The crowd cheered at the sight of Daniel Johnston back stage.  He seemed reluctant to come out.  The first few songs were the raw trueness I was expecting from Johnston.  He was reading from a white folder atop a music stand the entire show.  This was not great for some (me included) as far as getting a good view.  After the second song he made a joke, saying that he had a dream last night that there was a man being sentenced to death for trying to commit suicide.  It was him and he was in the back of the court room yelling, "No!"

On the fourth song Johnston let us know a friend from college was coming on to play with him.  He played guitar while Daniel just sang.  It was then I noticed the shaking I had heard about.  His nerves caused him to shake the microphone stand as he held it.  If performing effects him that much then that is something to respect.  He said after another song that they only had the one joke right now, but were working to get more.  My fiancee yelled out "I love you!"  Johnston said back, "See me back stage."  Then he did a Beatles cover, "You Got to Hide Your Love Away".  He took a short break and let us know that his band would come on with him.  

It was just not the same.  First of all, the band was far too loud.  Luckily later, the guitarist noticed this and asked them to turn Johnston up.  This made it better most of the time after they fixed things.  The music still distracted from Johnston, as if it were competing with him.  He will always be best on his own.  One of the songs was about him and his cat, Spunky.  The second last song had a catchy start.  When Daniel left the stage, I thought the rumor that he did not do encore's would be true, but he did one more song.  At the end he joked about not knowing where he was, just that he was by the ocean.  It was a good example of the sad state Johnston has come to, but what he went through just deserves so much respect.  It is very unfortunate that the bounty of his musical talent had to come at the cost of his mind.  He is still keeping it enough together to play though and thank heavens he did so that I could finally see him.