Westerberg at the 9:30 Club, 4/29/05, w/Andrew

At first I thought he was the bassist and I just hadn't looked at him before, then I realized someone else was playing bass on the other side of the stage. I turned to John and said, "Is that just some random dude from the audience?" Apparently, it was. Andrew, whoever he is, was having the time of his life singing the last two songs in Paul Westerberg's set Friday night. Oddly enough, the guy behind me had nothing to say about Andrew, which was strange, since he had been screaming insults at Westerberg for the last two hours. Maybe he was hoarse, or maybe he was finally happy that Paul had done I.O.U., which is what the guy had spent the whole night screaming for, sometimes during other songs, when he wasn't screaming "It's 2005, you bastard!" or "That song sucked, you bastard!" He liked that phrase a lot.

I never saw the Replacements back in the day, but now I think I have an idea what the shows must have been like. Westerberg is, shall we say, full of himself. He has perfected the art of simultaneously of lapping up the adoration of his fan, while flipping the proverbial bird to the audience. Several times he played the intro to a song then stopped, saying "Ha, I was just fucking with you." About two thirds into the set, he seemed to abandon whatever set list he might have put together and spent a lot of time just messing around on stage. I went to the restroom during one of the lulls, and when I came back, he hadn't played any actual music. At the end of the show, he just disappeared. I assumed he'd gone off stage, but apparently he was lying down behind his amp, still playing guitar, while the intrepid Andrew got to sing some pretty good songs. He did a better job remembering the lyrics than Westerberg did, actually.

What, you wanted a set list? Here it is, from Google groups.

> Stain Yer Blood/AAA/I'll Be You/Kiss Me On the Bus/If I Had A
> Hammer/Knockin' on Mine/Merry Go Round/Live Forever (Billy Joe
> Shaver)/Someone Take the Wheel/Makin' Me Go/Let the Bad Times
> Roll/Now I
> Wonder(played "on his knees")/As Far As I Know/Born For Me/High
> Time/Valentine/Love Untold/Different Drum/Anyways All Right (1st half
> only)
> segue into Vampires & Failures (beginning only) segue into Mr. Rabbit
> (done
> to V&F's tempo, then uptempo for last half)/Breathe Some New Life
> segue into
> Like A Rolling Stone/Little Mascara/Psycopharmecology/ ? (song i
> can't read
> my writing or remember)/How Can You Like Him/Sadly Beautiful
> (beginning
> only) segue into Lookin' Up In Heaven/What A Day For A Night/ Achin’
> To Be/I
> Wanna Be Your Boyfriend (Ramones)/If Only You Were Lonely (request
> from
> girls at front of stage)/Can't Hardly Wait/several aborted songs
> (Whippin
> Post/Free Bird/ Round & Round/Voodoo Child/etc.)/Folker (with Jingle
> incorporated in middle)/Nevermind/I.O.U. (Paul goes behind amps to
> lay down
> and play, a fan "Andrew" jumps up to sing and is escorted off, Jim
> and Kevin
> ad vox at end of song)/ Alex Chilton and Left of the Dial (with
> "Andrew"
> invited back to sing both and Paul still behind his amp playing on
> his back)
>
> encores:23 Years Ago/Skyway/Borstal Breakout

It was, as the reviewer in the Washington Times said, a train wreck. But it was vintage Westerberg, and I'm glad I finally got to see him.

Oh, and then there was the jumping guy. He showed up in our vicinity about an hour into the show. He may have been there there the whole time. That would be impressive. He was an older guy -- well, older than me. His hair, his face, and his clothes were all graying and slightly worn, as if he'd been crumpled in the of the back of someone's closet with the dirty Doc Martens. For the entire hour and a half he was in front of me, he pogoed. Violently. I did not know anyone could jump up and down so enthusiastically for such a long stretch at a time. He wasn't completely in control of his bounce, either, because he was jumping forward, backward, and to the side, occasionally smacking into someone. I was worried he was going to break my nose with his elbow. I was even more worried that the jumping guy in front of me, the screaming guy was behind me, I was in the middle, and I was much smaller than both of them. Praise the gods, the jumping guy did not jump on the screaming guy, and I made it out of there in one piece.