Last night we saw Robyn Hitchcock, yet again, at the Cat's Cradle. They built a new smaller space next to the main club, and Robyn is doing two nights there. It's a nice little room, with a small balcony and a few seats along the walls. They also have a full bar, so they fall into NC's ridiculous "private club" category which says that if if a place doesn't serve food but does serve mixed drinks it has to be a member's-only club. What this means in practice is that you pay a fee (in this case, the ticket price) to become a member, and then you get a card and you just flash your card when you come back. So dumb.

He did a shortish set, starting with a bunch of his newer tunes - from Tromsø, Kaptein and the Venus Three records - and then going back through earlier solo stuff (ex. "Sometimes a Blonde"), some Egyptians stuff ("My Wife & My Dead Wife", "I'm Only You", "One Long Pair Of Eyes", etc.) and all the way back to the Soft Boys' "Queen Of Eyes". Lots of 'banter'.

iPhone

It was just him, no band or accompaniment. And, it's been a while since I've seen him like that. So that was cool. I could've stood to hear a few more songs, though.

At the end of his set, he walked out into the audience and found a guy who had been standing next to us on the balcony earlier, brought that guy on stage and asked for a second microphone. The sound guy wasn't expecting this, so there was a frantic scramble to make it happen. After that was sorted, Robyn and this guy did a ten or fifteen minute set of ... banter? stand-up? riffing? They just talked. And this guy, who's name I didn't catch was amazingly able to keep up with Robyn's stream-of-consciousness riffing. Obviously someone who was comfortable on stage. They talked about Florida, and how Robyn won't go to Colorado because CO was the first state to ban public smoking, and the police, etc.. It was unexpected, and a bit puzzling - we kept thinking they might do a song? - but they were funny. At the end, Robyn said he'd be joining that guy at the end of that guy's show in the main room of the Cat's Cradle the following night (tonight).

iPhone

We were puzzled.

So, today, I looked it up. "That guy" is comic Eugene Mirman. You might know him as the voice of Gene on "Bob's Burgers". And he was standing next to us and we didn't know who he was. Missed opportunity!