Although it makes me feel older and older every year, I always enjoy hearing what the mindset is of the current year's college freshman: this year's list from Beloit College is pretty extensive. Truth be told, #60 got to me, thinking back to the first Gulf War and Berny broadcasting from under the hotel room table as the bombs started to fall.

The intro to the list:

Members of the class of 2010, entering college this fall, were mostly born in 1988. For them: Billy Carter, Lucille Ball, Gilda Radner, Billy Martin, Andy Gibb, and Secretariat have always been dead.

Wow, holy smokes, Seattle loves Toad the Wet Sprocket.

And Seattle loves Toad's opening act, Matt Nathanson (matt nathanson at the point ..www.mattnathanson.com). Matt got on stage with his guitar in one hand and soon had the crowd in the other hand. Through a little bit of dialog, Matt managed to set up each song with a bit of an erotic state of mind ("slappy, tickly love makin'!" and "imagine you're soaping up in the shower and, mmm, you spend a little bit of extra time down there...") and he really had the audience when he did a cover of Journey, getting the crowd to sing along. Who the hell knew that so many people in Seattle would know the lyrics to an old Journey song...

Then Toad came out and started playing and it was all over. Happy, happy people. They said it's been twelve years since they played in Seattle. I have never been to a concert in an auditorium the size of The Moore when the crowd put out so much loud, raucous love for a band. And Toad did two encores. They always save "Walk on the Ocean" for the encore.

Glen Phillips shared a simple perspective on his life that explains some of the lyrics, "When something good happens to me, I keep expecting it to end at any moment." The song "Something's always wrong" is an especially good example... and something that resonates with me a lot.

Looking over the band's website, I realize they have one live CD I don't have... hello Amazon wishlist.

Anyway, there are few bands I would go see anymore and I'm still all a-buzz and happy for seeing Toad. Life is good.

I'm off to Seattle tonight to see Toad the Wet Sprocket.

I've listened to them since my Auburn days... I caught the video "One Little Girl" on 120 Minutes one night and got hooked. Though I couldn't afford to buy the CD at the time I at least had WEGL to play the occassional Toad and looked forward to their various CDs as they came out. And then one day, I actually was able to buy them.

I've seen them... let's see... I guess only once before. In Portland. At the dark hole that is the Roseland Theater.

Susan and I had written some of the words to "Walk on the Ocean" to start "We spotted the Boo-Bear" in reference to travelling to Olympia, when we lived near Portland, to pick up Beauregard from the Pyrenees breeder there.

Then Toad broke up.

When Elisa and I travelled to Las Vegas to meet my folks, Toad was playing a reunion concert there. But it was too much to try to consider fitting that in.

Now tonight! Unfortunately, Elisa's travelling so I'm going to be the lonely guy with an empty seat next to me.

(written using the new Windows Live Writer... it's posted to my other two blogs just swell, though this blog has a stylesheet that has confused it so I'm just typing in their plain mode. Windows Live Writer is great!)