From: tiffany ann tiff@popstar.com

i'm sure someone's posted a review of the portland show already, but i just wanted to put in my two cents... i thought it was far better than the two seattle shows what with the acoustic solo encore and all. and very fitting that he did "rose parade" seeing as the damn starlight parade made us miss most of the minders set that night. (argh!)

elliott had some difficulties (string broke, knob on guitar didn't work, strap came undone) and some songs got aborted due to them. he cursed a lot over it and then said that he needed to stop cursing when he noticed the little boy front and center (the same boy & mom were right next to me at the all ages show in seattle, he's quite the fan!). when his strap came undone, he nearly smashed his guitar a la pete townsend. my friend and i were in awe and the look on sam's face was priceless! of course, this is the one night i didn't bring my camera. maybe someone got a shot of him swinging the guitar or holding it behind his back? (crosses fingers)

anyway, i'm sure there's been a more comprehensive review posted. i'll have to catch up on my email...

btw, rebecca from the minders is working the merch table, say hi to her, she rules!

tiffany

From: "Moonglow" pboss@gladstone.uoregon.edu

so i saw the minders in portland on saturday, and elliott played, too. the good parts were me getting karma points before the show, the minders (i dig a pony), ballad of big nothing, ugly before, junk bond trader (it sounded awful, but like the song), when he stopped playing baby britain, anything beatles, care of cell 44 (never heard it before, quite cool), 245, the acoustic set, screaming with a bunch of other people who love sam, cos he's so cool. he and elliott got a kick out of our enthusiasm, too. the rest was other than good. i passed someone i knew on the way out and she asked how i was doing. i said "bad," though i was surprised at how together the band really was, and the reports have all been right that this is his best band so far. i asked my friend what he thought of the show after he left and he said "i really liked everything old, but i just hated the new stuff." sometimes friends are quite perceptive (though i'm rather fond of ugly before). oh yeah, the lady with her kid who were up front at the show. i remember that they weren't there at the start, but they pushed other people out of the way to get up that close. that's not cool. and since it seems they saw him like two nights earlier, that's very very not cool. this friend also had to buy a ticket from a scalper for like $30. he said he saw people selling tickets for $50 a pop outside. we agreed that the person doing that should be pushed into traffic. too bad that damned parade slowed everything down so much.

no one on the list seems to mention the minders, but i loved them, and thoroughly enjoyed the set. i bought another cd by them.

sorry for being long.

peter