Westerberg called what would prove to be the Replacements' final tour
"a traveling wake." Still, the band wasn't much for sentimental
goodbyes.
"Grant Park was the last thing on the docket, and the
whole tour had an end-of-the-road feel," Mehr says in an interview. "But
they didn't want to do a big sobbing farewell in Minneapolis. A big
to-do in their hometown was not something they wanted to do."
Yet in the middle of "Talent Show," Westerberg obliquely acknowledged
his conflicted emotions. As the song hit the guitar break, he would
typically conjure a rousing Chuck Berry riff, but on this day his solo
copped the melancholy melody from Stephen Sondheim's "Send in the
Clowns." Amid the wisecracks and sloppiness, it was a lone moment of
poignancy.
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