Sloughing(?) toward Bethlehem

Carla’s anniver­sary present to me was a chance to see Glen Phillips (for­mer lead singer of Toad the Wet Sprocket) in con­cert. The two of us, along with our friends John and Jen­nie, went to the Par­adise Rock Club in Boston this past Mon­day for the con­cert. The ride was a lit­tle hairy, as Mapquest proved inef­fec­tive in get­ting us there, and we ended up stop­ping at three dif­fer­ent gas sta­tions to get directions.

The show was every­thing I hoped it would be. I’d already missed two other chances to see either Glen or Toad live, so this was a fit­ting way to make up for lost time. He played a few newer songs that aren’t on any of his albums, some of the bet­ter tracks from his solo disc Abu­lum, and a bunch of Toad songs. He even played “I Will Not Take These Things For Granted,” a song Carla and I danced to on our wed­ding night. I wasn’t expect­ing much from the open­ing act, Kyle Riabko, but he was a mean gui­tar player for such a pretty-boy. I got kind of a John Mayer/Jason Mraz vibe from him, so I wouldn’t be sur­prised if he starts tak­ing off soon. The last time I had the chance to see Glen he was tour­ing with John Mayer…hmmm…coincidence?

Glen’s between-song ban­ter was funny, even when it had noth­ing to do with the song. At one point, he began quot­ing Yeats’s poem The Sec­ond Com­ing, but putting the word “sloug­ing” into the last line. He asked the crowd, since Boston’s a col­lege town, how that was pro­nounced. I vol­un­teered that it was actu­ally “slouch­ing toward Beth­le­hem” and not “sloughing.”

“But it’s s-l-o-u-g-h, isn’t it? How is that pos­si­ble?’ he asked. And then pro­ceeded to liken the word “sloiugh­ing” to “Snuf­fle­u­pa­gus” and start talk­ing about Sesame Street. I felt about two inches tall through­out the rest of the show and for a day or so after­ward until I looked up the poem on Google to find I had been right. How ya like them apples, Phillips?

Any­way, minor unwar­ranted embar­rass­ments aside, it was an incred­i­ble show. I can’t wait for a record­ing of it to show up on Archive.org…

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