Here's the show report at last.
I tried to reconstruct the setlist when I got back to the car. I'm pretty sure I got all the songs, but, with a few exceptions, I'm not sure about the order.
The first three songs were definitely:
Somebody to Shove
All is Well
See You Later
The last two were definitely:
Just Like Anyone
Stand Up and Be Strong
For the rest, the order is right as far as being earlier in the show vs. later in the show, but is not exact.
Bittersweetheart
Lately
Misery/Silly Love Songs
Black Gold
New World
Without a Trace
Runaway Train
Rubbish (? -- really not sure where this one goes)
Wipeout
Oxygen
Summer of Drugs
Closer to the Stars
Well, what a fun show!
As Tweedly Dee says, the stage was on a dock right out in the lake. To face the stage, we had to actually be in the water. (They made the boats stay outside a perimeter so the "swimmers" could be close to the stage.) I've never been to a show like that before, but it was really fun and much cooler than being on the beach in the sweltering heat.
I saw Dan sitting alone on the dock with a beer during the end of Cracker's set. I wanted to say hello, but was too shy to approach him. (My alter ego is much bolder than I am.) Besides, he looked as if he wanted to enjoy a quiet moment alone before he went on stage.
The crowd was pretty rowdy and many people appeared to already be drunk at 5 when SA started.
The "venue" seemed to set the tone for the show. The energy was different than the turbo-charged intensity of the KC show. This was more of a rollicking good time.
It seemed like this show was a new experience for the band, too. The whole setup seemed to crack them up. Dave in particular just couldn't get over it.
First Benny introduced them by saying, "From the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes, but not this one . . ."
Then right off the bat, Dave said, "I have a pirate joke for you guys, but I'm gonna save it for later. We'll have to think up some good boat jokes for you guys."
Dan answered, "I have several good jokes, but they're not appropriate to tell in front of young children."
A little later, Dave said, "I hope this is as relaxing for all of you as it is for us. I've never seen an audience so
reclined before."
Dave doesn't realize how difficult it is to rock out when you're trying to keep an inflatable chair facing the stage.
Still, one woman in a bikini tried. She managed to lie all the way back in her 4-person raft and shimmy up at the stage. This did not go unnoticed by the band, although they didn't say anything about it.
Then later, Dave made a new rule: "If you're holding onto a floatie and you have a beer can in the other hand, you don't have to clap."
He dedicated Without a Trace to "our friend Karl Mueller who would think it was hilarious that we were playing a gig like this."
And he did eventually tell that godawful pirate joke.
This was the first time I've seen Tommy play with SA. The energy was a bit different. The guys were really playful with each other. They didn't share as many jokes with the audience, but Dave and Tommy seemed to have a lot of private jokes going on between them.
They did a lot of jamming, too: at the end of Bittersweetheart, Closer to the Stars and Just Like Anyone.
Dave did some hip-shaking dancing to Michael's drum solo during Wipeout.
Tommy seriously flipped off someone in the audience for a long time during Black Gold, but I couldn't tell what had happened or why.
At the end of Whatcha Need, Dave turned to Michael and asked, "Mike, what do these people need?"
Michael ignored him and just kept playing.
Dave looked at the audience, then turned back to Michael and said, "What do they need?"
Michael smiled, but left Dave hanging.
Dave said, "I think they have everything they need."
Finally, Michael gave in and said, "I think they need a guitar solo."
Then Dave did a great send-up of a cock rock guitar solo. At the end, he dropped his guitar and shook like he was being electrocuted. He walked toward the back of the stage still shaking out his arms. Then he walked back and made sorcerer hand motions over his guitar as if he were casting a spell on it. "I tried to tame it," he said. "This is where they have me switch to an acoustic guitar because this guitar might explode if I play another solo like that."
Dan to audience: "You can only hope, right?"
Dan in particular seemed really into the music Saturday. At one point, he went up on a raised part of the stage that jutted out over the water for his solo. And he was seriously headbanging during Just Like Anyone.
It's strange how great lyrics can sneak up on you, isn't it? During Closer to the Stars, there was this small moment of stillness when I found myself alone with just the music and the words. A few lines in particular took me right back to an earlier time in my life and I suddenly found myself reliving not the events, but the emotions of that time in all their original intensity. I couldn't even watch the band. I had to look away across the water because the moment felt too powerful and too private to share even through accidental eye contact. And then the moment was over and I was back in the raucous crowd listening to Dan's especially blistering guitar while the band jammed away.
A similar thing happened at the Ribfest show, but it was a different song, a different time, and different emotions. It was just as powerful and really caught me off guard because it was such a contrast to the energy around me and of which I was a part just before and just after this brief pocket of stillness.
The only disappointment was that they didn't play either Easy Street or Never Really Been as they have at some of the more recent shows, or even Sometime to Return (which they did play in KC), which I had really been looking forward to. Still a really fun show, though.
At the end, after Stand Up and Be Strong, Dave yelled out, "Float on!"
Did I mention that there was a skull and crossbones sticker on his black acoustic guitar? I didn't see it in the photos from the WI show, so I'm guessing he added it to go with the nautical theme of the venue.
Maybe next time.
That should give everybody a better idea of what it was like.