where we'll join our heroine in her travails in search of kick ass music and more

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Rhett Miller @ Maxwell's - 12.12.08

So I made this big to-do about how I was going to change my ways come the New Year...and then crickets.

I don’t post for months.

I don’t catch up and write about the couple of shows I actually managed to go to during the latter part of the year, nor do I show signs of life of any sort.

My bad.

Well, any of you lot that actually check my blog know that I’m not the promptest of persons. But I’m forever trying to improve – you gotta give me credit for that ;o)

But back to the music catch up.

I couldn’t post on any new shows without mentioning some kick ass relatively recent ones I’d been to such as the great show put on my Mr. Rhett Miller, he of The Old 97's.

He came to the little burb of Hoboken to a place called Maxwell’s, who for those not in the know is a bar/restaurant with a space out back for shows...the size of most people’s family rooms. It’s teeny.

I’ve only had the chance to catch a couple of acts there so far, but it’s always fun – the sheer proximity to the artists is a blast.

So I saw that Rhett would be playing and I managed to drag a Brooklyn friend along with me – thanks L! – to Hoboken.

It was an early show, so we just trekked on over from the PATH after work and got there on time for Rhett to take the stage.


He was lovely as always – a total charmer and funny to boot. Oh and he’s pretty too :o)

As always at a Miller show there were funny bits galore. After singing a Christmas song, he said that ‘Christians are mean, Jews are nebbish and Atheists are verbose – which pretty much encapsulates Western Civilization’.

There was an old Steve Martin joke that completely bombed – bless him – and then this one that I liked:

He got himself some hostages, put them in a gunny sack and ran them up a flagpole. He then asked for 3 demands.

1. A million dollars
2. A getaway car
3. To remove the letter M from the alphabet.

‘Cause you should always have one crazy demand, so that later on you can claim insanity (laughter all around)...Getaway car – nuts. :o)

At one point he also told us that he couldn’t chat too much, since his was the early show. And so that at the end, we should leave and then pay again to come back in and that’d be the most rock’n’roll thing to do this season ;o)


He talked about how he’d made someone’s grandma into his fictionalized girlfriend for a song...and how that was just a bit wrong.

Rhett’s great at salesmanship – he said that after the show he’d be signing stuff at the merchandise booth, mainly b/c they made great Christmas presents...in that we’d pay him money and then he’d exchange that for gifts for his kids.

The encore exemplified all that is ridiculous about encores b/c of the venue’s smallness. He stepped down and stepped back up – there’s no back stage at Maxwell’s and he’d have to come through the packed crowd in order to actually go off and back.

After the rocking show during which he treated us to quite a few faves as well as some great new songs (apologies for the lack of song names – I didn’t write them down and my memory doesn’t reach back that far), he did stick around for autographs. And he was kind enough to sign my CD as well as a CD for my friend M. Even flirted a teeny bit with my concert date for the evening :o)

All around excellent gig – if only all of them could be like this. Can’t wait to see him again :o)