Minneapolis

It was an honor to be both soft rocked and rickrolled by you.

JoCo,

Thank you for an awesome show last night...come back soon!

Come to Dallas again. I wasn't a fan of yours yet when you came last september. :(

It was a fantastic show. Thanks again for gracing us with the honor of being your First of May crowd. We loved every standing minute of it.

Sitting just would have seemed inappropriate for such a soft rockin' extravaganze. We hope you'll come back in the future soon. We'll welcome you with Open Arms.

You definitely did your best!

As others have said -- fantastic show. You really did your best, and it was more than good enough!

Best rickroll ever!

You got rickrolled? I wish I was there... You should do your next show somewhere that isn't 18+

You got rickrolled? I wish I was there... You should do your next MN show somewhere that isn't 18+

See above :)

The show was absolutely fantastic, I'm so glad I didn't miss you this time around!

Great show, JoCo! I was grinning like an idiot the entire time. If anyone wants to be jealous, I got the guitar pick!

Never gonna let you down, never gonna break your heart.

By the time my wife and I got home, it was the 2nd of May. That's OK, the thunderstorm didn't stop us, either.

Jonathan... I thought nothing could compare to doing robot voice on Chiron Beta Prime at your first Mpls show, but the incredible crowd last night helped make it even more awesome of an experience than the first time I saw you. I think that's the only time in my 33 years that a musical act has managed to do that. :)

youtube video of rickroll/1st of May is up! :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwqNpa-O63w
Thanks Jonathan! Great show. Even though my feet are still killing me for standing for 5 hours. Worth it.

JoCo + Paul & Storm is the best night of musical awesomeness that a city could ask for. Loved every minute of it and can't wait until you guys come back again.

We lei'd JoCo durring First of May on the First of May. And it was awesome.

Great show last night performance wise.

I was extremely disappointed with the change to no seating though. There was a significant number of people in the audience for whom standing for hours and hours on end was not an option because of disabilities or other physical limitations. While some were lucky enough to find an open seat here and there, it sure wasn't a comfortable or enjoyable experience for them. I don't think that the open floor/no seats really adds anything to this kind of show.

It was not supposed to be this way, and will be looked in to. Tonight in Madison, for example, we specifically declined to remove chairs to sell more tickets. Sorry.

Oh man, I'm still sore from yelling and standing, but it was so worth it! :) Thank you so much for coming back to Minneapolis, and we're eagerly awaiting your next return.
I'm also pleased that my "cunning plan" of having leis worked.

I was one of the folks with a disability there last night. Frankly I won't/can't go to shows where I'm expected to stand for an hour just to get in the door and then stand for another five. So I've missed many favorite performers over the years because my body just can't do SRO club shows. I was so happy last Dec. when I learned your show would have seats. It never occured to me that the set up would change - same venue, same artist, and all. Great show, but likely to be my last as long as the set up is standing. Not all your fans are able bodied 20 year olds.

As they said above, they weren't expecting it to be changed to SRO, and they're going to be looking into it. Let's try to remember that the artists don't always get to dictate what happens with the physical layout of the venue, please :)

I hope you enjoy Giancarlo Squid, and thank you, thank you, thank you for playing 'I Crush Everything'. Thank you for a great anniversary date nite. When we saw youin December, we called ahead to make sure there was seating for my disabled Mother in law- they will make accomodations for folks who absolutely need seating- just let them know. This goes for all venues. :)

Hey, everyone. I'm glad to hear you all discuss the SRO issue. The LA show is also SRO, and now I've made arrangements with the venue for my disabled sister. :-)

Fantastic show - you did a great job exceeding the already high expectations set at the previous show!

But still, a burning question - what the hell is the 8-bit Scottish thing you used to play "My Monkey".

Remember - just do your best!

I too must know what this year's gizmo was. I am also afraid to go to the next show, as my musical instrument budget just can't keep up with all the toys JoCo's adding to my list.

Another great show! Can't wait until you're back in town. You did your best and it was awesome.

Thank you!

My husband was the one who yelled the encouraging words "Do your best!" and at the time I was fairly embarrassed, but it caught on and made me smile every time I heard it mentioned or someone else yell it. I'd buy the shirt! The only thing my husband said is that he wished he got a moon pie out of it. :)
What an incredible show! You really did your best and it was f*#@ing awesome!

Thanks for another fantastic show! From Paul & Storm through to your encore, it was an amazing night. Saving First of May until the end with was perfect. The only twinge of disappointment I felt was when there wasn't another encore.

Regarding SRO, I was a little surprised at the change from the last show, but that's rock 'n' roll, and I think it lent a little more energy to the larger, more closely packed crowd (hands, touching hands, reaching out, touching me, touching you). Sorry if anyone was uncomfortable; remember to call ahead if you need accommodation for someone with a disability - I'm sure they would oblige.

JoCo:
Your site is running AN OLD VERSION OF WORDPRESS. It should get updated TO VERSION 2.5 for security.

BTW: I TEAR UP `STILL ALIVE` ON ROCK BAND. HUGE SUCCESS.

We called before the Dec show to ask about seats and were told that it was a venue with GA seating, so the change to SRO last night caught us by completely by surprise.

The venue did what they could, but there's only so much you can do to find spaces for people at the last minute when you've got a full house already.

Artists can dictate the venue setup. Its part of the contract/agreement with the venue. Obviously the setup in Minneapolis went against the understanding of JoCo & Friends and was something that the venue decided. I brought it up so that in future shows this won't be an issue. It wasn't a knock on the performers at all. In fact based on AJS's response the artist and their people are looking into to make sure it won't be an issue next time. That's good enough for me.

It's true, my feet still ache two days later, but I don't care -- it was a FANTASTIC show! I was a casual fan before, but had never caught a concert. I will never miss another one if I have any power over it! In terms of sheer enjoyability of the music from beginning to end, you are tied with Dar Williams for best show I've ever been to, and that is high praise, indeed. Your best was more than good enough, it was spectacular. I'm off to buy MP3s! :-)

Couple more notes on the subject of standing and sitting (most of these already addressed above). There are a few conflicting goals: I want there to be enough tickets for everyone, I want everyone to be able to sit down, and I want to do a nice long show. It's not always possible to get all three of those. We didn't expect that the Minneapolis show was going to be mostly standing - though if it had been seated, there would have been fewer tickets and some people would have been turned away. In fact, last night in Madison we had the opportunity to take away some chairs and sell some more tickets, but we decided not to do it. The same thing happened in London. In retrospect, I maybe should have shortened the Minneapolis show a little, but that's a hard call to make when I have a full room of paying customers.

Here's the current plan at team JoCo: while we won't be able to do all seated shows all the time, we'll do our best not to surprise you. If it's an all seated show it will be advertised that way and it won't change, even if it sells out. If there is limited seating, we'll ask the venue to make this clear when they sell tickets. And of course if you need special seating accommodations, please contact the venue ahead of time and I bet they can hook you up.

Thanks for the feedback everyone, you've helped clarify mission JoCo - it's good to be reminded that it kind of sucks to have to stand up all night.

Not to beat a dead pony-monkey, but I'm glad you didn't shorten the show, it was incredible. The crowd was into it, and it's unfortunate that some people are upset about the seating issue, but when it comes down to it... a ton of people got to enjoy a wonderful 3.5+ hrs of music.

@Doc and @Gex: Go to this site and read about the amazing "Tenori-on" gizmo:

http://www.global.yamaha.com/design/tenori-on/

Nicely done, Ian!

If anyone's still checking this thread, the JoCopedia team is looking for setlists for a bunch of shows -- we have Seattle 4/26, but we don't have Seattle 4/27, Minneapolis, or Madison yet (or Chicago, though that'd be too much to expect right now). See the list of shows on the wiki:

http://www.jonathancoulton.com/wiki/index.php/Category:Shows

Thanks again for the awesome show. I looked forward to it for months and it was the highlight of my month.

I fervently hope you come back soon, and fervently hope that you'll consider CONvergence. Would giving you a Godzilla costume and creating a scale-model downtown Tokyo convince you to hang with us peeps?

Meta-Ethel

Wow! Chief Tyrol is an excellent Ukulele player.

Just wanted to say thank you for an excellent show! Both you and Paul & Storm were fantastic. This was the first JoCo concert for both my wife and I and we will definitely be attending more. (I was the one who pointed out your Moon Pie's resemblance to a space station.)

We didn't think the concert was long at all, I'm glad you went as long as you did. Of course, time flies when someone is doing their best.

Glad I got there early, I checked myself out of the hospital early for that show, and I NEEDED a seat.

Roomie was disabled she needed one too. I know now that the old, disabled or otherwise infirm need to get there EARLY. I didn't even get any youtube fodder this time, was too sick to hold the camera.

Was glad to be there and SEATED! :)

And thanks for the straight Journey cover.

That was such a fun night. It's been several days and all I do is sing random verses of "Code Monkey" and "I Feel Fantastic" and "Skullcrusher Mountain" out loud at random (and occassionally awkward) moments because they are in my head and I can't help it. As an added concern, this has caused my daughter to ask for a monkey-pony for her next birthday.

Thanks also for giving props to Erik in the sound booth all night. He's a hard-working man, also trying to "do his best." BTW -- I just figured the "do your best" line was referring to "Podsafe Christmas." Regardless, please make that a shirt, even though you were just joking about it. I would buy ten.

Figured now that most of the comments were already made might be a good time to say I hate you, JoCo... I was reasonably sure you wouldn't play "When You Go" in concert, so I hadn't really prepared myself. I cried like a little baby and my friends touched on me. So angry!!

...Well, anyway... I had kind of wanted to request it. But at least then I would have known you were going to play it. Yeah.

I'm still waiting for the "Jonathan Coulton: He does his best" t-shirt. I'm not alone in this. Pretty please with sugar on?