Last night I went with Isaac and Grace to see Jonathan Coulton perform with Paul and Storm at the Crofoot Ballroom in Pontiac.
It was a great show. I was surprised how late it was before Paul & Storm took the stage (it was over an hour after doors opened, and geeks are generally very punctual, so we had a long wait). We were not quite prepared to be out so late, getting back to Ann Arbor at 1 a.m., quite a bit later than we had planned with our babysitter, and on a school/work night. It was quite hot and crowded in the venue, and my 6-month-pregnant and tired wife couldn’t get a chair and wound up sitting on the floor.
But despite all that we really enjoyed the show. I had not heard Paul & Storm before and they were very funny and very good at getting the audience loosened up. Jonthan’s set was great; I especially liked his extended “Mr. FancyPants” on ZenDrum (with micro-Rickroll!) and cover of “Birdhouse in your Soul.” He seemed really “on” and very engaged with the audience and getting a lot of positive energy back. I think the audience response helped pull a really great performance out him.
I took my Sony digital recorder to the show. I cleared this with the venue in advance and I’m pretty sure JoCo allows people to distribute recordings for free. It is my plan to make some or all of it available, but I want to double-check with Paul & Storm and get 100% clear on what I can post (for example, Jonathan’s cover songs, yes or no?) without stepping on anyone’s toes. Also, P&S is a little less suited for just listening to — it doesn’t capture their lip-synching or dance moves! So maybe I would just post some excerpts of their stuff, given their permission.
These might go on my blog, or maybe I will put them in a podcast. I can’t really just upload the raw recordings. They are two 24-bit, 96 KHz stereo files totalling five or six gigabytes. They need editing, and I’ll need to do some massaging to get them into a manageable MP3 form.