Click the video for a slightly higher quality version on YouTube (hit the HQ button).

[video from Free Radio on VH1]

The band started off the set with Love at the End of the World, and never let up until the end of the encore. I wish bands would stop doing automatic encores. Why not just tell the audience they’re going offstage for a tiny break, but they’ll be back in a minute to play one or two more? Let’s drop the charade. Or, as Bad Religion does, say good night and have the roadies run out and immediately break down the setup, letting everyone know it’s over.

Sam doffed his denim jacket after a few songs and played the rest of the night in a white t-shirt (Springsteen parallel again). How does a Canadian musician stay so tan?

And then Matt Mays came out to sit in on one song.

If these guys are playing anywhere near you, go see them. The music is fun, heartfelt, and just a general good time.

But Steve Vai has done this a lot, notably in Ya-Yo Gakk, a 1995 track using his son Julian’s nonsense babble.

But I first heard him doing it a decade earlier, on So Happy, from 1984′s Flex-Able. It doesn’t hold up so well, but it’s really an experiment, and not meant to be a pop single.

I’m losing my patience, I just came here to bounce!

Much higher quality video here.
UPDATE: Link to the HQ video’s originating page here (click the high res link underneath), rather than just hotlinking the video. Duh.

UPDATE, Feb. 5:
The fire had died to embers and was cool enough for Ronidez and his guest to sit close together on either side of it. Ronidez had seen much in his many years on this little world, but he preferred to be the observer. He was aloof, uninvolved in the lives of others. That would soon change.

“So, you have foreseen it as clearly as I, Mefota,” he said. The young Fulhufan before him waited some time before answering.

“Yes, I have. Change is upon us like a wind. Stronger than hate, stronger than war. As strong as death.”

Ronidez smiled.

“Change is not our enemy, Mefota, change just is. Más cosas cambian, más se quedan mismo.”

Mefota furrowed his brow and cocked his head a bit to the side.

“I don’t understand.”

“Is okay. I just mean that even though things look permanent, like they don’t change, that is an illusion. Time speeds on, we are just along for the ride. Entiende?”

“That one I know. Ah, si. Entien . . . do.”

“Bueno! Más mejor. One day we will be able to speak as brothers.” Ronidez caught himself just as he said this and smiled. “As if we were born brothers, I mean.”

“Perhaps,” said Mefota. “As soon as you learn the language of my people.”

“No. I am still the master, and you the estudent.”

Mefota spread his hands before him and mimed bowing in obeisance to Ronidez.

“So sorry, my master, forgive an ungrateful pupil. Please punish me to correct my rebellious tongue.”

Ronidez drew back his hand as if to strike his companion, but he was unable to contain a smirk as he did so. He reached over the dying fire and ruffled Mefota’s hair. His smile faded a bit as he studied his companion, then broadened into a grin.

“You may think it is a punishment before long. I am sending you on a journey. You will be a long time with this.”

“A quest?”

“No,” said Ronidez. He slapped both hands on his knees and got up. “A road trip.”

With that, he extended his hand through the thin trail of smoke and pulled Mefota to his feet.

Unrevolution 12 – In which some things are explained, some questions are answered, and more questions arise, erm, therefrom.

Cassaria hadn’t written anything in months. Ever since she left the castle, in fact, she’d been unable to put any thought down on paper. She’d been writing daily for as long as she could remember, and now she had stopped cold. It was as if her creativity had remained behind, along with her furniture, sculptures, and most of her clothes. The purge had seemed necessary at the time. She had found it freeing. But now, as she stared at the row of cottages and shops at the edge of her adopted city, she wondered if it had been a mistake to leave so abruptly.

The regret was not enough to make the idea of going back palatable, though. She knew her role as administrator would allow her great power in this time of uncertainty. The king was gone, perhaps never to return, and in his absence, things had begun to fall apart. Most of the army was disbanded, their disillusionment in the wake of crushing defeat causing many soldiers to simply abandon their units and return home. Most of the officers went with them. Crime had been a minor problem in the memory of most citizens, but it was on the rise, as the lack of authority tempted minor thieves and robbers to greater crimes.

Cassaria’s immediate problem was not as dramatic, but no less intractable. Her time at the Edge Inn had been enjoyable, even stimulating, since a steady stream of people made their way through the front door, to the bar, and out again. She hadn’t encountered such variety in people in decades, if ever. She wanted a place of her own, though, after long years under someone else’s roof. She had a little money with her, and finding work would prove easy, no doubt, but the tiny room upstairs would always feel temporary.

She heard Barlow come out the door and stand behind her. He said nothing, and she smiled at his hesitation. Barlow had treated her with deference of the highest order since her arrival, despite her attempts to be just another guest. She let him stand for a time. He cleared his throat, but said nothing. She considered speaking to him, but was overwhelmed at that moment with a sense of calm, and couldn’t summon the words. The wind rustled the grass across the road and stirred up a tiny cloud of dust. In the distance, the shadows of low clouds wrapped the hills. She was unable to break her silence.

The point where the sun’s light had faded and the stars were just shining through had long been a favorite spot of Kyden’s. He still enjoyed coming to the clearing he’d found years before, even after he’d come to loathe nearly everything else on the wretched little world he was stuck on.

The war was over, which was a good thing, he supposed. He had managed to stay out of this one, like most of the simple politics of the place. He had never cared enough to choose sides on this planet. Still, there had been quite a lot of needless death. Had he possessed his old weapons, or even the ship that had brought him, he might have been able to do more. But he had grown tired of wasting energy on wishes and the “if only” game. Now he just felt sick.

He thought it was odd, still feeling like an outsider after eight years. It wasn’t the strangest world Kyden had experienced, but it had its moments. Every so often, an event would fall into place with such perfection it seemed almost to have been orchestrated. He had met so many offworlders the place had seemed full of them, but it was just the juxtaposition of the familiar mix of species with the native residents, especially on the day side.

Then he had met Cassaria. She was beautiful, smart, and a poet. She had a gift for languages, and that made her useful in her position as the king’s assistant. He had been amazed at the breadth of her knowledge, and she seemed to him to be much older than she looked. Even as they had begun their romance, however, she brushed aside all questions of her deeper past, insisting that it didn’t matter what she had once been, only what she was now. The circumstances of her arrival on the planet did not involve a crash, as did the vast majority of offworld arrivals. Her story was one of abandonment, but the details of who had done the abandoning were vague. She seemed to have taken it in stride, as she did most other things in her life, and he found her indifference her most maddening trait. They fell in love, they took a house together in Jonter-Wo, and a year later it was over.

He felt lost. Not because of Cassaria, not because of the war, but because he had no idea what he was going to do next. His old pattern of trading in information was unsatisfying, and most of the prospects had vanished with the onset of the war. Now the Fulufans were in serious talks to unify. He had no idea what would happen if that came to pass. Invasion or even conquest might be possible. He decided he would make a choice over where his loyalties rested before it happened. Part of feeling lost was borne of long years spent playing two or more sides against each other and keeping to himself. He wanted to belong somewhere again.

And, as he stared up at the bejewelled darkness, he sat down for the first time since he found the clearing.

Ana found Makele sitting beside the stream with his back to a tree. She opened her mouth to ask him what in the world he was doing here, worrying her with his absence, and saw the note. He had clenched his hand around it, crumpling it so as to be unreadable, but she knew it at once. Makele had hardly let go of it since Jan had left. She closed her mouth and knelt beside him and put her arm through his.

He didn’t say anything for such a long time, she was about to speak again, but Makele’s soft baritone stopped her.

“I didn’t want a replacement,” he said.

“I know,” said Ana.

Another long pause made her ache to comfort him, to hold him and tell him it would all be fine, everything would be fine. She knew these were mere words, though, and that the emptiness they felt, both of them, for their lost son would always remain, in some sense. She wanted to laugh. It was an insane impulse, but the empathy she felt for her husband overwhelmed her, and she gripped his arm tighter and lay her head on his shoulder.

“Maybe it was just that the house was full, again,” said Makele. “Maybe I thought that would make it better. Now all we have is time.”

“We have another son,” Ana said. She patted his arm in a slow rhythm.

“I didn’t mean it that way, love. I’m thankful for what we have. I never got a chance to help Kinve find his way in the world.”

Ana pressed her lips between her teeth at the mention of Kinve’s name. She could count on one hand the number of times Makele had spoken it since his death.

“He was as lost as that boy we took in,” Makele continued. Maybe that’s what I was hoping for. Just one more chance.”

“Life only gives us one chance,” said Ana. “But we’re still here. I still love you. I’ll keep loving you all the rest of my life. If it’s one day or a thousand, that will never change.” She looked up at him, and he turned to meet her eyes. “Be here with me,” she said. “Love me completely and I promise you we will get through this.”

Makele let the note Jan had written to him slip from his fingers as he raised his hand to his wife’s cheek. The note slipped down the bank and into the stream, where the slow current took it away. The paper uncurled as it soaked up water, bumped into stones and against the bank on either side of the water, and the ink spread and melted into blurry smears until it was a ghost on a translucent surface.