The Baseball Project w/ Honeydogs at the Cedar Cultural Center, Minneapolis (11 Aug 2014)

Poster Baseball Project Setlist 1976 Box Scores The Closer Look Out Mom Monument Park They Don't Know Henry They Are The Oakland A's Fair Weather Fans Larry Yount Pascual On the Perimeter 13 ¡Hola America! From Nails to Thumbtacks Harvey Haddix To The Veterans Committee Ted F***** Williams -- Encore -- Here Lies Carl Mays Fernando Jackie's Lament Panda and the Freak Gratitude (For Curt Flood) Past Time -- Encore 2 -- Superman (The Clique cover) Honeydogs Setlist Ordinary Legs Aubben Particles Or Waves 10,000 Years Better Word Everything In Its Place Red Dye #40 Rumor Has It Broke It, Buy It Arguing With Fiction (new song) What Comes After Blue Backed Speller Devil We Do Tour Dates 08/13 - Kansas City, MO @ Record Bar 08/15 - Denver, CO @ Oriental Theater 09/04 San Deigo, CA @ Soda Bar 09/05 Los Angeles, CA @ Bootleg Theater 09/06 Santa Monica CA @ McCabes 09/08 San Francisco, CA @ The Chapel 09/10 Portland, OR @ Dante's 09/11 Seattle, WA @ Neumos Read More The Baseball Project We've previously mentioned the supergroup The Baseball Project a few years ago, the band consists of Peter Buck (REM), Scott McCaughey (singer of The Young Fresh Fellows … Honeydogs The Honey Dogs were on the main stage! After 16 years together, Adam Levy, Brian Halverson, Peter Sands, Trent Norton, Peter Anderson and John Fields …

Supergroup The Baseball Project are currently doing a playoff tour of their third album 3rd, stopping by the Cedar Cultural Center in Minneapolis last night, August 11th.

Honeydogs

The game started with Minnesota's legendary The Honeydogs. The rather large seven-member league, led by star hitter Adam Levy, rose to popularity when they played major leagues with Mercury Records for Seen a Ghost in 1997.

Honeydogs Setlist

With ten albums to choose from, the majority of their setlist consisted of their latest effort, What Comes After ("Particles Or Waves", "Aubben", "Everything In Its Place", "Broke It, Buy It", "What Comes After", "Devil We Do") which tells me that they are incredibly proud of their new/modern songs.

Highlight of their set was a brand new song, which they are calling "Arguing With Fiction", and they were testing how the song plays out to an audience.

Baseball Project: Mike Mills & Steve Wynn

Next up to bat was The Baseball Project, a supergroup composed of Peter Buck (absent on this tour), Mike Mills (R.E.M.), Scott McCaughey (The Minus 5), Steve Wynn and Linda Pitmon (both from Dream Syndicate) formed in 2007 when they met at R.E.M.'s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City.

With their latest album 3rd ("because we haven't hit home base yet") the team is once again on tour, singing songs about baseball.

On this new game, McCaughey mentioned that they were trying to do more obscure plays, trying to play more songs than "just straight baseball songs." Immediately, Mills chimed in, "as opposed to gay baseball songs?"

Although McCaughey and Wynn does the majority of the singing, everyone in the band had their chance to bat, including Mills taking lead on "To The Veterans Committee" and drummer Pitmon on "Harvey Haddix", the latter experienced a harmonica malfunction.

Baseball Project Setlist

The setlist, as promised by McCaughey earlier, mixed up the play a little. Most of the songs were from 3rd, which sounded great live, but the fun really didn't start until the encore.

The six-song encore started with McCaughey doing a solo for "Here Lies Carl Mays", followed by a complete band singing a Spanish song "Fernando". You thought the game was over, but they kept pitching "Jackie's Lament" (about Jackie Robinson), then "Panda and the Freak", then "Gratitude (For Curt Flood)", and finally "Past Time."

It looked like show was over... but wait! Returning back on stage for a rare double encore, the band, including guest Peter Anderson from the Honeydogs, played "Superman," a song originally by The Clique, but made popular by R.E.M... clearly hitting a home run with the crowd, who were all singing along. Check out the brief video clip.

Here's the takeaway from The Baseball Project, they clearly have a passion for the game. They know the players, they know the stats, and their endgame seems like they want write about all the great (and forgotten) baseball players. Just to name a few, "Panda and the Freak" is about Pablo Sandoval and Tim Lincecum, "Gratitude" is about Curt Flood, "13" is about Alex Rodriguez, and "To The Veterans Committee" is about Dale Murphy. For baseball fans, The Baseball Project is the ultimate band for you.

R.E.M. Athens GA

The other thing is that clearly people loved and missed R.E.M. For example, I've never seen so many people taking photographs of an equipment casing with the words "R.E.M. Athens GA" painted on it. The band's been playing "(Don't Go Back To) Rockville" on some recent shows, but for Minneapolis, they decided to do "Superman", which had a huge response from the audience.

If you love baseball and you love R.E.M., you definitely need to get yourself a ticket to their show. My only complaint is that they weren't selling hotdogs at the vendor.

The Baseball Project's latest album 3rd is out now on Yep Roc Records, see them on tour now.

The Baseball Project at the Cedar Cultural Center, Minneapolis (11 August 2014)

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