Reply To: JoCo in NYC!
That was a fantastic show in the Highline Ballroom! I was surprised to find a rather long cue when I came running there shortly after 6.30pm. But being there on my own helped me to get a rather decent seat with three other very nice people pretty much in the center in the third row of tables, center. The venue was, mildly put, a change compared to what I'm used to from attending heavy metal and rock concerts in Europe. But everything worked out and I even got to eat some very delicious salad that helped covering the slow spots in the Paul and Storm set. Being a foreigner I didn't get all the jokes, partly because of the language, partly because I lack the cultural knowledge about for example commercials and James Taylor. But their metaphoric love song was brilliant and "The Captain's Wife's Lament" funny as hell. The intermezzi with the light guy were another high*light*.
I wasn't sure how well Jonathan Coulton could translate his compositions to a live setting. Various YouTube videos suggested that he does fine, but has some trouble with the lack of dynamics, i.e., things tend to sound all the same. Well, my fears were ungrounded. He started with three of my favourite songs and thing became even better through the course of the evening. Everything just fell in place. The acoustics were great and the various line ups on stage seemed very natural; not so much like a guest musician performance, but, well, like a family or something. It was funny to hear all the programmers singing along the "Code Monkey"-line "Such a load of crap". The audience was different from any other concert crowd I know, very attentive, yet immersed in the music. Of course, the "Imperial March" rendition made my day. It's just so cool when the audience doesn't just clap their hands politely, but make constructive suggestions (i.e., call out song requests) and present weird geek stuff like that dice or the clan-name-thing.
The performance on stage was very good – numerous times I imagined the same music in a much grander setting (with a few folks lamenting that Jonathan was much cooler when it wasn't yet the soon future.) The encores were just awesome. I love "Sweet Caroline" ever since I saw the movie "Beautiful Girls". It was amazing to hear it live in this setting. The Pink Floyd digression took me totally by surprise (like most others, I guess) and "Mandelbrot Set" sounded much, much, much better than the recording above suggests. (Thanks for it, anyway).
After the show I got to meet a few of the people here and eventually Mr. Coulton himself. He was such a nice guy and signed my Thing A Week-box, even though it was already signed and Mitch was so kind to take the picture you can find at http://www.jutze.com/?p=225 – so hooray for New York City and Jonathan Coulton and his fans for the great time!