Infinity Hall Revisited: Graham Parker & the Figgs

I've mentioned before what a lovely venue Infinity Hall is. Unfortunately, it's a bit pricey and out of the way, so I only get to go when peeps take me out on fancy dates or when we're totally friends with Living Colour. Hopefully this "blog" thing will catch on the perks will start rolling in.

Anyhoo, we got to Norfolk around 7:30 for the 8 o'clock show. When Infinity says 8, they mean 8, which is pretty great, and the action doesn't go past 11 p.m. This is because the venue is geared toward old people with money, unlike more traditional rock clubs which swindle the young folks into standing around for like fifty gillion crappy local openers they probably swindled into paying to play. Ugh. Such a nice civilized contrast.

This is scenic Infinity Hall:


I liked the contrast of "Figgs" and "Bacon" on the sign; it made me think of a fancy salad or something.

Who knew the Average White Band was half black? Probably Average White Band fans, whoever they are...

Inside we hit up the spacious, well-stocked bathrooms first thing, where I was charmed by the pseudo-environmentalist toilets and their complicated flush instructions. LOL @ #1 and #2 descriptions - thanks for the clarification!

The Figgs, who are probably best known for the backing band services with Tommy Stinson and Graham Parker opened the show with a set of their original music, which was nice, agreeable rock. They were very gracious and enamored with the venue too. Here's a video of them performing from just a few days prior:

One of my friends was saying how Graham Parker doesn't have very good audience interaction, but I don't really know where the hell he got his information, because hewas really chatty and self-deprecatingly witty (and available to meet and greet and personally sell his books and music) when we saw him a few years ago at a solo gig, and this time he was really energetic and sharper and more hilarious than ever in his onstage banter with those nice Figgs. Honestly, I would probably go see a show of just the onstage banter. The songs are fine and all, but I can listen to CDs in my car, you know? But witty banter is priceless entertainment. Here, check him out being weird and funny and debuting new music on Youtube again (if you didn't the last time I linked it, like 2 posts ago). We picked up his new CD, Imaginary Television, which has a complicated back story - READ IT, it's great - and the extensive liner notes about imaginary television show treatments and imaginary reviewer pull quotes in place of lyrics are fully worth the price of the record itself. Here is Graham tuning his kazoo: