alt title: Am I surprised you'd sing along to Lydia

Well, Fur Patrol are one of my (many) alltime favourite bands, so no point reading if you hate 'em. As per usual, it's a long time between official-public gigs in NZ (um, there's a reason for that verbose qualifier) and of course they've thrown out nearly all of their old catalogue in favour of complete unknowns that have no doubt been fine-tuned in Aussie bars for the last two years. Same thing happened at the World Series four(?) years ago, where out of the entire set there were only two songs I recognised. This time they have more of an excuse (as if they need it) - Steve left the band to pursue a Normal Life, so even the old songs they played needed to be rearranged to suit a three-piece.

Apparently it takes three hearings for me to really like the new songs. I heard the new stuff for the first time at a pseudo-friends&family show they did at new year 2006, and then I practically puked with excitement when I turned up to a Gasoline Cowboy gig a few weeks ago and discovered they were on the bill as well; a last-minute addition after they'd already gotten into the country for a NZ Music Month industry backslap (hence the aforementioned verbose qualifier). For the record, my companion described my squees of glee as a guinea pig on P.

So, this is the third time I've heard the songs, and they're awesome. Still Fur Patrol, but without a lead guitarist they've stripped out all the noisy rock of the Collider album in favour of a more singer-songwriter approach of the early stuff. It's a perfect balance of both. I was horrified when Julia performed a solo version of Lydia (a song I'm convinced they must all despise by now), but hot-radio-track etiquette dictated that I sing along with the rest of the crowd. Of course.

The Situations were worthy - each song was good on its own, but as a set it just sounded samey; which'd be absolutely no problem if I actually liked the kind of music they were playing. Very pure rocknroll, just not really my cuppa tea. One mate commented that he really liked them, but that they were an odd choice for Fur support.

AND NOW TO RANDOM BIZARRO EVENT: It was fab. I found some friends at the Schooner Tavern, and we were sitting in the movie-style seats off to the side. The friend closest to the wall had a lamp right in front of him, which he switched off. Random-dude-who-turned-out-to-be-the-tavern-owner came over and asked him not to fuck with the lamp, adjusted it, switched it back on, and told him not to fuck with the lamp. About halt an hour later, friend moved the lamp over a little, so that it wasn't right in his field of vision, or in his way if he wanted to get out of his seat. Angry Owner Dude comes back over and starts ranting, like a crazy man, weirdest argument ever - "every time I look over you're fucking with the lamp", "just leave it alone, it's NOT DIFFICULT", "do you want to buy it?" - err, if you're selling it... "I'll be selling everything in a couple of months" - sure, how much do you want for it? "I'M NOT FUCKING AROUND", "this is my furniture, you've come in here and started fucking with my furniture", and once my friend had shrunk into his seat sufficient times to placate him, he starts walking away and another friend tells him he overreacted "I'M OK, HE'S OK, APPARENTLY THE ONLY PERSON WHO'S NOT OK IS YOU, SO JUST GET OVER YOURSELF!"

Wow. Suffice it to say that we kept away from the lamp after that.

Fur Patrol with The Situations
June 1, 2007
Schooner Tavern

Earworm: Lydia (cringe)
Rating: Four crazily-overdue new tracks on plastic.