Hobart, IN - 1st July 2000

This was just amazing as I've seen Kasim play at the sold out 20,000 seater Wembley Arena and here he was playing the Strack Mill and Til car park (or officially the North Ridge Center car park)!! It was no wonder that I drove past it twice before I found it! I'd never heard of the Jaycees organisation before but a friend told me that apparently they do good things like cleaning locals ponds and things and this was their method of fund-raising in Hobart, IN.

As I didn't know the setup, I got there early at 6.15 and was one of the first! It was great as, although plastic chairs were neatly laid out in rows, people just grabbed a seat and sat where they liked so I moved mine up close to the stage!

The support act, Taxi, were on from 7.00 until 8.15 (it seemed longer somehow!) and the high-spot was the guitarist's two year old son miming to a Kiss track.

Kasim, Todd and Trey came on promptly at 9.00 and played until 10.50. They may have only been playing in a car park but you would never have guessed it from their enthusiasm and professional manner! There were lots of out of state Todd fans in the crowd too!

As I've received several e-mails from people asking about him, Kasim was again using his wooden walking cane to get on and off stage (there were steps up to the stage) but actually on stage he moved around fine without it. He kept time predominately with his broken foot and uses that one to change his foot pedal (possibly to keep most of his weight on his stronger right leg?). Kasim now appears to have three or four buttons on his foot pedal, whereas at the beginning of the tour he only had the two but he still is a long way behind Todd's amazing display of pedals and buttons! Kasim also appeared to be wearing a different type of footwear on his broken foot tonight - it was more a boot than a sandal but it may have been the angle I was sitting at.

We had the usual opening three songs before Todd explained that he was gauging the feel of this Hobart / Merriville audience as he launched into Love in Action. Tonight he spoke (during the break in the song) about the unfortunate incidents when love in action does just stop and there's nothing you can do about it! Fortunately it was an over 21 show!

Love In Action was then followed by another SIX Utopia tracks which were only interrupted by # One Lowest Common Denominator (Kasim even stood for all of this one tonight). The crowd really appreciated the Utopia tracks and some got quite carried away during it which was great to watch!

The Ikon was just brilliant tonight! I think that is the one track that has improved so much since the first Santa Cruz concert! After Todd's double-length spotlight part, Kasim played the longest he has all tour which was wonderful! Just as I thought he was going to finish, he then got a guitar pic and played some more with that too! Trey does a great slow drumbeat at one part in his spotlight time and went so slow tonight that some of the audience thought they'd finished the song!

Before they sang Yer Fast (And I Like It) tonight Todd said that his CD would be out "Any year now" - I'm always amazed that they don't sell it at the venues.

After Open My Eyes, they sang Buffalo Grass which has to be one of my favourites of the concert as Todd wanders off to do his guitar playing at the front of the stage leaving Kasim and Trey (who can hardly be heard!) singing the chorus over and over! At the beginning of the tour they played it more like on the CD with Todd singing the line "I was already gone" followed by Kasim and Trey repeating it together but now Todd sings it, followed by Kasim and then followed by Trey which is very effective.

Unfortunately Buffalo Grass usually spells the beginning of the end of the concert (are there really only four more concerts after this one?!) as it's followed by the great One World (no punch tonight but a "Where the hell are we?"!).

As usually happens they came back on stage for Hammer In My Heart and then Kasim and Trey looked ready to go off stage but Todd decided that they had enough time to play The Surf Talks too (I was really impressed by that considering they were playing in a car park).

After World Wide Epiphany Todd gave his usual quick speech about using designated drivers before he introduced Kasim (who got a massive cheer) and Trey.