The Three Terrors
Bowery Ballroom
New York City, NY
1/26/03
In the spirit of satirizing the more famous Three Tenors (Luciano Pavoratti, Trini Lopez, and Glen Campbell), Stephin Merritt’s live-only Magnetic Fields ‘69 Love Songs‘ era male vocalist revue (SM, Dudley Klute, and LD Beghtol) were still in the salad days from that critically acclaimed album during this performance on Super Bowl Sunday 2003.
This performance was the 3rd of 4 one-off, theme-oriented, NYC performances between ca. 1999-2005. This time around the team featured an eclectic range of songs of drinking, drugs, and delirium, with drugs liberally including female hormonal replacement therapy (Loretta Lynn). As I recall the other shows consisted of valentine songs, broadway/show tunes, and NYC-oriented songs, respectively chronologically. Based on TSOI collaborator Avalanche, who attended shows #2-4, this was the best of the three.
To my knowledge, this is the only instance of a self-proclaimed Sondheim contemporary playing, let alone, closing a show with, a complete performance of “99 bottles of beer,” during which time the band handed out as many Rolling Rocks or Heinekins to the audience while circulating a bottle of brandy. The typical Bowery
Ballroom all ages audience was much obliged.
Setlist:
(Composer – Title)
1. Brewer and Shipley – One Toke Over the Line
2. Tom Lehrer – The Old Dope Peddler
3. Lil Green/traditional – Knocking Myself Out
4. Andy MacKay/Bryan Ferry – Love Is the Drug
5. Allen Brothers – Jake Walk Blues
6. Ben Jonson – Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes
7. Don Ho – Tiny Bubbles
8. Martyn Jacques – Heroin and Cocaine
9. Johnny Mercer/Henry Mancini – Days of Wine and Roses
10. Peter, Paul, and Mary – Puff the Magic Dragon (in German)
11. Septimus Winner – Little Brown Jug
12. Jefferson Airplane – One
13. Mick Jagger/Keith Richards – Mother’s Little Helper
14. Stock, Aitken & Waterman (as sung by Latoya Jackson) – Just Say No
Set II
15. Homer J. Simpson – Do-Re-Mi-Beer
16. Lee Hazlewood – Sugar Town
17. Gerry Roslie (The Sonics) – Strychnine
18. Suede – The Living Dead
19. traditional – Nobody Knows How Dry I Am
20. Flanders and Swann – Madeira, m’dear
21. Afroman – Because I Got High
22. Joseph Byrd & Dorothy Moskowitz (United States of America) – Garden of Earthly Delights
23. Lorene Allen/Don McHan/TD Bayless (made popular by Loretta Lynn) – The Pill
24. Roger Waters – Incarceration of a Flower Child
25. traditional – We Be Soldiers Three
Set III
26. James Rado/Gerome Ragni/Galt MacDermot (from the musical “Hair”) – Initials
27. traditional – Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall (complete)
Sample: [audio: http://www.thesoundofindie.com/archive/2009/20090413/ThreeTerrors-TinyBubbles.mp3|titles=Tiny Bubbles (Live)|artists=The Three Terrors]
Download: The Three Terrors – New York City – 1/26/03 – 516 MB
Thanks so much for posting this. I was at the show and have longed to relive it.
Is there any way I could get this as an mp3 file?
We prefer not to distribute anything as mp3s as to keep the highest fidelity possible. But take a look at the Sourceforge page for FLAC. There’s a bunch of converters: http://flac.sourceforge.net/
the otehr shows where: french pop, the saddest sonsg in the world, new york songs, and three terrors go to the movies… no valentines. and no beer bottles: the beer was distributed in commemorative plactic cups.