Issue 6 Contents

 

Tanya Donnelly, The Bare Naked Ladies, 99.7 WDGE, FallFest, 10-13-97

This show started right at 5:00, when I got there the first two bands had already played. It wasn't too full, but people were quickly showing up. I saw Tanya do a bunch of her songs. They were ok, but my tastes run more toward what Gail Greenwood is do ing these days in L7, so I didn't pay too much attention.

I did pay attention to The Bare Naked Ladies. I've been following them for what seems to be a lot of years now, and I still think they're the perfect pop band. Forget Hansen, the Ladies are much better. Every time I see them I marvel at how you can hea r Steve perfectly most anyplace in the club. His voice carries, and its strong. He even does some showing off these days by belting out a show tune here and there because he can.

Most every Bare Naked Ladies show is full of inane conversation- with each other and the audience. This time it was Columbus Day in America, Thanksgiving in Canada, and Steve had some great smelling hair. Ed and Steve riffed for a while on Federal Hill having "Sausage Day" every day of the year, and made did a cover (sort of) of "Thank You for Letting Me Eat Turkey," that was really funny. The band was on a red meat high from eating at the Capitol Grille two nights in a row- Boston and Providence- so t hey were all over the place most of the show.

Their new Live CD is doing well. Its gotten airplay, and people seem to be buying it for some reason. I think its subliminal because they were on 90210 and Fox has ads on for a week about them being on, but who cares? Every year there are more and mor e people at BNL shows. Everybody I've ever given a copy of their first CD "Gordon" to loves them, they deserve the attention.

Their set stuck to much of the songs on the Live CD- lots of songs from "Born on a Pirate Ship" like, "The Old Apartment, but they still do favorites like "Hello City," "Jane," Enid," and of course "If I had a Million Dollars."

It was lots of fun. People let loose and shook it around for a while and had a few laughs. What more could you want out of a show? I know its not punk, there was no stage diving, but still, if you've got a girl, and you've got to take her out- why not go see the Bare Naked Ladies? They're from Canada, so they usually serve beer.