> Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2003 09:54:12 -0500
> From: "Michael Bennett" <mrhonorama@hotmail.com>
> To: audities@smoe.org
> Subject: Re: More reading on FoW
> Message-ID: <Law14-F12tI41zLSdvL00068084@hotmail.com>
> 
> I didn't have as much fun at the in-store -- I've seen FoW twice and they 
> are a good live band with great songs -- they will never be top rank stage
> 
> performers.  And I've really enjoyed the two Chris Collingwood solo sets 
> I've seen.  Collingwood was apparently affected by a cold or allergies, so
> 
> his vocals were off a bit.  But what was getting to me was that there
> wasn't 
> much engagement with the crowd -- which, BTW, Collingwood did pretty well
> as 
> a solo performer.  They were pretty perfunctory, playing out of obligation
> 
> more than anything else.  I also got a sense that they (particularly Adam 
> Schlesinger) seemed just a tad uncomfortable on stage.  Most of the energy
> 
> came from the 100 + folks in the crowd (littered with Auditeers and
> Chicago 
> popsters like Greg, Tammi, Patti, Jocelyn, Dale (who was working the event
> 
> for EMI), Kevin, Chris Grey, Kirk Fox and Mark Watson, among others).  
> Hopefully the few other in-stores they do will be better.
> 
	Hey, it was an in-store, Mike. I never have much in the way of
expectations for an in-store, because I've never seen an artist or band even
come close to what would be a transcendent performance at one of them, by
anyone's standards. "Obligation" and "perfunctory" are pretty much the usual
terms doled out in conjunction with such events, at least in my experience.
I just don't think that most artists view an in-store in the same way as a
concert. Any performers out there in Audities Land feel differently?

	The closest I've seen to an in-store whose musical values went
beyond the this-is-not-a-big-deal level would be a couple of entertaining
and vigorous in-stores done by solo artists, one by Robbie Fulks and the
other by John Wesley Harding. But those are two guys for whom standing in
front of a crowd alone, armed only with an acoustic guitar, is their natural
milieu, anyway. And I've seen club shows by both Robbie and Wes that easily
put those in-stores to shame.

	Frankly, the fun in the FoW in-store for me came just from hearing
the *Welcome Interstate Managers* songs in a live setting for the first time
(even if only via a creaky acoustic duet) and in building up my expectations
for the actual FoW tour this summer.


	Gregory Sager