week she'd been playing it at absolutely every show for the last 7 years. And I was extremely happy to finally hear a live version of this song again - after all that was the song that once led me into her music back in 93.


Quotes of the show:

" It's like riding a bike - but really fun - like you're riding a really good bike" about how it feels to be playing "My Sister" again and again.
" Hey Jon - someone just called you the Queen of grunge!" after someone in the crowd cried out just that - "Queen of grunge"

After the show I have a bit of a ride back to New Haven, but after having just witnessed 2 perfect Juliana shows I really don't feel tired at all.

 

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