To: hix@yahoogroups.com From: lotus52606 Date sent: Sat, 29 Nov 2003 00:05:59 -0000 Subject: Chicago's Abbey Pub show review Saw Dan at the Abbey Pub in Chicago Tuesday the 25th of November. The Abbey is an out of the way semi hole in the wall Irish tavern and club that hosts a lot of Celtic and Bluegrass shows and squaredances and that sort of thing. I'd say there were about 250-300 people there, a full house. Dan started with Canned Music and then introduced The Piano Has Been Drinking with a story about how he and Tom Waits go way back and Tom lets his wife push him around and Tom won three million dollars in a lawsuit because his music was used improperly in a car commercial and Tom Waits is an "asshole" who doesn't have to work, all said tongue in cheek. This would all be believable except I remember reading that Dan barely knew Tom when Tom was on Beatin' the Heat, and they don't go way back at all. Anyway, some of the other songs I remember were Chattanooga Shoeshine Boy, I Scare Myself, Evening Breeze (I love that song), `Long Come a Viper, I Feel Like Singing, Payday Blues and a song I never heard before that was, as my friend put it, "lovely". It was written by the pianist Horace Silver and called Song for My Father. It was "real good", as I put it. The encore was How Can I Miss You When You Won't Go Away? I know I forgot a few songs but that's most of them. It was a very entertaining show and the band seemed to be enjoying themselves as much as the boisterous audience that kept bantering with Dan. That guitarist sure does wiggle his head around a lot. He's the bobble headed guitar man. My friend had never heard of Dan and really enjoyed himself. This was the second time I saw Dan, the first time I went on a whim knowing next to nothing about him other than the songs I Scare Myself and Canned Music. What a great surprise that show was. It was one of the best shows I've ever seen out of the hundreds of bands I've seen over the years. I became a serious fan overnight. Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks make planet Earth a nicer place to live.