September 28 2006: Aimee Mann, David Ford – Calvin Theatre, Northampton MA

I hadn’t seen Aimee Mann play in almost four years, and I really enjoy her music on a much higher level than I did in 2002 – I’ve come to realize that “Lost in Space” is an absolutely brilliant album, to cite the most obvious example of this new appreciation, so I’m pretty glad I was able to see her play again.

And she opened, solo acoustic, with “High on Sunday 51,” my very favorite song from that record. And then right into “Goodbye Caroline,” one of my favorites from the new album, with some really nice pedal steel going on in the background.

Most of the show was Aimee on guitar and a guy on bass and a guy on baby grand/keyboard/pedal steel, and the arrangements were just great. And I forgot that she covers “One,” so when she said, “I’m gonna play something from the ‘Magnolia’ soundtrack, but it’s something I didn’t write,” I about shat myself in fear that she was going to do a Supertramp tune. Because I spend a good percentage of every day avoiding Supertramp tunes. But things were ok. And I really enjoy her “One,” and couldn’t help thinking through it that the last time I heard the song was in Washington DC, while crashing a hotel party that had Three Dog Night playing live.

Highlights were probably “Deathly” and "Wise Up" and “Invisible Ink” (especially “Invisible Ink”). And though I’d have really liked to have heard “I Was Thinking I Could Clean Up for Christmas” or “The Moth” or “It’s Not,” it was a perfectly pleasant show in a very nice building and was over at a reasonable hour, so I don’t figure I have any room to complain.

And the opener, an English guy named David Ford, gets automatic points for saying, “This song here's called ‘Cheer Up You Miserable Fuck,’” and then going on to sing an actual song that he actually wrote that he actually titled “Cheer Up You Miserable Fuck.”