kristin hersh @ the knitting factory 10/16/05

going against my long standing rule of never going out on Sundays...we started off the day with the new Neil Gaiman/Dave McKean film MIRRORMASK which, despite the presence of too many children and a screen the size of a large TV, was well worth the 2 hours. more on that later...we wandered around in the cold windy afternoon getting lost in the wilds of Tribeca & finally stopping to eat at a random place, Yaffa's, that had decent food, decent beer, great waitstaff & good music (soundtrack to lock, stock)...we got lost somehow getting back to the knitting factory (probably because it's in the stupidest part of town a rock club could ever be in) and made it just as billy o. was finishing his pre-show schpeil (speil?) and kristin came out on stage. The place was packed wall to wall with muses and kristin fanatics as evidenced by the amount of swooning and cheering going on every time kristin started a new song. She's as beautiful as ever, with the same killer voice & uber-rock way of handling an acoustic guitar. As usual, she played a wide variety of muses & solo songs & told some great stories in between including "the parrot lady" (more on that later). She rounded out the show with a selection of Apalachian folk songs including one of my personal childhood favorite, "poor, wayfaring stranger". As my intrepid companion put it, "well that explains a lot"...quick visit post-show and another great story about a shattered tour bus window - apparently an owl flew directly into the window & made "beak sparks" (!)...of course, my first question wasn't "was everyone okay" but "did the owl live"? I know...priorities...ran into an old partner in crime & briefly shared stories of one long lost week in New Orleans spent mostly at Coops listening to the cure's "disintegration" (his choice but he sucked me back into that particular addiction)...and then it was time to trek back across town & get some much needed rest. More rock shows should be this good and maybe I'd start going to see live music on a regular basis again.