For some reason, the crowd was pretty sizeable tonight, our largest
yet in 3 performances. Perhaps they came to check out Fatty Love Buckle,
who, in the grand Stork Club tradition, did not show up. (However,
we indirectly benefited by receiving stylish Stork Club T-shirts!
Real collector's items.)
On with the show. To complement the news of the end of the BART
strike, "Blissed Out Senseless" was dutifully performed, followed by a
rousingly flubbed version of "So Soon." Following the grand "Box/Dog"
epic, someone yelled "That's pretty bad man!" Of course, when kids
say bad nowadays, they really mean good. And to shake one's booty
means to wiggle one's butt; permit me to demonstrate.
Following a thunderous "Dead Weight", again came the much anticipated anagram game. Tonight's big winner was Joren, who won negative 5 dollars and some contraceptives to boot! Hey, they don't call us the Healthy Healthy Hippos for nothing. Actually, they don't call us that at all.
Anyhoo, after the crowd was encouraged to try our signature drink, the Thirsty Thirsty Hippo (orange juice + a secret ingredient!), we rocked their asses hard with a very imperfect "Indie Song" and decent versions of "Killing Time" and the Hawaii Five-O suite, including "You Will Be Loved Again", "I Feel Fine", and John's very own "Hazy Shade of Soloing."
Of course by now certain members of the audience were clamoring for
"Carolina Daze" (ahem!), a request quickly dismissed by the fact that this
particular song has been #1 in Denmark for weeks already. What can
we say, they're always ahead of the curve. Anyhoo, being the good
sports we are, we did blast this song out after a quick solo acoustic performance
by Kerwin.
Alas, Mr. Minstrel missed a date with Mary Jane.
Following these songs a very enthusiastic crowd member bellowed "Yeah, Hungry Hungry Hippo!" It made us feel warm inside. We continued to fool the audience into believing that Fatty Love Buckle was in fact in the building and that they were going to follow us with karaoke night. Ha ha ha, fools. Ha ha ha, ha ha ha. Ha ha, ha ha ha ha.
Ha ha ha, ha ha ha. Ha ha, ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha, ha ha ha. Ha ha, ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha, ha ha ha. Ha ha, ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha, ha ha ha. Ha ha, ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha, ha ha ha. Ha ha, ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha, ha ha ha. Ha ha, ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha, ha ha ha. Ha ha, ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha, ha ha ha. Ha ha, ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha, ha ha ha. Ha ha, ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha, ha ha ha. Ha ha, ha ha ha ha.
By this time Eric's guitar was still out of tune, so two unfortunate jokes followed:
(Kerwin) :
What did the one-armed fisherman say?
[holds out one arm] "I caught a fish this big!"
(John):
What's green and has four legs and if it falls out of a tree it'll
kill you?
(Kerwin) :
Dennis Rodman.
(John):
A pool table.
What could possibly follow these jokes? Why, instant requests of course: Blowin' in the Wind (we sure did!), Keep on Lovin' You, Stairway/Freebird, 867-5309 (for some reason people request this one at every show!). The Undead Puppy Samurai song wrapped things up nicely into a 15 minute break, unfortunately broken up by one self-proclaimed "Grand Street Band" who had the Counting Crows thing going (minus chord changes and talent).
Part II: All Requests, All the Time.
An unprecedented silly time for the Hippeaux, not matched since.
The following is a list of songs we played for *you*, the bar-goer, because
we love you:
