Rose Polenzani

For those of you who want to visualize, the Bryant Lake Bowl is a tiny theater attached to a bowling alley (much cooler than it sounds). The stage is small and the seating consists of a few tables up front and the rest is stadium (at an incline) seating. Every once in awhile when someone get a strike you can hear the "whoop"s from the other room. Distracting, yet charming.

Rose took the stage wearing a black t-shirt and bright red shiny pants (the ones she is wearing in her front page web site photo).

She was very soft-spoken, she seemed almost nervous. She was definitely surprised at how many people were there. "I'm so overwhelmed. I don't even know this many people in Minneapolis!" she said. "How did you hear about this show? I owe someone a lot of money."

Here's the set list: (Thanks to Erin for helping me with some of the song titles I was unsure of)
1. "Fell"
2. "Bad Dreams"
3. "The Llama "- about Hyppogriffs in the Harry Potter books.
4. "Parhelion" - This song was inspired by the Brandon Teena story ("Boys Don't Cry"). Rose had said that she couldn't find this word in any dictionary, but my friend Erin found it in the American Heritage Dictionary it means: "From the Greek para, beside and helios, sun. Bright or sunny spot beside the sun, often in a luminous ring or halo formation."
5. "Or" (this is one of my favorites)
6. "Allah"
7. "Inauguration Day" - unavailable on record - This is a song about a woman having a fling with the President. Rose assured us that it was written before the whole Monica scandal so it's not about her.
8. "Promised Land" - a Julian Cope song
9. "The Flood"
10. "The Car "- She did this song a capella. It's by one of her favorite bands, Pooka from England. I found their release, "Pooka" at Amazon.com. You can even listen to a clip of "The Car" there. If you scroll down to the reviews, you'll see a review from Rose! Pooka's Site
11. "Shake Through to Ugly" - (another of my favorites)
12. "Sacramento Ave"
13. "Polliwog's Lament" - this one she did on a make shift slide guitar. She learned how to turn her guitar into a slide guitar from her friend and fellow artist, Chris Parsley.
14. "Olga's Birthday "- She said this song is about how "Jesus should never be used as a weapon"
15. "Mary Lee"- She said, "everything in this song is true."
16. "Whatever Remains"

As she left the stage she said, "Hope you score big at Bowling!"

After some wild applause she came back out for an encore:
The first song was "In the Middle"- Rose said this song was written "for someone who wouldn't sleep with me."

Then she did "I think you're beautiful"- she messed up this song a little so she said that she wasn't comfortable leaving us with that so she did a L. Cohen song (sorry I don't recall which one).

It was a great show. Rose is personable, sweet, funny and great to see live.