Boomerang's Milford/Wilkes Barre Recap

I saw LiMBO for the second time Saturday night in Milford, CT. IMO they were even better than in Portland. The crowd was much larger—-at least double the Portland turnout, and LiMBO was on fire. Jeff and Brian did a great rendition of New York State of Mind that morphed into Tiny Dancer and really showed off their mad skills. My brother and sister went with me to the show. Neither had watched AI and neither had a clue what they were going to see. My sister enjoyed LiMBO and bopped throughout the show. My brother isn’t easily impressed. He is a serious drummer with years of experience playing in bands. And he doesn’t dance to anything. At one point though, I swear caught him kinda grooving to the music although he still denies it. His overall take on LiMBO: “. . . the band is pretty tight . . .”, “Zippy is a solid drummer . . .” and “. . . they could use a strong lead singer to hold the act together. . .”. Understand these were positive comments considering the source.

Sunday it was off to Wilkes-Barre. I stayed at the Woodlands resort and it was absolutely mobbed with Highrollers, Boogie Boarders and Soul Patrollers. It was weird to see so many faces I recognized from Maine and Connecticut when none of the faces belonged to people I knew.

For whatever reason, I was upgraded into a bridal suite. Think Poconos. Nothing heart-shaped, but mirrors everywhere, a bathroom large enough to host dinner for 12, a huge sunken tub and a really, really BIG screen Tee Vee. All this at the end of a dank mile-long hallway in a basement that smelled like a mix of bleach, mould and stale parmesan cheese. Surreal to say the least.

I attended the Boogie Board luncheon. Everyone was really nice and v. happy to be there. Then boogied on to drinks + dinner with MJs peeps: MJ, Sharon8, Soulpatroller, Beesims, Mamashasha, 3girls, CatfromWi, Winnie plus a couple of DHs (sorry if I missed anyone).  Sharon8 gave us all blingy bracelets. Thanks Sharon8, I love mine. What a great group of smart, funny people. Everyone was quick to laugh and add just the right dose of snark to the conversation. We definitely need to find an excuse to meet up again next season.

CatfromWi kindly offered me a ticket to the AI show which I declined in favor of laptop-enabled PBP from MJs cellcert while watching the Amazing Race on my big screen with Beesims and Mamashasha. But after seeing video of the final show antics, I wish I’d taken Cat up on her offer.

We showed up for LiMBO a little early. All the fans who ate dinner while waiting in line for hours had already mobbed the stage. Other than that the ballroom was pretty empty bringing to mind Kat’s LA homecoming. But by the time the show started the whole place was packed.

As much as I enjoyed LiMBO for the third time in four days, I thought they were at their best in CT the night before and a little more ragged on Sunday night. In fairness it could have been me, I was pretty tired from my cross-country flight and whirlwind six-state road trip. Taylor livened things up a lot. Ok, I watched the guy on TV through the whole AI season, live at the Tacoma WA AI show and I’ve seen countless jpgs and videos. I’m definitely a Taylor fan but I’m not a thudder. That said, I was totally unprepared for his striking good looks at close range. Ask Soulpatroller, I think I gasped audibly when he hit the stage.

I’ve seen posts saying Taylor looked tired in WB. I didn’t notice. I thought he sounded great and gave his performance at least 110% in energy. He is mesmerizing to watch in person and his little song set was over much too quickly for me. I hope I get the chance to see him perform again in a smallish venue.

On poptarts:  sure, Taylor’s poptarts ramblings could have been driven by his preference for unfrosted blueberry but, honestly, who likes any poptarts? I tend to agree with the poster (Debs, I think) who called this subversive talk. For me, hearing Taylor’s little poptarts speech triggered a flashback to one of those SAT analogy problems. One where the answer might be: “Taylor” is to “Hollywood” as “plain ol’ unfrosted blueberry” is to “poptarts”.

The Chris-Ace duet was fun to watch. They seemed to have a great time together. I didn’t think they sucked supremely as they feared, but if it was AI for real (or Duets) they might have been voted off that night. I think it was Ace’s brother who accompanied them on the piano and he sounded (and looked) really good.

At one point, a roadie jumped on stage between sets to lower the center microphone for some reason. Soulpatroller and I turned to one another and at the exact same moment said “Elliot is here” then totally cracked up.

Pushing was definitely a theme at the WB LiMBO gig. During the show, I was pushed several times by rabid fans trying to rush the stage. I also encountered a woman sobbing in the bathroom because someone had pushed her out of her place in front of the stage. At the end of the evening, a sopping wet drunk woman stagger-pushed into me and then proceeded to stagger-hug me in apology. When I checked out of the Woodlands, a woman was complaining that she had been pushed roughly by the security guards when the house was being cleared out after the show. The front desk clerk said she wasn’t the first to complain and affirmed that the “meatheads” had been well out-of-line once again.

One last observation: our MJ is amazing, simply amazing. At the LiMBO show, she found a spot a few feet back from the stage and started to get her groove on. But before she raised her eyes to even glance at what she was grooving to, she took time to adjust all her techno gadgets to make sure she was getting good audio and video feed for everyone at home. She put her blingly bracelet from Sharon8 to good use, using it to lash her cell phone to one wrist for a cellcert all the while holding her video cam above her head. Keep in mind, the place was jam-packed and girlfriend is 5 feet tall on a good day. And she still managed to get truly awesome video footage. Go MJ! You RAWK!

All in all, I am very glad I made the trip from Seattle for my little New England LiMBO tour. I enjoyed each show, met some really fantastic people and got the chance to see Taylor do his thing in a smaller setting. With or without LiMBO going forward, I’m sure he’ll do well. But I like them together and hope they’ll figure out a way to keep hooking up. Here’s hoping one day soon they’ll all show up in Seattle.