The Rocket
June 25, 1997
Popsycle Shoppe Incident
"Viva Sea-Tac II" at Crocodile Cafe, Seattle
by Dan Johnson
The clever billing was actually keep-the-rabble-in-the-dark chicanery, a pseudonym for, "All-star jam session featuring Robyn Hitchcock, Peter Buck, Tim Keegan, Scott McCaughey, and other members of the Young Fresh Fellows." Of course, word got around quite effectively, and a line had formed at the corner of Second and Blanchard by 8:30 p.m.. Hitchcock was in the house, and the faithful had to get some!
The Young Fresh Fellows hit the stage first (with Mack Stanfield of Scruffy The Cat subbing on bass for Jim Sangster) to kick off the festivities. McCaughey joked with the crowd that, "Since we started the whole Seattle music scene, we're not going to play anything less than ten years old tonight." He kept his word as the Fellows, anchored, as always, by mischievous drummer Tad Hutchison, regaled the crowd with not-so-Young oldies like "Beer Money" and "When the Girls Get Here".
Then, as they say at New York's Apollo theater, it was star time. Hitchcock, the gangly, gray-haired maestro of lyrical metaphor, first earned the hoots and hollers of the adoring loyalists with an acoustic rendition of "Clean Steve". He was then joined onstage by Tim Keegan, the leader of the English band Homer (they have a current U.K. hit, "Superkeen"). Hitchcock played a passable blues harp for Keegan's hit after sharing his observation that Seattle folk made a particularly appropriate audience for the number because we so often use the word "super" as a qualifier in statements like "super nice" or "super cool".
Hitchcock then took center stage again, affably reeling off his best-known tunes -- "Madonna Of The Wasps" and "Queen Elvis" -- punctuating the latter with a quasi-Saturday Night Fever finger-to-the-sky pose. Keegan and members of the Fellows gradually trickled back onstage for ensuing songs. The expanding band maxed-out when R.E.M.'s guitarist, the ubiquitous Peter Buck, joined the gaggle and lent his signature arpeggios to a new Hitchcock song, "Jewels For Sophia", which featured the dynamite bridge, "Sophia, shine on, shine on, Sophia". Well, imagine Hitchcock singing it and, believe me, it's "super cool".
COPYRIGHT NOTICE