Live From Illinois
September 30 & October 2, 2004
By Willie

I had the good fortune to see our favorite band twice in three days recently. The first show was in Rockford at Kryptonite. I arrived early enough to see the warm up act Redline 7000, who had opened for Red Elvises at Rusty’s in March of 2001. They did a good job of getting things going and closed their set with a cover of “Back in the USSR,” dedicated to our Favorite Band.

It was good to see the guys again, they skipped the northern midwest in the Spring for some reason. Sandra was there from Iowa with a couple of friends who were RE virgins and they seemed to enjoy the show; they even got up and Bellydanced.

During the first set Oleg broke a string on the bass and while he was changing it the band continued with Igor singing “Strip Joint is Closed.” Oleg finished partway thru and took over the singing duties.

Kryptonite is a long narrow room with the stage in front of the windows. The sound was adequate but the lighting was terrible. There was no lighting on the right side of the stage and the left side and center were intermittent.

Two nights later they played Fitzgerald’s in Berwyn. It was the first time I managed to get a non-relative to come to a show with me. My boss and his girlfriend showed up and enjoyed the show. My daughter Marti was also there and she took a few pics with my digital camera; those are in the photo section. During the first set just before “Sad Cowboy Song” they sang "Happy Birthday" to a woman in the crowd.

During the second set they played a few requests from the crowd. When the final encore came around someone requested “Rocketman” and they couldn’t remember if they had played it yet. They hadn’t so they closed the show with it.

This was probably the last show I will be able to get to this year and I can only hope, as I am sure a lot of others do, that they don’t skip the upper midwest again next year.