Last night I was invited to go see the reformed Happy The Man do a dress rehearsal in front of a very very small audience of the set that they will be playing at their two upcoming shows [State Theatre - Falls Church, VA on Thurs. June 8th and NEARfest].

They ran through everything without stopping, I guess to check the flow & the feel.

Some of you may have experienced reformations, & know that even with the best of intentions, when bands reform, they are not always able to capture the essence of what they previously had....

I am *happy* to report that Happy The Man are really and truely back! I saw them about 20 times between about 1974-76, & last night was really them! They have captured the essence of what they were!

I suspect that the guys would not want me to post the set list; I think that that is supposed to be a surprise, but I will say that there was a real nice, tasty selection of tunes mostly drawn from the 2 Arista titles, as well as five new songs, which were of quite high quality.

Everyone was playing well & new keyboardist David Rosenthal fit in excellently.

If you like the band & like those albums, I can't imagine anyone being anything other than REALLY happy with the show you're going to see.

For those of you who are already going to NEARfest - you're all in for a treat!

For the rest of you, you might really want to consider making an effort to see them at their State Theatre debut.

Steve F.