It was everything I thought that it would be, and more. Here’s the setlist for Hem and Over the Rhine at the Wonder Ballroom in Portland on Monday, May 8th, 2006:

Hem: Sally, Daniel, Gary, and Steve were out for this show and, presumably, the whole tour.

1. The Golden Day Is Dying
2. Rainy Night in Georgia
3. The Fire Thief
4. Reservoir [a new song for the upcoming album, Funnel Cloud]
5. Lazy Eye
6. Betting on Trains
7. Strays [Daniel: "I wrote this song, about marriage, long before I was ever even married and knew what I was talking about."]
8. Jackson
9. When I Was Drinking
10. Hollow
11. We’ll Meet Along the Way [another new one from Funnel Cloud]
12. Sailor
13. Carry Me Home
14. Half Acre

Encore

1. Pacific Street
2. Stupid Mouth Shut [by audience request, over All That I'm Good For]
3. My Father’s Waltz

Funnel Cloud is due out in September. I cannot wait!

Over the Rhine: Karin and Linford with Rick Plant and Devon Ashley. I saw Rick and Devon with them in Nashville just before Christmas, and it was just as wonderful then as it was tonight.

1. Latter Days
2. I Want You to Be My Love
3. Born
4. Looking Forward
5. What I’ll Remember Most About Dying
6. The next song was one of Linford’s solo piano numbers; I thought when I heard it that it was “Weak in the Knees Across the Sky”, but back in my hotel room, listening to my iPod, I can’t place it. Blast!
7. Little Did I Know
8. Hush Now (Stella’s Tarantella) [just K&L]
9. The Seahorse [just K&L]
10. Some cover I didn’t recognize
11. Firefly
12. Trouble [new ... although they've played it for months now]
13. Drunkard’s Prayer

Encore #1

1. I’m on a Roll [new]
2. Cruel and Pretty

Encore #2

1. When I Go

I did not tape this show; I wanted to soak it all in. I’ve seen OtR before, but I’d never seen Hem, and they were everything I’d hoped they’d be. I’ve heard some bootlegs of theirs before, and they’ve been hit or miss—sometimes because Sally’s voice has been shot, and sometimes because the sound behind them has sucked [especially the monitors ... when Steve is trying to pull BGVs out of his ass, that's a bad thing]. This was totally worth flying out to see, even if this very tour will be in my neck of the woods in a month.