Ueewwyoou. This may be a historical monument, but it has its nasty spots. I reached under the pew I was sitting on, and YUCK someone had stuck bubble gum there! DISGUSTING.

They sounded as good as a rock band ever does (crank up the amps!) they looked rested, and relatively energetic. John was slow and sly on his bass. Norda was wearing a very cute black outfit and skirt�.. It has a bustle on the back (like a horse tail) and clipped into that is her pick up! Everyone was in black when they came out (oh except Paul, he wears white shirts almost exclusively���) . After Intermission, Graeme shifted to a really nice "wild" print shirt straight off the racks in Florida, in rusts and browns. He looked great in it, very hippy chic.

I thought John�s hair looked really good tonight, his day off apparently involved the barber shop. His hair is getting more difficult to deal with I�ve noticed. Justin�s hair was looking sorta long in the photos, now that I think about it, but at the time I didn�t even notice. Justin wrinkled his nose. He must just have nose troubles, I know he lost his smeller for a while years ago. Actually considering the hay fever from things blooming across the Springy South, the Moodies seemed healthy, and I didn�t get hit by the sneezies either.

I didn�t take many notes on John, as I don�t watch him (tunneled on Justin, sorry) but he was indeed in black leather pants, and they looked good to me!

They did "Never Comes the Day" this night, and in Greenville too. In Hershey they did "Voices in the Sky" with a back drop that looked snitched from the War of the Worlds light show. They also didn�t do the slide show which I didn�t notice at first until it returned in Greenville, and again I wonder if this didn�t have something to do with the PBS filming. Or did they just not bring along all their lighting gear? Apparently NCTD was back after Hershey for the rest of the tour. In listening back to my tape, the tone of that Martin in this song is INCREDIBLE. That guitar knew where it was, and behaved accordingly. Best song of the night IMHO.

Graeme had GREEN (not blue, purple or red) Gatorade near him. The only band peculiarity that I know of. It must be GREEN Gatorade.

The sound was good but the acoustics are never as good as the Schnitz (that place really has spoiled me) the roof was wooden planks, and it was rounded in the back to make for better sound reflection. I think people use the words "good acoustics" far too easily. I think of places like the Royal Albert Hall (alleged to have fantastic acoustics) or the little theatre in Delphi, Greece for this. There is something magical about hearing a pin drop on stage when you�re in the nosebleed section, and this is hard to tell when it�s Rock n� Roll. But in the Schnitz, you think you hear the Moody sound coming from the BACK because it bounces off the back walls. That too is GOOD acoustics.

Anyway, when Justin started talking prior to NCTD, I could barely understand what he said for whatever reason (I really think it was wiring or speakers). It was some "nice words" to the effect of how cool it was to play at this historical place. Justin loved all the photos of the stars in the back, the Everly Brothers for one who inspired the Moodies. He was quite chatty indeed. He never again got THAT chatty in the two other shows I saw. He did play "Never Comes the Day" with his Martin, which was just pure ecstasy for me. There is an Native American story about how a boy plays a flute, and only the girl he loves can hear it. Well, that Martin is like that for me, I have one too, and there is something in its voice, and about twanging that bass string that really talks to me. John does a nice bass on this song too, and the two lines commingle beautifully.

This time I saw the Martin go, quite plainly. So it was the old roadie who had the magic touch and could spirit it off stage unseen, what talent. I missed him. Justin�s new guitar wrangler was a nice young man who fumbled a few times, but was indeed there in a timely fashion with Norda�s Ovation, and grabbed the Martin to take backstage and put under lock and key.

The Voice: I do love this song, my notes say " a nice easy strum" for this. Cindy whispered in my ear, and then grabbed my notebook and wrote "Oh, hold your tummy in tonight" that�s what she thought he was saying in this song for years! HAH! There really is a lot of Tao in the verses to this song. You sorta have to be an outside observer I think to really "get" Justin�s lyrics sometimes, and all those folks doing grouper stuff are just in it for the companionship. For them, the call is about friendship (a worthy thing) but I wonder if they really get the lyrics sometimes. I did spot Frusty Sue at the Ryman, sitting by herself in a spot right in front of John. She�s an outside observer too. Not all dedicated Moody fans were in the kissing circle at the Ryman.

One More Time to Live. Justin uses his James Olssen here, and I think John has a Fender (his guitar of choice). At the Ryman, when they yelled "Desolation!" POP! They lost an amp! The voices fell out of the mix. The lights were out of sequence with the music too (shifted from red to green depending on if it was angry or mellow music), and Justin stared up into the back with one of his famous "glares". According to another fan, there was a PBS filming going on up there too, which sounds like it could be wonderful. Whatever happened, they fixed it in time for the next song (recircuited) and all was well for the rest of the show.

I Know You�re Out There Somewhere: I have "Naw it�s just a knee job tonight" in my notes for this, and it was all three nights. There is a really cool "swoosh" that they used to do live ("as it�s carried across the waves", and is on the album for this, and that is not there anymore. I miss it; Moraz occasionally added some nice "umphf" to the sound track and this is one spot).

At Intermission, someone tried to get a tee shirt on the stage to the band (we could see really clearly from up above). Cindy was just getting warmed up. "Look it�s a pair of panties!" A moment to process it, and I began to howl and almost fell on the old wood floorboards. My goodness, that would be a massive set of Beaver Cheeters! "It IS!" she repeated. "It says �Friday� on them!" I was choking by this time. (Might have something to do with my diet, I�ve only recently dropped 10 pounds, and can fit my own butt back into my skinny levis). I think at the end of the show, the gift giver got it to John (he picks up these things, Justin steps over them, so does Graeme) it said "Three generations of Moody fans" and the lady who tossed it up there was wearing one too. Hey if she felt good, it�s ok. Cindy is one sick dog though. I was hoping John would put it on his head, but he was nice and said thank you and all that, held it up.

I thought the energy could have been higher at the Ryman, but again I�m spoiled because I see too many shows probably. "Isn�t Life Strange" was FAR too dramatic, and so was "Nights" so maybe they slowed down to "be careful" for the film crew. If so, what a bummer, as they were much crisper the other nights I saw them. I liked the low organ notes in ILS from Paul, those didn�t come across last summer in the outdoor shows. Gordon and Paul both are REALLY on top of this song, lots of hard work to it. I did notice that Paul had two Mac�s set up for his sound, over the keyboards. Mac has endured in the computer world, and is now the "standard" in musical production. Sigh I miss my Amiga and Deluxe Music.

Other Side of Life: the Groundlings did quite a job on this, lots of Glowsticks (but we had more in Hershey).

December Snow: John has a 12-string on this. A very pretty song indeed. Paul and Justin get into a musical dialog thing on this song, and then Justin sends a little energy up to Gordon too for this.

Higher and Higher: again, I lost some words on the poem here, but I know them all anyway. Graeme is dancing just fine now, did an Irish jig over in front of Paul, and it really rocked.

Are You Sitting Comfortably: Gordon on the flute, Paul on guitar, it�s one of Justin�s beloved "just a guitar and a flute" songs. Some very very tiny synth from Julie on this. I have that "they lost a lot of vocals all through this show" so this must have been one of those times. Could indeed have had to do with that PBS crew playing with wires.

I�m Just a Singer: this really rocked at the Ryman. Over on the "magic left" side of the House, I saw some disgusting big guy with a date about half his size (and she wasn�t smiling), and he was giving her a rather vigorous lap dance to this! YIKE! Some people have cajones the size of Texas, he was in plain site of everyone in the theatre. Ick, hope PBS leaves that part out! Justin walked the other way but John spotted them and actually got quite nasty with his bass about that time. Standing next to this lap dance act was a stalker���.. She was a nicely dressed lady in a pink suit, and she has been taking lessons from Miss Mousy: she was "doing the stare" rather catatonically from her seat, standing up too. I guess she wanted to make that famous eye contact with Justin. She reappeared in Easton, PA and might have been the same stalker Jo spotted in Hershey. Brrrr.

Breath deep: It got calm after all that mad rocking, Graeme did a nice deep vocal to his poem, and Justin took off for "Nights". Did I say this was too long and dramatic at the Ryman? Cindy was groaning by the end "thought it�d never end!" Possibly they watched the video, because things had changed by Greenville. For one, it was peppier, and for another, the applause length was "fixed" and that involved John stepping forward to intro "Question" which had been missing (cues thrown off with "Legend of a Mind" being pulled).

During the "stage rush" I got to watch all the PFBers run down front with their antics, pbaub placed himself dead center with his arms on the stage. How about that (a Fixed Action Pattern!), the identical place and stance Char Kemp took during the final song in Justin�s solo shows in San Diego. I love people who are the self-proclaimed self-appointed leaders in fan bases. Char wouldn�t screw other Moody fans like pbaub did, so there is a difference (I�ve never had issues with Char). Anyway, the show ended nicely, people with flowers crowded up and MBD got her flowers to Justin personally. John got the tee shirt, Julie and Norda picked up the flowers. Well, we�ve made progress from the Red Horned Cows anyway, they would be there tomorrow for Dolly Parton. I must keep reminding myself of this. Improvement is always possible.

I always want to stand at the back door, but this time when we came out it was raining buckets! And the Ryman is built so weird, no telling where backstage was anyway (not that you could drag Justin out of there, still gazing rapturously at the photos, I would linger too!) We swam to the car, and as we left we spotted an RV with guitar stickers all over it. And a bumper sticker which made me howl: PADDLE FASTER, I HEAR BANJO MUSIC.

On the way home, Cindy as promised drove me by Printer�s Alley so I could peek down it. She described it as "the real Other Side of Life" and told me a story about how she and a friend snuck down there as teenagers, and got an eye-popping lesson or two about exotic dancing. She mentioned one star (Chesty Morgan) who could take portions of her upper anatomy and make them touch in the back! YIKE!!!!!!!!! (that was almost too much information). A couple of signs down there were The Crow�s Nest, The Brass Bra. We didn�t stop.