You People Look Quite Vulgar

Amy Rigby and Wreckless Eric in Rochester New York
Amy Rigby and Wreckless Eric in Rochester New York

Wreckless Eric and Amy Rigby were about a half hour late showing up for their gig at the atrium in Village Gate. It seems the shows usually start mercilessly on time at this venue so we were happy to be the same schedule as Eric. And it was Eric were here to see. Our friends and neighbors, Rick and Monica, were here too but it was Amy Rigby who got them out of the house. It was funny to see the folky/singer/songwriter crowd mixing with the punky/oddball crowd. And these guys pulled it off.

Eric wanted to be home and who can blame him. They live in the south of France. They started with an anthemic call to “Keep driving until the wheels fall off”. These two are clearly in love so one of the lines was, “When we’re driving together, at least we’re a little closer to home”.

But Eric was most entertaining between songs when he just ran away at the mouth. They had played in Canada the night before and he told the crowd, “Canadians are the most unvulgar people I have met in my life. You people, on the other hand, look quite vulgar to me”. Matt, who records most shows for the Bob Shop, had his black mannequin head with binaural mics set up down front and Eric said he like to thank the head for showing up tonight. They had been in San Francisco and Chris Wilson from the Flaming Groovies came out to see them and told Eric that Cyril Jordan was a fan of Eric’s. He was quite blown away by this.

Amy is Eric’s biggest fan and she laughed heartily at all his nonsense. She sang some great songs as well like the one with the refrain, “Last night I was dancing with Joey Ramone”. I played drums for a while with another couple, Mary and Jon (Gary), and Amy reminded Peggi and me of Mary.

Eric and Amy rocked fine without drums and certainly didn’t need the cheesy little drum machine they used on a couple songs. They tore it up on “Kilbourn Road”, “Take The Cash K.A.S.H.” and “Whole Wide World”. They played for over two hours and seemed to be having a ball. Amy said this had been the best crowd of their tour and I was there when Tom Kohn paid them their measly 400 bucks. Not that Tom made and money. All is not right with this world.

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