After much indecision, I awoke way too early for a Sunday, and set to eagerly to drive to Washington. I was meeting my fellow Brother fans M and B there, as they were walking in the Unite to Cure Diabetes walk, and meeting up with an old friend whom I hadn't seen in years. I pulled into Washington shortly after 10AM, found the first off street parking I could find, and walked as fast as possible the two blocks toward Freedom Plaza. I met up with my friends; glad to see I hadn't missed the beginning of the show. Dez was on stage playing around, and T was around the back. We situated ourselves on the ground in front of the stage, and waited.After some announcements following the walk, and a few speakers, Brother was announced, and the guys appeared on stage. Angus was wearing black and silver sunglasses, a black and white striped tank, with jeans, and some really cool maroon and yellow shoes. Hamish was very purple, starting with his sunglasses, then the purple leather kilt with black boots, with a greenish grey t-shirt, with a black tank over it, which had a purple dragon design on the front. Rick was wearing a green textured tank, but greyish tan pants. Dez was wearing jeans, and a red tank, with the black hat with the grey line at the bottom. T was dressed in black leather pants, and a reddish patterned short-sleeved button down shirt, with white underneath, topped off with yellow sunglasses.
T started the day with some slow pounding drums, as the guys situated themselves on stage. Angus joined in with a slow, menacing bass line, Rick played some wailing sounds and Hamish vocalized over the top. Angus joined him with some quiet sounds, and Rick picked up the small flute he had attached to his mic stand. He started playing and T sped up the drumming with him, and Hamish and Angus continued vocalizing. This built up dramatically, and quickly turned into the familiar beats of Unknown.
Unknown
Bitch
Fragile
Good
Louie
Lonely
River
Name
Shadowman
FunnyHamish picked up the new didg, blue with black and white swirling designs, and touches of red. Angus put down his bass, and picked up Hamish's pipes, and they launched into the song. Throughout it, you could hear sounds coming from Dez building and swelling in the background. During the drum break, Rick picked up the metallic didg, and he and Hamish dueled off against each other, accompanied by T on the drums. After some great tribal calling from Hamish on the didg, Angus came back in with the pipes and he and Rick played off against each other on the melody line.
Following applause from the small crowd that had gathered after the walk, the melody of Bitch emerged. The song seems to have found a comfortable tempo and key now, and everything kept moving and pounding for the whole song, even during the "inside of me" choruses, there was intensity there. Because of the small children in the crowd, the lyrics were changed again, substituting bliss for bitch, but it did not take away from the song. The end of the song was great, as Angus stretched to hit the last notes easily and with feeling.
T started the next song, doing some metallic sounding tapping, with some samples from Dez in the background. Rick came in with some really wailing and high guitar, and Angus accompanied with a low bass line. Hamish spoke over all this to address the crowd, saying "This is our first time in the nation's capital, mighty fine to be here, on a sunny, Sunday morning. So we'd like you guys not to be shy, perhaps start removing items of clothing, and throwing them high into the air, along with small children..." He picked up his guitar, and started to play the beginning of Fragile, while Dez played a bit of harmonica in the background. Angus came in singing a very growly beginning to the song, with Hamish joining in harmony on the second line. Rick's wailing guitar continued through the song, adding hits to the end of lines. When they moved to the chorus, there have been some changes since the last time I had heard it. The lyrics to the first chorus no longer fall on the first beat after the verse, instead they fall a few beats in, with a descending line, and the lyrics only, "got a taste for... what you're feeling". It drives the song forward and leads to the "I'm so fragile" chorus, which has a slightly altered melody line, leading it to be more gentle and insistent.
Dez played a bit of harmonica between the verses, and Rick continued with the wailing guitar line. The second chorus continues, with many opportunities for great harmony between Angus and Hamish, with "got a taste for... what you're feeling, think I know this much..." repeated several times. Hamish picked up the didg, Dez had the harmonica and Angus meandered around on the bass line. Angus was singing, "I'm so fragile" in a whispery sounding voice, and suddenly the wireless mics started to pick up someone else's conversation. Hamish asked for the wirelesses to be taken out, and said, "I think something's trying to interfere with our sound waves" and Angus exclaimed, "They're coming to get me!" Hamish replied, "Somebody needs a good spanking... and I'm just the bloke to do it." Angus brought the verse back, and with some repeated quiet "fragile" in the background, the song picked up speed and with some great pounding drums and harmonica, ended with a long "I don't mind..."
Hamish spoke to the crowd, saying, "So I reckon that the belly dancers, should probably come and, dance on stage with us, sometime, in about three songs. We'll give you a yell if you guys are into it. And we'll do a nice, kind of exotic middle section of the song, and you guys can come on and delight all of us." Hamish then asked the crowd who had done the walk today, and joked "we were going to do the walk, but we couldn't get our car, so we had to walk all the way from the hotel, and we were kind of done in by the time we got here... our hotel's just on the corner there." While he was speaking, Rick was slowly playing through the chords for Good, and Dez was playing space like effects in the background. It was slow and dissonant for a bit, then Angus started slowly, with a chant like repeated, "how do you feel..." Hamish then started with the strummed beginning, as Rick played out the chords loudly with the eBow. The song was full over power and feeling, and during the chorus, Hamish picked up the didg, and Angus picked up his own pipes to round it out. After a few beats of silence, Angus came back in with "it's all good, it's alright, it's ok", kind of on the off beats, rather than right on the beats, while Hamish did harmony underneath on the words "how do you feel." T on the drums bought them both back together and they completed the song, switching between lines of "it's all good" and "how do you feel", ending on the latter.
Hamish then said, "This is a little Australian hoedown, I need everyone to either come in, make a nice little knot of energy, or... just do what you're doing." Rick was playing the beginning pretty quickly, and Hamish then led everyone in an "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oy, Oy, Oy!" cheer before starting the melody to Louie. Hamish bounded around as much as he could without having the wireless mics working, and they got the small crowd clapping along at this point. The song sped to the ending, with Hamish calling out "Aussie, Aussie, Oy, Oy, Oy!"
After Louie was my first live hearing of the new version of Lonely. Your Backyard has a high ranking right now in my Brother CD collection, so I was interested to see what they were doing with the song now. I was completely blown away. Hamish introduced the song by saying they had spent the last two months recording the new CD, and they "were mixing it as we speak, well, actually, we're not, we're having a break this weekend." He said the CD would be along soon, and that this was a song they had just recorded for the new CD. They began the song, just by creating an atmosphere. Windy sounds from Dez, deep bass for Angus, and a repetitive melody from Rick, all above T's insistent tapping drums. Hamish came in with the guitar, strumming slowly, singing, "sometimes I feel so strong, sometimes, I feel..." where you could almost not hear the last word. This led to a bare bones version of the first verse, just Hamish and Angus in harmony, with quiet guitar and bass notes. As they went into the verse "I so much want to love you", the bareness continued, but was countered with pounding drums, strong guitar and a heavy moving bass line. The verse was repetitive, and indeed missing the word lonely, but it had this intense wanting quality to it.
With a slide from Rick, they moved into the second verse. The melody is like the older version, but they have really changed it, in such great ways. Another verse, and they moved into the break. Hamish called the belly dancers up on to stage for this part, and they had an extending break, with chords from Dez, Rick, and some vocalizations from Angus and Hamish. It slowed back down, and Hamish repeated, "sometimes I feel so strong, sometimes, I feel... slow..." and everything died away to almost nothing. Suddenly, Hamish sang out, so strong, almost shouting with the verse, "I so much want to love you" and quickly sang through the verse, with a rolling melody from Rick, and occasional killer harmony from Angus, weaving over top and all in the verse. The ended descending on "can I be lonely... with... you..." mixing the new verse in amongst this, ending with an almost screamed line "cause I'm so lonely without..." Weak knees here, let me tell you. Love this new version.
Hamish introduced the next song, by saying, "This is one that we have been re-inventing for about the last two years. So, forgive us if we have no idea what version we're doing. We've been through about 3 different stages over the last two months." With a short melody from Rick, Angus started River. He continues to sing this with the quiet, cautious voice, accompanied by a bare melody from Rick, and powerful didg from Hamish. At the chorus, Rick joins in with some harmony, expanding that line. On the second chorus, the background part of Flow comes in, and it really feels as though it was always in the song. After the second chorus, Angus breaks out, and starts to belt out the whoa's, which are slightly different that before, sounding good. Hamish plays the pipes through the break, and then it moved into the more grooved part of the song. Rick's spoken word part was spoken the first time, and then sung out, blues style on the second part. Rick led the ay-oh's, with Angus and Hamish echoing him on stage. They finished out the song with spirit and a great three-part harmony on the last "flow".
Once River had ended, Rick started to play the beginning chords to Name, with some space like sounds from Dez. Over this, Angus and Hamish started off with the first chorus, very exposed. The clock sounds from Dez are still present during the first verse, with Angus singing alone, along with the drums. In between the first chorus and verse, there is still the sample from Dez that I found jarring the last time I heard it. I still think it really takes away from the song, especially now that the first verse and chorus both have such a more wary feel to them. The second verse gets the song to a more rocking place, the bass line from Angus providing direction into the chorus. Between the second chorus and verse, there is a more fitting musical break, with chords from Rick, and Hamish singing... something. I'm not exactly sure what. The chorus then slides to an almost syncopated and sudden ending to the song.
Hamish then talked again to the crowd, to see if anyone was going to the Diabetes conference that was taking place in Florida in a few weeks. He said, in reference to the didg making workshop, "We're going to get up to our knees in beeswax, paint our bodies, and get very tribal." With this, Angus started the new menacing line to Shadowman. Hamish then said, "We've decided, it's probably best today if we just keep playing until they kick us off" which was met by cheers, at least from the crowd I was sitting in. The bass continued, with the pounding drums from T, and guitar and keyboard sounds dancing all about. Following some vocalizations, Angus and Hamish came in together, almost chanting "I see you" over and over again. The song keeps the same kind of melody, but has taken on a yearning, intense feel, just very strong and forceful. The words are slowly sung, and push the song forward. This song just absorbs you in, and you get lost inside it. Each verse gets stronger and more forceful, leading to the high point. Following the break where Hamish hits the crowd with some amazing didg, he comes in almost screaming on "who are you when you're alone, do you even know where you go..." while Angus repeats over in the background, "I see you". They come around to the final chorus, Rick and Dez have both ramped up, T is pounding away to bring the song to an amazing and forceful close, with just a repeat of the seven-note melody. Breathtaking.
Hamish handed off his guitar to Angus, made some jokes, and grabbed the pipes, all while Rick held the starting note to Funny. Rick launched into his riff for the beginning of Funny, and Angus came in on the very heavy sounding verse. He and Hamish sang in harmony for part of the verse, with Rick adding into the harmony for part of the chorus. Somewhere during this, the clouds opened up, and we started to get hit with really big raindrops. As Hamish played the pipes, Dez did a little low rapping over the top, which actually sounded in place in that section of the song, and didn't take away from the pipes. When they were about to return to the verse, following a four count, they suddenly stopped, and Hamish thanked the crowd and the JDRF, as it became obvious that the rain was going to end the show early. The band kept jamming away in the background, and once Hamish was done, they finished out the song with some awesome harmonies, and great pipes from Hamish. The pipes and guitars ended together, with a synthesized "yeah". And with a last thank you, the guys grabbed the towels the volunteers were handing them, dried off the instruments and hurried offstage.
I met up with my old friend when the show ended, and he said he thought the band was really great, seeing them for the first time, even though I had been convinced he'd seen them with me several years earlier. We stood around talking, and the guys moved their equipment quickly offstage. Despite the rain, they took time out to talk to the new fans that had gathered around, and I saw all the guys signing shirts and papers that were presented to them. The vibe of the crowd leaving was one of satisfaction, yet still wanting more, cause the show had ended way too fast. Another excellent Brother show, I'm so glad I had the opportunity to see them again before August, which was when they are back around my area. Overwhelming, breathtaking and intense, much of this show was.
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Copyright © 2003 L. Bacher Don't steal, email me to ask first.
