It is plainly obvious that Mr. Lemony Snicket simply does not like children. The proof is not only in the terrible trials he puts the Baudelaire children through in his now-finished, 13-part "A Series of Unfortunate Events" books, but in the fact that he left hundreds of them in the lurch last month at the high school in Natick, Massachusetts. Mr. Snicket was scheduled to appear on-stage alongside Mr. Daniel Handler and Mr. Stephin Merritt (aka The Gothic Archies) to not only read selections from his writings, but to make the musical duo a trio by adding much-needed percussion to songs inspired by those same unfortunate events (which appear on the recently released "Tragic Treasury"). But the scribe never arrived.
Fortunately for the 800 or so in the crowd (which appeared to be comprised almost entirely of kids, their parents, and, uh, me), after phoning Mr. Snicket to discover his whereabouts, misters Handler and Merritt carried on without him, apologetically entertaining us with a few of the afforementioned songs and words. A potential disaster was averted thanks to these two supremely talented gents, with no thanks to the absent author.
Here, then, is the aural evidence of that evening, along with a few photos and some links below. Notice the conspicuously empty chair between our hosts...
I may very well have missed this fine performance were it not for this timely post at the Phoenix's music blog, On The Download. Their books blog, Word Up, wrote up their own review of the evening right here.
Many more performances of songs from "The Tragic Treasury" can be found over on (where else) YouTube.
again with the fine print... If anyone has an issue with this live set being made available, just say the word (contact info in the 'nac faq). Recorded with a Sony ECM-719 mic and a Sony MZ-RH10 minidisc, converted to .wav and then edited to 192kbps mp3s. Mp3s are made available for a limited time, and are not reposted once removed.
