Date: Tue, 02 Dec 1997 10:57:55 -0600

From: amy <amy@flex.net>

Subject: Austin, TX/Emo's/12-1

Austin. Let me first say that I am *very* tired, I've only slept from 6-7:30am, and I'm just one of those people who can't get by with little/no sleep, so please forgive the millions of grammatical errors and left out words I am about to offer.

My boss was kind enough to let me off work an hour and a half early (in his eyes, this is a major sacrifice he's making), which got me to Austin around 6:30ish, and we located the club after some difficulty (I was on the wrong side of Austin); it's at 6th and Red River, about 4 blocks away from 6th & Brazos, where I saw them play for the first time at SXSW nearly two years ago. We set out down 6th Street in search of dinner & preshow entertainment. Not much preshow entertainment considering everything but the bars were closed, and well, bars just don't do me a whole lot of good. Settled for Roppolio's Pizza (voted the best pizza in Austin 4 yrs in a row! :) and Starbucks coffee instead.

I got to Emo's around 8 and sat at the bar for a while, entertaining myself with the rows of pictures of Pinhead from Hellraiser on the rafters. Another LONG wait like in New Orleans. I saw Carla sitting at the other side of the bar by herself, and decided to go over and say hi. She's very easy to talk to, more so than I had remembered, and we had a nice conversation ranging from hairdye disasters to evil New Orleans state troopers to the elephant. I got to play with the mystery elephant. Since I hadn't heard it clearly, at first I had thought that it had just a sqeeky thing inside, but upon actually sqeezing it, there is a small speaker box or something inside that roars. She has a tiger that does the same thing. Carla was soon after called away by Nels, and he apologized to me for it, but her spot was quicky taken up by Leyna. I struck up a conversation with her, and lord, she talks a lot. ;) She's very funny & told us some neato stories about Japan and her crazy violin instructors. Carla came over again chatted for a bit, but apologized and said she had to leave or she would "lose her ever-lovin' mind," and her, Leyna and Nels took off for a few hours.

No MC Tracheotomy this time. The Clears opened again, and played what appeared to be the same set. I enjoyed it more this time. In New Orleans, one of the keyboardists got down in the audience and danced, and it appeared that he did the same thing this time, my view was really obstructed, but I did see him making a gun out of his hand and the other keyboardist would make a laser gun sound with her keyboard and he would pretend to spastically shoot. Very amusing.

I managed to nab a setlist this time: Trashman, 7 or in 10, Toybox, Butch, Tuffy, Folks, Grand Tour, Marmalade, French, Cuckoo, U Doo, with an encore of Lilybelle & Outside of Town. I heard lots of screams for Jolene to be played, as I did in New Orleans. When they were playing Folks Like Me, Carla tried to tape the chart she uses to her monitor, but it didn't seem to want to stick. The girl standing next to me offered to hold it, and I think it took her by shock, and she taped it to the monitor anyway. By the middle of the song, some girl (a different one) would just not leave it alone, kept trying to get it to stick down and managed to rip the tape off and half the paper, and was forced to hold it for CB. During the French Song, Alicia (I think that's her name) from the Clears was invited on stage to help yell "woo-oo-woo-oo-woo..." For Outside of Town, CB taped her lyric sheet to the shirt collar of the girl who offered to hold the chart for Folks, and asked me to trade her places so she could see better, and I swear, I have never seen someone smile so big. The girl asked me what song it was, and seemed to be in pure bliss.

I had a much better time at this show than I did the last. Probably because the drive wasn't so long, and Texas has feeder roads! (unlike Louisiana) They are the best things! I know some of you have heard me preach about feeder roads, but really, they are great. Especially if you have no idea where you're going all the time. Like me.

Pictures from both New Orleans and Austin will be coming this afternoon or tomorrow.

See you in California,

amy