Episode 188: Fargo, ND – 6/15/2003

Is this gonna be a good episode? You’re darned tootin! With many Cohn Brothers movie quotes aside, this is our final episode of our OTOTO states month emanating from Fargo, North Dakota in 2003. This is the first instance in 188 official episodes and 224 shows in total that we’ve covered that we get to talk about Arc. Arc is one of their more fascinating songs due to the weight that it holds being the tribute written for the Roskilde victims. The band would go on to play this nine times, the same number of victims from the tragedy, and none of the official bootlegs include any performance of this. We’ll get into the unique presentation that it had live and how impactful it was, even as a show opener, in it’s short stay that year.

Another big point of conversation from this one is a version of In My Tree being played for the first time in 69 shows. This song having not been played for that long mixed in with an illness from Ed meant it was never going to be as crisp of a version that we would’ve heard in 1996. This became a little bit of an improv where the lyrics and music weren’t exactly linear. Ed has some things on his mind and comes up with some beautiful improved lyrics for the end. We’ll talk about how this set the tone for other versions of In My Tree that year, especially the version that everyone remembers from Madison Square Garden.

All this and good discussion on 1/2 Full, I Am Mine, Better Man, Thumbing My Way, Rearviewmirror, I Am A Patriot and Crazy Mary.