Memories of a Former Fruhead

Back in the day (1993-2001 ish), i was a huge Moxy Fruvous fan. I believe i saw 16 Fruvous shows in that period, in places like Niagara Falls, Buffalo, Syracuse, New York City, and Philadelphia. Sometime in July of 2000, i saw my last 2 fruvous shows, as Fruvous decided to go on hiatus after that. It's now 2006 and the end of the hiatus is nowhere in site.

Near the end of the run, they started to play a great version of the Gordon Lightfoot song "Early Morning Rain" in some of the live shows. It was always a favorite of mine, and i waited for the day that it would be released somehow. Of course with the hiatus right on the horizon, it never happened.

Tonight for some reason i was thinking about this great version of the song and it occured to me: I bet there are live fruvous shows on Archive.org! Sure enough, there are 29 full fruvous shows there for anyone to download. (Find them here) An hour later, i had 6 full fruvous shows in my itunes, including the first fruvous show i ever saw (New Year's Eve 97) and a few shows with Early Morning Rain. As you can imagine im thrilled.

I kind of forgot how special fruvous shows were. You could go two nights in a row, and not only was the set list different enough to warrent the 2nd show, but the banter in between songs was almost as entertaining as the songs. It has been (and im sure will continue to be) a joy to travel down memory lane and remember why this was such a special live band.

These days, the best you get to a Fruvous show is the once a year (or so) concert from Mike Ford. Keep an eye on those here: Mike Ford