For the second year in a row, Queen City prog-rockers Aqueous performed at The Town Ballroom for the final two nights of the year, selling out both December 30 and 31 with musical themes for each night. The 30th had an “Almost Dazed and Confused” theme, while New Year’s Eve was “Fast Times at The BreAQfast Club.” Fans dressed with the themes for the nights, adding to the festive feel of the end of the year run that celebrated the music of the ’70s and ’80s.
The first night featured covers from 1970’s bands Led Zeppelin, Stillwater (from Almost Famous) Black Sabbath and the Bee Gees and a first set closing “Random Company.” An encore of “Eon Don” > “Tiny Gantzer” brought the house down, with David Loss singing Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer” as “Tiny Gantzer.” Earlier in the night, a VIP set found Aqueous performing five songs acoustically that had previously never been performed in that style. The overall debut of “Spirit and Soul” was found among new arrangments for “Say it Again,” “They’re Calling For Ya” and “On the Edge.”
For New Year’s Eve, a theme of “Fast Times at The BreAQfast Club” combined the music of two great 80s films, Fast Times at Ridgemont High and The Breakfast Club with some Aqueous thrown in for good measure. Songs by The Cars, Prince, Duran Duran, Simple Minds and Flock of Seagulls were performed near-flawlessly by the band, who wore outfits from their recent music video “Come and Go.” An up-tempo/ska version of “Marty” stood out among the mang covers in the first set, which ended with “Strange Times.”
Appropriately, Aqueous performed “20/20” to ring in 2020, following the traditional “Auld Lang Syne,” and closed the set with fan favorite “Origami.” The encore held one last surprise for the night though as drummer Rob Houk took a wireless microphone and sang the closing song from The Breakfast Club, “Don’t You Forget About Me.” During the song, the lights were kept low and before the fans could realize it, Houk was on the bar behind the crowd and walked up to the rail through the crowd singing. If this is how the ’20s begin for Aqueous, this might be their best year yet.
Setlists via Aquaintances
12/30/19 Setlist
Set 1 (VIP): Say It Again (1,2) > They’re Calling For Ya (1,2), America (1,4), Spirit and Soul (1,3), On the Edge (1,2)
Set 2: Fever Dog (3,5) > Paranoid (3,6), Burn It Down, The Median, Gordon’s Mule, Slow Ride (3,7,8) > Misty Mountain Hop (3,8) Random Company
Set 3: Dave’s Song > Sweet Emotion (9,10), Little Something To Me, You Should Be Dancing (3,11) > Don’t Do It, All In > Do You Feel Like We Do (3,12) > All In
Encore: Eon Don (13) > Tiny Gantzer (14)
1- AQoustic Debut
2- New arrangement
3- Debut
4- Simon & Garfunkel
5- Stillwater
6- Black Sabbath
7- Foghat
8- ft. Travis Gray (Wild Adriatic) on vocals
9- ft. Ryan John Nogle (Funktional Flow) on triangle
10- Mega Bustout, LTP: 11/24/10 (870 shows)
11- Bee Gees
12- Peter Frampton
13- Neon Don
14- Mega Bustout, LTP: 9/21/13 (632 shows)
12/31/19 Setlist
Set 1: Come and Go¹, I Ran (So Far Away)² ³ > Warren in the Window, Moving In Stereo⁴ ² > Second Sight > Marty⁵, Hungry Like The Wolf² ⁶ > Strange Times⁷
Set 2: Let’s Go Crazy² ⁸, Skyway, I Melt With You² ⁹, On The Edge, Don’t You Want Me² @@ > Be The Same > Auld Lang Syne, 20/20 > Origami
Encore: Don’t You Forget About Me² @@@
Notes:
¹ Band came out dressed in their outfits from the music video.
² Debut
³ Flock of Seagulls cover
⁴ Cars cover, Included Spicoli pizza delivery skit from Fast Times at Ridgemont High (By The Cars)
⁵ Ska
⁶ Duran Duran cover
⁷ Life in the Fast Lane (Eagles) tease
⁸ Prince cover
⁹ Modern English cover
@@ Human League cover
@@@ Simple Minds cover, Rob on lead vocals, Ryan Nogle on drums, sang end of song in the crowd
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