Part three of three:
After a break of about a half hour, Coulton came out, with no one, not even Paul and Storm, to introduce him.
He began with the first three songs in the same order as his live album, “Best. Concert. Ever,” which included, “The Future Soon,” “Ikea,” and “Shop Vac.”
Coulton noted onstage he had been to Richmond a few months earlier, as the opening act for They Might Be Giants. This was the first time he played in Richmond as the headliner. To be safe, he jokingly told the crowd, he was going to play nothing but TMBG songs, because that seemed to go over pretty well for them.
He played a lot of the music from “Best. Concert. Ever,” but substituted a few different songs, too. These included: “Big Bad World One,” and “Space Doggity.”
While Coulton sang “Mandelbrot Set,” a song about the mathematical formula developed by Benoit Mandlebrot, which has something to do with infinite complexity, two folks in the back held up a sign, lit with a flashlight, displaying the actual formula.
As he began singing the song, Coulton saw the sign and started to laugh, but kept going. I didn’t know he took a little creative license with the formula in his song.
At the end, he whispered the crowd he did not use the exact formula because he didn’t really understand it that well.
“Neither does Benoit Mandelbrot,” he joked.
Certainly, being arithmetically impaired, it made me feel good to know I wasn’t the only one who didn’t understand it.
As usual, Paul and Storm joined him on stage for a few songs.
Both acts are great on their own, but I really think Coulton gets better with Paul and Storm on stage. In addition to being great backing vocalists, they give him someone to joke and interact with while on stage.
They got into some really funny digressions between songs, some of which involved the “deuchebag pose,” and another that involved getting Coulton into a giant cybernetic suit so he get away from the microphone and move around the stage with no cords.
This kind of interplay is why I like going to concerts -- it really helps the audience get to know the people who are performing, and not just hear the songs.
I can listen to the songs better on my iPod or car stereo than at a concert -- I can rewind them and listen over and over -- but it’s the human touch of getting to see what these performers are like on stage that makes me want to go to a concert.
Coulton brought Paul and Storm back for the encore and ended with “First of May.” If you have never heard this one, it struck me as being just plain offensive the first time I heard it, but the more I listened to it, the more it made me laugh.
Before performing, he did say, “If anyone has any kids in here, get them out now.”
(Just for the record: Coulton did not perform “Big Dick Farts A Polka.)
So, the concert was over, and I left after buying a Paul and Storm t-shirt. Sadly I discovered too late it was not an XL, but was in fact an XXL. No way that’s ever gonna fit.
(If I was in college I could use it as a wall decoration, but I am too mature for that now. I have mature people things like Winslow Homer paintings. Never mind the Spirit poster autographed by Will Eisner and the photos of Brett Favre and Bon Feller. They’re in frames, you, know. That makes them “art” and not “decoration.”)
One other note: never trust a GPS. The darn things have a sense of humor.
I activated mine to get me from the Hat Factory to the highway to drive home. I blundered around underneath I-95 back and forth for probably 10 minutes as the GPS read, “Acquiring satellites.” Which is GPS language for “Nyahh, nyahh, nyahhh.”
Finally, using my own navigating skills, which mostly involved driving around aimlessly under the highway, I found a sign for I-95 and I-64 and followed it.
Wouldn’t you know, the second I merged on the highway, the GPS knew exactly where I was and had my trip home calculated?
Note: I provided links to the Paul and Storm and Jonathan Coulton Web sites. I did not embed links to every individual song, because that’s too much like work. Find ‘em yourself.
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