WHAT??

Ogden Theatre - Denver, Colorado - 24 November 1997.

I was supposed to meet Mike for the show (Ben Folds Five), but unbeknownst to me at the time, he'd gotten the flu (go figure) and was home sleeping whilst the entiere time I wondered where in the hell he was. I was bummed for a great deal of the beginning of the show, when some act named Old Pike came out and played either 1 continuous song or a bunch that sounded the same - I am still trying to figure it out. Thankfully, they played for less than half an hour, and Travis came on a short time later. I'd picked up a copy of Spin the week before and it had a blurb and some photos of Travis in there, so I at least knew who they were. In short, they were completely, utterly, blow-your-socks-off amazing. Though I can't remember it completely, their set list went something like this:

Midsummer Nights Dreamin'. (I remember this was indeed the first cos of the "Do it to me"s at the beginning. This song made a rather good first impression on the crowd, especially after Old Pike.)
U16 Girls.
All I Wanna Do Is Rock. (A dedication by Fran to all of "who came oot to the show insead'a stayin' at 'ome an surfin' the Net.")
Good Feeling. (A truly brilliant song live. If you've heard it in 3-D, you know what I am talking about.)
Tied to the 90s. (This song was stuck in my brain the entire night, cos of all the "Hey!"s in it, which Fran was able to entice the crowd to shout in unison.)
Happy.
Funny Thing. (I do believe this was their last song, cos the entire time my back was about to break from standing so long and I wished they would hurry up and finish. I would never wish that upon Travis in my right mind!)
I don't think they played any more than that, but the show was over half a year ago, and I didn't know any of the songs at the time, so there might have been a couple more....

Anyway, to save my back so of the lack of seats, I was hanging out on the drinking rails by of the little steps used to get up to the bar, when Fran almost walked past me!! I couldn't recall his name at the moment, so I just sort of reached over and got a deathgrip on his blue jean jacket, making him turn around. Our dialogue started out something like this:
Me: Would you sign my ticket for me?
Fran (grinning in his disarmingly cute way): Sure. Go' a pen? Wha's yer name?
Me: Lindsay.
Fran: Spell et.
Me: L-i-n-d-s-a-y.
Fran: Wi' an "a"?
Me: Yeah. Hey, you're an artist, right? [at least I remembered that about him.]
Fran: Yeh. 'Ere ye go.
Me: Thanks. That's great. I've been drawing for a really long time.
Fran: Are ye goin' tae osco?
Me: What?
Fran: Are ye goin' tae osscool?
Me: What?? [by this time my ear was practically in his mouth.]
Fran: Are ye goin' tae art school?!

Ah. This is the only thing I truly despise about Scottish accents. I am not even going to try transcripting the rest of our 10-minute conversation, cos half the time I could only partially decipher what he was saying. I spent a majority of the time engrossed in his lips in a feeble attempt to read them... trying to understand someone speaking thick Glaswegian with lots of background noise and your ears already ringing is extremely difficult! Fran fact: The man never shuts up! I got about 20 words in edgewise as he went off on a huge tirade about (to the best of my comprehension) art, British music, and lots of practice. Our conversation (well, his talking and my listening) might have dragged on for quite awhile if Ben Folds Five didn't suddenly walked out. Bloody typical. The things I most distinctly remember are the sound of his voice and the friendly pat on the arm he gave me as he went up to the bar. I spent the rest of the night with an extra buzz and a smile constantly tugging at my face.