So, I've got some props to lay out on the table here.

(1) Megan and Chris. You guys rocked. I had never heard a tune before the Brisbane show (although I was about to go insane if one more person -- just ONE more person -- asked me, "Hey, have you heard about Lava Toad?! They're AWESOME!"). I laughed the entire time. Watching Chris clearly hurt himself strumming faster than the eye can view was...awe-inspiring and a little alarming at the same time. I kept expecting some sort of Led-Zepplin like scene with blood spurting out of Chris's fingertips all over the frets while he just kept playing, high on the vibe and totally unaware. I would not have been surprised. And Megan's voice? Up high? Down low? The wild ranges of expression coupled with MAD MAD SKILLZ in lyrics (hemoglobin high? I mean, seriously, that's brilliant) meant those songs just drilled past all defenses. Especially the one about the man standing at the foot of the bed watching his love sleep with another. That just had me in chills for, like, *evar*. Cheers to Chris C. for his harmonizing and Holly for her backup and whistling. And I kept hearing about how nervous Chris was, but I sure didn't see any of that on stage. You were rockin', man, just strumming along like you've been doing this for years and years. Seriously, if I hadn't been *told* you were nervous, I never would have even suspected. Lava Toad *is* awesome. And now the rest of you out there, all 4,886,109 of you, can stop trying to introduce me to the sound of Lava Toad. I've heard them now, OK? Thank you.

(2) Let's talk about the 'Katz intermission segue-way for a moment, shall we? What the hell happened there? There really are rare few times in your life when you sit somewhere listening to something, and then kind of come awake from a trance-like appreciation of an artistic endeavor to a voice screaming inside your head, "DUDE! Pay attention! You are witnessing GENIUS! Wake the fuck up, motherfucker! Stop snapping your fingers and open your eyes! Are you *seeing* this?!?!" Megan T simply pulled something off that is so amazingly difficult I have trouble expressing how troublesome it is. But it put me directly in mind of when I used to do improv on stage in Berkeley and get thrown out there under the lights (sometimes, I shit you not, literally *pushed*), pimped a character with some weird characteristics, and told to improv a poem, in rhyming couplets, that needed to (a) be funny and (b) make sense and (c) be funny, dammit. Oh yeah, and rhyme. It *better rhyme*. What Megan did was like that, but she had to do it backwards and in high heels -- be concentrating on chords, progressions, etc. while still improving. I was aghast. Megan, your heart must have been *hammering* right then. And you totally, totally spiked it -- Mary Lou Retton stylee. And that, my friends, is the hardest part. How to end it. When you finally broke and realized none of them were there? Oh my God, I think I ruptured something laughing. And each member of the band, casually coming to grips with their own internal struggles about leaving and finally shrugging and walking off the stage, one after another? Oh man, priceless. Priceless. That was a moment of band history right there, fo SHO.

(3) Cally, that single little stab kept shaking me up every time you did it. It colored the entire rest of the melody. I'm not sure what tune that was, I didn't write it down (my note-taking started later), but man, I've really never heard a single chord stab take such life and have that sort of effect on an entire progression that *both* precedes and follows it. That was coolio. A good friend of mine Tom Beyer once tried to educate me on the finer and subtler aspects of freeform jazz once. He mentioned things like that -- these single chords that just struck you to the bone, that provided so much energy and color to the rest of the piece that without that single chord the composition falls apart. What you did finally made sense out of his lecture to me.

(4) Rick, dude, that solo near the end of the second set! I had to get up out of my chair and squat in the middle of the dance floor to see better! You were rocking out. You had this total image thing going -- the very motions of your neck, hair and arms showed this creative energy just flowing out of you, you were clearly in the ZONE. It was so cool to observe you while you were that relaxed and...audience-conscious-free. From the looks of things, you just totally forgot all about us and fell head over heels in love with the skins. Made me all tingly inside. But then, you do that to me all the time anyway. Sorry, Jules, was that out loud?

(5) Bryn, you have some seriously cool sounds coming out of that (mandolin? mandola? I admit ignorance here). When you electrify that thing, it is an incredible juxtaposition of a Renaissance narrative with modernity. OK, that sounds really lame now that I wrote it, but in my mind it still stands. A guy can only do so much with what brain cells I have left. I would love to see you on a fat bass sometime; in rehearsal when Aaron was unaboidable detained your...pseudo-basslines?... sounded cool -- it would be interesting to see what you could do there as a lark.

(6) Speaking of bass, Aaron, that solo rocked. You just got so into it. And your look? What the hell? When did Aaron, sweet little Aaron, become such a *fucking rockstar*? I don't know if you've been practicing in front of the mirror, or what. >-) Perhaps an image is all that's left to work on when your skills reach a certain level. I think your bandmates better worry about you cutting a solo album with yourself on the cover. You sexy bitch, you. Heh. What I really like checking out (now that I know a bit more about the band dynamics from enough viewings) is your interwork with Rick on percussion, and how the two of you really are a unit and closely intertwined for the rhythm lifeline. Hey, man, have you ever played an upright bass? Or a cello?

(7) Lastly, I want to thank Jessica T. for picking me up out of a funk that evening and not letting me stew in my troubles. She just grabbed my hand, said "Well, then, let's dance" and we did. And it was the perfect tonic to my troubles. Jess, you amazed yet again, even after I thought I was done being amazed by you.

I love you people.

Signed, A Fan

PS. Congrats to Jess F. for graduating! What a night!
PPS. And I simply must mention how smashing both Ben and Sarah looked that evening. I mean, all of a sudden Prada decended on the scene to cut a video or something. It was kind of outrageous. And I had on my brand-new hip little t-shirt and everything. Damn them! Can't you guys look *homeless* every once in a while?! Throw a dog a bone here, people.