Set:
| Spring Fever [pre-recorded] | Poet (Who Didn't Know It) | Share | Last Night | Found My Boogie | I'm a Bad Mamma Jamma (Who Works at Wendy's) | M'Lady | Moon Over the Water | Place | Breathe You In | The Date | Chosen Ones | Lady Madonna [The Beatles] | Jumpstart My Rocket | Jammin' Out in a Soundproof Room | Good Vibes | So True / Summertime |
And so we returned to the Red Rooster Coffee House for the second time since we moved away, and the first time since our album Share was finished and printed. Our Twin Cities CD release party isn't until October. But we decided we wanted to celebrate with Aberdeen first.
This is our first show since the addition of bassist Nick Wosika. However, he was not able to join us for this show, since he was playing a farewell show with his other band, Stereoscope in the Twin Cities. So we played sans bassist tonight, just like the old days at the Red Rooster. Also reminiscent of the old days was the opening lineup, made up of The Blue Orange and Fed By Doris. Both of these bands used to play with Junebug regularly at the Rooster, and I happen to also play drums in both these bands.
We took the stage and Dustin welcomed everyone, saying, "Dear our people, we are pleased to meet you again in this certain time and place that has predestined to be here and now again." I (tony) then announced, to great reception, that this is our CD release party. "Here's our CD," I said and pressed play on an onstage CD player. We listened to "Spring Fever" in its entirety. I was in favor of just letting the entire CD play while we sat/stood onstage, but the other dudes were not keen on that. So I left it up to the crowd. "Do you want us to actually play, or do you just want to listen to the album?" Jeremy Storly shouted out, "Leave the CD on... I've heard you live." Everyone else wanted us to play. We've got to keep the masses pleased, you see.
Since we had no bassist tonight, we asked Jeremy Burckhard to come up and play bass on a couple of our older tunes, "Found My Boogie" and "Bad Mamma Jamma".
In the middle of the band intros during "Bad Mamma Jamma", Jeremy and Dustin spontaneously broke into "Deuling Banjos" and it kind of blew my mind a little bit.
Some of you may have noticed Anthony's unique style of dancing at shows. He tends to bounce a lot. Tonight he mentioned that "a Junebug show is like a workout for me." I added, "If he's not doing the limbo, he's not working hard enough." He returned with, "It's called JAM-ercizing!" I think he may be on to something.
We then played "Moon Over the Water" off the album, a song which has never before been heard in Aberdeen.
Our dear old friend, the violinist Elizabeth Andrews, joined us on three songs tonight; "Place", "Breathe You In" and "The Date".
Tonight, I dedicated "Breathe You In" to Vinny and Barb, who are getting married tomorrow. This song was actually played by Junebug at my wedding, so it's good for those who share the loves.
During some downtime on stage, when Anthony was messing with his settings or something, I decided to fill some dead air with jokes provided to me by our old friend, Rory Behrens, who was no in attendence tonight. Q: What time do you know you need to go to the dentist? A: Tooth-hurty. Q: Where does patio furniture go when it dies? A: To the cement-ery. It should be pointed out that nobody laughed. I was just trying fill the dead air. Someone from the crowd asked what kind of cheese was not mine. Dustin emphatically replied, "That's nacho cheese!!" Then we played a song.
Anthony put me on the spot, by saying he had to tune and it was up to me to come up with some witty banter. The best I could muster was to talk about my hat and say that I was not even modest about it. I furthermore added that "Tony" and "witty" do not belong in the same sentence.
Tonight we debuted our version of The Beatles' "Lady Madonna". It's very rockin' and we like it. The kids in the crowd really seemed to dig it. "Jumpstart" was next, and the energy was good. The crowd was clapping in rhythm to start it out and in the middle breakdown. They were jumping and dancing and it was all good. This is why we keep coming back to Aberdeen. This is good stuff.
We got a request for "Jammin' Out in a Soundproof Room" tonight, so how could we deny the fans? It was one of the better performances of that song, and Anthony said it really took it out of him.
We closed the show out tonight with "So True" playing right into "Summertime", which is what closes out the album. It's a fitting ending, I suppose, for the CD Release party.
We thanked the Red Rooster for always being good to us, and we thanked the staff for staying late while we played long. Thank you, Aberdeen. We shall return.
