I am a constant satellite of your blazing sun

For some reason, everyone who I had ever seen Vienna Teng with in the past (4 times!) was busy last night. So I dragged TJ to her show at Chop Suey, a small, cheesy, fake-Asian decor club on Capital Hill. I think he has earned "good husband" points for quite a while now.

I bought the tickets on Friday so arranged to pick them up at Will Call, which they claimed opened at 8pm, and the show started at 9. I wanted to get there a bit early, to get a seat (if such a thing were possible) and sort out the ticket business. So we got there around 8:25 after circling several blocks to find parking. (Now I remember why I live on the "dreaded" Eastside.) Well, as it turns out, Chop Suey changed their story. Doors opened at 9, and show didn't start until 10. Boo to Chop Suey for posting inaccurate info on their website!

TJ was being quite a trooper at this point, since he had been out jet-skiing on Lake Washington all day and was pretty tired. (In Old Man Creath-land, a show starting at 9pm is a late night...) So we went across the street to Piecora's Pizza (original NYC Pizza, apparently) and got some Coke to fuel our wait.

We got in line in front of the club and at 9pm they finally let us in. The club was pretty tiny, just a huge open floor with a few tables in the way back, a huge bar on one side, and some barstools along the other side. Tiny stage, full of the musicians' equipment. Not anywhere near as lovely as the Triple Door, where she played the last 2 times I saw her. Oh, and no food served here either. I guess that's what the pizza place across the street is for. We found a couple of stools right in front and hung out for the next hour.

I thought the crowd was very Microsoft-ish - a mix of different ages, lots of Asian folks (me included) and rather mellow and well-behaved for a show. There were at least 2 identifiable groups: the young software engineer contingent (us included) and the NPR contingent (older, conservatively dressed, seemed vaguely uncomfortable to be in a club with no seating). Props to the very nice bartender, the yummy Lemon Drop Martini he made me, and the policy on free refills on Coke-like products.

Promptly at 10pm, Vienna took the stage with her small band (3 people total including herself). When I was a teenager, I used to write down the setlist for each show right after I came home so I'd remember it.

Now that I'm old, I just went straight to bed last night, so here's my recall of last night's show:

Enough to Go By
Blue Caravan
Whatever You Want
Unwritten Letter #1
Shasta
Now Three
Love Turns 40
Nothing Without You (**LOVE** this song, made me weepy)
1BR/1BA
Recessional
City Hall (cute dancing by Marika and Dina)


They came back for a quick encore (didn't leave us hanging for too long!):
Harbor

That last song totally made my night. Last time I saw Vienna, I met her briefly at the end of the show and told her we played Harbor at our wedding (during the time the guests were arriving and mingling, for those of you who were there). So that song is my absolute favorite of hers (not least because she described it as her foray into progressive rock). Woo hoo.

After she was done, we left, so I don't know if she played with Duncan Sheik at all. Several other people left as well, so I guess we weren't the only ones there just to see Vienna.

Oh, and I saw Michael Kaplan there but felt like a dork so didn't go over and say hi, since I know him (or rather, know about him) only through the Internet. Except for that one time he snarked at me about a Windows bug assigned to him, but that was a long time ago...

Now, if only Barnesandnoble.com would get their act together and ship me her new CD, already! I pre-ordered it and it's still not here. (Defeats the point of pre-ordering it, doesn't it??)

Anyway, I'm really happy I went. I was resigned to not going, cuz I couldn't find anyone to go with, but thanks to my sweetpie husband, I thoroughly enjoyed my fifth Vienna Teng show. She's almost up there with Toad The Wet Sprocket (6 times) and Queensryche (7 times), both of whom I'll see this year.

Party on, Wayne.