The Only Bee in Your Bonnet

Ignoring my disdain for beer, I went to a brewery.

It's not like I hadn't been to Hardywood before; I had and between the crowd of hat boy types and young parents, had decided it just wasn't my thing.

I overlooked that tonight for the sake of bringing back geek chic.

Some theater friends were hosting an evening of music, but not just some band I could see elsewhere. Good bands, even friends' bands, play there all the time and I don't go.

No, tonight they were presenting their first "Cover to Cover" concert featuring a live band doing every song in order off They Might Be Giants' seminal 1990 album, "Flood."

Needless to say, I had to be there.

Luckily, in addition to hordes of moderately drunk people, I also found a few friends in the crowd, including a lot of actors and musicians.

The handsome bass player, inexplicably wearing a red clown nose, found me first and we commiserated about the distasteful smell of a brewery, an odor that had him gagging the first time he'd come to Hardywood to play a show.

But I can't just talk to one person, and before long I ran into the jeweler, one of last night's drummers and a Jackson Ward neighbor.

The evening was hosted by Matt, the same Matt who hosts the Ghost Light Afterparty with aplomb and high heels.

After the band played the brief "Intro to Flood," Matt and Evan sang the classic "Birdhouse In Your Soul," only messing up a little.

After mad clapping, Matt observed, "You guys are far too forgiving."  Copious amounts of beer will do that to you.

After a few minor adjustments to the sound system, Evan informed us, "We're gonna turn up the vocals higher in the mix so you can hear us better not knowing the words."

Meanwhile, the girl standing in front of me turned and said to me, "If my hair gets too big, just flip it out of your way."

Will do, honey.

Symphony violinist Treesa came onstage for "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" after having lost an hour of her life learning the part yesterday and promptly nailed it, making the song just about perfect.

It was during "Your Racist Friend" that Matt got jiggy with it, knocking into the pianist's music stand and light.

The Richmond symphony librarian, who happened to be in the crowd, vaulted onstage, adjusting the light for him like it was his job, which it wasn't.

Maggie did "Particle Man' complete with hand gestures just short of interpretive dance.

By then the crowd was pretty big and Evan said, "Sorry to those of you in the middle and back who can't hear us. Scooch closer and we'll all sweat to the oldies.

"We'll only bite if you want us to," Matt added, probably not kidding.

After "We Want a Rock," the Star Foster Dance Project showed up on two stages for several songs, including for "Minimum Wage," where a dancer named Egbert did a frenetic dance that perfectly mimicked the song's energy.

Katrinah and Maggie did a killer version of "Women and Men" with Matt singing back-up crouched on the floor at the women's feet. Appropriate, I thought.

Before "Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love," Matt warned us, "Here comes a song we never practiced." In other words, it was just like being at the Ghost Light Afterparty.

After the final song, "Road Movie to Berlin," they had time to kill before the art raffle, so they did "Birdhouse in Your Soul" again, this time to a far more, um, lubricated crowd.

The theater crowd, grouped to the right of the stage, created a big dance party, getting everyone else dancing, too.

Of course, once they'd done that, how could they not bring Treesa back onstage for one last rousing rendition of "Istanbul"?

"Look at all the invisible panties being thrown up here on stage!" Matt yelled, in the finest GLAP tradition.

And speaking of those fine GLAP folks, Matt and Maggie, tonight was only the first in the"Cover to Cover" series designed to raise money for their new production company, Spin, Spit and Swear, an apt metaphor for anything they do.

Once the music was over, I said my farewells to the good people and headed back to J-Ward for dinner at Lucy's.

Walking in, I heard my name called and found a wine rep, a pizza mogul and their husbands eating dinner before journeying out to Short Pump to see Eddie Murphy's brother at a comedy club.

Asking where I'd been, I shared, only to see my friend's face fall.

"I love that album! How did I not hear about that?" she wailed. Knowing about the first time for anything new is always the hardest.

After they left, I settled in at the bar where the bartender asked if I wanted Espolon, but I needed something better suited to warming me up on a cold night.

Her memory was excellent, but no, I was hoping for a glass of Stefano Antonucci Rosse Piceno, a Sangiovese and Montepulciano blend from Santa Barbara, a place with fond memories for the abundance of wine tasting I'd done there on vacation a few years back.

Playing on the screen was Alfred Hitchcock's "Lifeboat," a 1944 film I've never seen, but with no subtitles, couldn't really follow. I did question how Tallulah Bankhead was able to look so well-groomed stuck in a lifeboat for so long.

It was while I was eating a Cesar salad with white anchovies (perfectly dressed, too often not the case and I can't stand greens dripping in dressing) that I heard my name called again, this time by an actress I knew who had moved to Washington, D.C.

She's back to do a role in "The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity" at Firehouse Theater, promising flesh, fighting and a whole lot more inappropriate behavior if I come see it.

Sounds like a superb night of theater to me.

While eating some addictive spicy walnuts (cayenne, sugar, salt), I heard the table behind me talking about Black Iris Studio and the "suitcase exhibit," so I wasted no time in twirling around in my bar stool and telling them plenty about this terrific traveling music installation, which I've not only written about but done myself.

They asked me questions and thanked me profusely, despite my eavesdropping.

You guys are far too forgiving.

And while you're at it, keep the nightlight on inside the birdhouse in your soul.