Friday night was that good, but Saturday's show started where Friday left off. Dave started off on an extremely high level with "Where Was You At?" and Ed followed with an otherworldly "Total Evaporation." Dave brought out his daughter Darcy to sing along on "Shine On," and at the end father and daughter did a Beatles headshake with each other as they sang into the same microphone. From there on things just rocketed out of control. Darcy stuck around for the transformational moment of "Ooh La La" then Volker unleashed the hounds for "Hot Dog," a song he thought was a cute little throwaway when he wrote it but has become a rabid fan favorite. On both nights, fans of the tune posted signs on the balcony begging for it, and the simple, hard rocking tune brought the night to a fever pitch. The Radiators never waste moments like this and roared into "Burning Down the House," a "cover" that might well make David Byrne wish he had become a travel agent. With Mark Pardis of Johnny Sketch and the Dirty Notes on electric cello this version soared into the stratosphere as the cello and two guitars built an intricate interlace. "We've never had cello on this one before" notes Dave as the band launches into a "Suck the Head"/"Crawfish Head" jam, followed by a scorching "Barn Burner." Tips was bathed in an electric bath of otherwordly energy as Volker tuned into his hotline to the gods and started speaking in tongues during the intro to Fred Neil's "Green Rocky Road," talking about "a man who was always trying to go down to New Orleans/To get himself lost and found." Too bad Neil isn't around to hear hear Volker go downtown with his Hooker ref "Who Do You Love," taking it to the limit with "serve you right to suffer." During "Hot Dog" I casually wondered how they were going to top this off, with "Rollercoaster?" Well, when they ended to set with this high intensity rocker I had my answer.
When I'm having this much fun at a Radiators show things start to blend into a glowing blur of happiness, and I have to say I danced my way through the final set, checking out former bandmember Glen "Kul" Sears on "Out in the woods," grooving to "Low Rider," and just losing it as it all reeled by -- "City of Refuge," "Dreaming Out Loud," all the way through "Train Kept a Rolling." I made it down to the front of the stage for the encore of "Tipitina"> "Junker's Blues"> "Tipitina," then "Paint It Black." It was so good you knew they were coming back for a second encore, a pounding "Gimme Some Loving" that segued into the ultimate sing-along, "Gloria."
Soundboard > SONY PCM-R500 > DAT (16bit/48kHz/band master)
Fostex D-10 Pro / DAT(m) / AES/EBU > RME Digi 96/8 Pro / PC / SoundForge 7.0 (record, normalize, fades & trim, resample highest quality settings to 44.1kHz) > CD Wave Editor (tracking) > FLAC 1.7.1
