2019

Paul McCartney 6/22/19

Macca ticket 2019

Sir Paul. Macca. Beatle. Legend. Whatever you want to call him does not change the undeniable fact that he has played a major part in shaping the musical and cultural landscapes of history. And lucky me he decided to come back to San Diego for the first time since 2014 when I first “saw” him. I say it like that because if you recall the first time I attended a Paul McCartney concert I was sat on the side of the stage where I could hear perfectly but had to settle for watching his image projected onto the side of a wall. So technically this was the first time “seeing” him. Also lucky for me one of my co-workers hooked up tickets for Ingrid and I again with an exclusive presale she had access to.

What more could I say about a man who has had so much written about him before? The music has always spoken louder than anything and tonight was no different. He was on tour to promote his newest effort Egypt Station (free copy of the album came with the ticket) that was released on September 7, 2018, which marked his 17thsolo album! The remarkable thing about that number is that it does not even include his work with the Beatles or Wings. The guy is a machine. He has set the bar high for himself and he exceeded that bar again this particular evening by playing damn near 40 songs again!

The highlights for me were “Let ‘Em In,” which was blissful, “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da,” because the contagiously bouncy bass line had the whole place bouncing along and “Helter Skelter,” because it is about as close as I’m ever going to see Paul McCartney doing heavy metal and there is something very satisfying about seeing a 77 year old man just going for it with his screaming, probably because it gives me hope that I will never be anything but that guy when I get older.

There was a funny moment worth mentioning regarding me leaving at some point to relive myself and get refill $15 beers. Since we met up with some friends at the bar inside Spaghetti Factory prior to the concert I may have been “on a good one” by this time and could not find my way back to our seats after the refills. After walking up and down the aisles nearby and trying to text/call Ingrid someone close to me got my attention and pointed it towards Ingrid, who was standing up trying to wave me down. Once I registered this and started on my way back to our seats the entire section of people were cheering me on. They were probably just happy I was not wandering around distracting them from the show any longer. The funny part of the story is that is Ingrid’s signature move. Literally every time we go to a show and she leaves her seat she gets lost and cannot find her way back and I always shake my head thinking just retrace your steps. Now the joke’s on me. Cheers to beers.

SETLIST: A Hard Day’s Night, Junior’s Farm, Can’t Buy Me Love, Letting Go, Who Cares, Got to Get You Into My Life, Come On to Me, Let Me Roll It, I’ve Got a Feeling, Let ‘Em In, My Valentine, Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five, Maybe I’m Amazed, I’ve Just Seen a Face, In Spite of All the Danger, From Me to You, Dance Tonight, Love Me Do, Blackbird, Here Today, Queenie Eye, Lady Madonna, Eleanor Rigby, Fuh You, Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!, Something, Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, Band on the Run, Back in the U.S.S.R., Let It Be, Live and Let Die, Hey Jude, Birthday, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise), Helter Skelter, Golden Slumbers, Carry That Weight, The End

Prong 5/30/19

Prong ticket

Prong is another band that Claude introduced me to back in the day. This was right about the time in 1994 they were having a moment in the spotlight thanks to their fourth album Cleansing. This album was a solid coming out party. Having Terry Date produce the album certainly did not hurt, as I was already familiar with him at this point due to his work with Soundgarden and Pantera. When I saw they were coming to Brick by Brick of course I was in.

Tommy Victor was the only one left from that lineup in 1994 but being the voice of the band he was probably the most crucial piece to still have anyway. That and he is one hell of a badass guitar player. I saw him once when he played guitar for Danzig a couple of years back so I already knew firsthand what to expect.

After taking in game one of the NBA finals with Bob, we cruised over to a very empty Brick by Brick. It seems not many people in San Diego remembered or cared about Prong any longer. It has to be very disheartening as a band to come out to a place that is only a quarter full but they came out and rocked the fuck out of us like the professional band they are as if the place was sold out. Tommy and Co. played songs mostly off their first few albums before they ripped through essentially the first half of the Cleansing album to close out the show. Just like Powerman 5000 did earlier this year at the very same venue Prong did not play the entire album they were there to celebrate but that did put a damper on this one bit.

SETLIST: Unconditional, Lost and Found, Beg to Differ, For Dear Life, Cut-Rate, Ultimate Authority, Prove You Wrong, Rude Awakening, Cut and Dry, Revenge…Best Served Cold, Test, Another Worldly Device, Broken Peace, Whose Fist Is This Anyway?, Snap Your Fingers, Snap Your Neck, However It May End

Wolfmother 5/16/19

Wolfmother ticket 2019

Once I found out Wolfmother was playing the House of BIues I quickly recruited Bob to go with me to see our old friends because I had not seen Wolfmother in nearly 10 years, back when the only album in their catalog was their debut eponymous album. Since then they released another three albums with the newest offering being the album Victorious, which had been out over three years at this point. It turns out they were feeling nostalgic on this particular night as the set skewed heavily towards the first album.

As per usual we decided to forego the opening band The Soft White Sixties in favor of throwing more beer down our throats. Once we became part of a full but not sold-out overly full crowd I immediately noticed that the stage was just the stark default House of Blues stage with no backdrop. The only thing that indicated who we were about to watch was a simple “WM” on the kick drum.

Andrew Stockdale held down guitar and vocal duties flanked by a gentleman playing some sort of Moog keyboard to his right, bass player to his left and drummer behind him. The keyboard helped to fill out the sound and they sounded fantastic. Unfortunately about halfway through the set Bob’s consumption of strong IPA’s caught up to him and influenced “our” decision to leave early. He kept flipping people off and rhythmically moving his arms about as close to people as he could without actually touching them. It was funny to me because I know he is harmless but not everyone in the immediate area felt the same way. Oh well. Shit happens.

SETLIST: Victorious, White Unicorn, Colossal, Woman, New Moon Rising, Apple Tree, Mind’s Eye, Dimension, Vagabond, California Queen, Pyramid, Gypsy Caravan, Chase The Feeling, Joker & The Thief

Pictures and write up from a more sober individual that stayed the whole time

Scars on Broadway 3/8/19

Scars ticket

Back on July 20th of 2018 Scars on Broadway released Dictator, the first album of material since the eponymous album was released almost exactly a decade earlier. I read somewhere that the band was now officially known as Daron Malakian and Scars on Broadway instead of just Scars on Broadway because he always envisioned different lineups from album to album. Apparently the “new” album was written and recorded right around the time I last saw them in 2012 but not released until recently basically because Daron did not know what was going on with System of a Down.

All it took was one listen to Dictator to make a fan out of me. While I was in Hawaii in December I received an email announcing that Scars on Broadway were playing the Wiltern so I immediately sent out the bat signal to find out who would be in for a little trip to Hell-A. Larry and Bob answered the call of duty and tickets were purchased.

This was already the third trip of the year to la la land for me but I was in great company to see a great band and had only been to the Wiltern one other time to see Marilyn Manson way back in 2004. This trip could have been avoided altogether because sometime after we purchased our tickets there was a show announced in North Park for March 3rd. This slightly irked the others but that show was on a Sunday and our show was on a Friday, which gave us a license to get loose, especially since the hotel we booked was literally across the street.

Long story short we ended up spending an asinine amount of money on beer at the venue after spending $85 at Ralphs for our pre-party and even more money on beer and sake across the street at Kashira Sushi. We arrived at the Wiltern about five minutes before Scars went on and the place was packed. The show was general admission but it was also sold out. Rather than have to fight our way through the crowd just to be sardined for two hours Larry took it upon himself to inquire about VIP tables. Next thing I know we were following him to a table in an area on the floor that allowed us to stretch out and have a waiter.

Scars on Broadway were killer. Daron Malakian is not only an amazing guitar player and songwriter but also knows how to pump up a crowd. It did not hurt that they played damn near every song in their entire two album catalog. In fact the only song I don’t remember being played was “Assimilate” but then again I did have a lot of beer but seemingly not as much as Bob who puked under our table during the last song. Good times.

SETLIST: Animal, Sickening Wars, Fucking, Chemicals, Dictator, Kill Each Other/Live Forever, Guns Are Loaded, Enemy (with cover of China Girl by Iggy Pop during the breakdown), Scars on Broadway, World Long Gone, Serious, Funny, Universe, 3005, Angry Guru, Lives, Never Forget, We Won’t Obey, Insane, Hungry Ghost, Babylon, Gie Mou, Whoring Streets, Talkin’ Shit, Till the End, Fuck and Kill, Exploding/Reloading, Stoner Hate, Cute Machines, They Say

Muse 3/5/19

Muse Simulation Theory ticket

With the release of the album Simulation Theory in early November of 2018 came a reason for Muse to return to San Diego for the first time since the last time I saw them at Kaaboo roughly a year and a half before this. In my eyes Muse is a band that can simply do no wrong. Their music is diverse, dense, thought provoking, inventive and fresh. They are a band that does not seem content to rest on their laurels now that they have reached a certain level of fame and recognition. Instead they keep pushing the boundaries of their music and more importantly their live presentation of that music.

I was originally supposed to attend with Ingrid, Larry and Christi but due to it being a “school night” Ingrid changed her mind. Ironically it was an actual school night for Larry and Christi’s seven-year-old music-loving son Brody who they decided to bring along as a birthday present. This is one lucky kid because this was already the sixth concert he has attended. After meeting up with Kyle and Chris at Buffalo Wild Wings for some beers (don’t fret; Christi did not drink) we walked over to the dare I say historic San Diego Sports Arena.

I guess this is the year of me sitting side stage but as stated before I cannot believe it took me this long to realize that sitting there puts you much closer to the band than sitting center stage all the way at the back of the arena and still sounds every bit as good. I was slightly disappointed that they did not set up the stage in the center of the arena like the first time I saw them at the very same venue. Instead the stage was more of a traditional arena rock setup with a giant catwalk that was made to look like a giant spaceship to go along with their brand of sci-fi rock and the theme of the album which proposes that all of reality, including the Earth and the universe, is in fact an artificial simulation, most likely a computer simulation. Truth be told, from our vantage point the stage kind of looked like a giant space penis or the number three with a lying nose ala Pinocchio.

The beginning of the show was marked by Matt Bellamy popping up through a hole in the “tip” of the space penis around an army of 10 “backup dancers” dressed in lit up outfits to go along with Matt’s lit up glasses. These “backup dancers” roamed the stage in various outfits and props throughout the show including going up and down the backdrop on cables, utilizing giant fire extinguishers that shot steam and even contributed to the drums on a few songs.

Muse concerts are epic and should be a rite of passage for all concertgoers. They take this shit seriously and the visual element of their shows is breathtaking. From the confetti during “Mercy” to the giant creature that emerged during the medley to the giant balls released during “Knights of Cydonia” it was sensory overload.

Matt’s voice sounded incredible live as did the instrumentation handled by Dominic Howard, Chris Wolstenholme and a person hiding in the shadows that alternately played guitar or keyboard depending on the song. The show rightfully showcased most of the new album and the stripped down version of “Dig Down” was especially nice. Something tells me Brody will remember this concert for the rest of his life. I know I will.

SETLIST: Algorithm (abridged), Pressure, Psycho, Break It to Me, Uprising, Propaganda, Plug In Baby, The Dark Side, Supermassive Black Hole, Thought Contagion, Hysteria (with Back In Black outro), The 2nd Law: Unsustainable, Dig Down, Madness, Mercy, Time Is Running Out, Houston Jam, Take a Bow, Prelude, Starlight, Algorithm, Stockholm Syndrome/Assassin/Reapers/The Handler/New Born, Knights of Cydonia

Thanks Youtuber SD Boy for the stellar footage for all to enjoy.

Powerman 5000 2/15/19

PM5K ticket

So here I am going to my second concert in three days. This time was to see Powerman 5000 commemorate the 20th anniversary of the album Tonight The Stars Revolt! by performing it in its entirety. This is the album of theirs that caught my attention and still holds a special place in my musical heart so even though Spider was still the only original member left from that period playing with four randoms I did not care. On top of that I had not seen them in over five years.

After drinking a six pack of my favorite Fat Tire and eating one of Ingrid’s gummies I was off to Brick by Brick to meet up with my coworker Wayne who decided to go at the last minute. Wayne showed up less than five minutes after I did and found me at the bar trying to order a beer right as the opening band was bidding the crowd farewell. We had just enough time to get a tallboy PBR, make our way to the bathroom and secure a spot at the back edge of the soon-to-be mosh pit before Powerman came on. I don’t actually like PBR, I just think it’s funny to drink a tallboy PBR.

Long story short the band did not play the album as expected/advertised but instead played a lot of other stuff that was not on Tonight The Stars Revolt! The fuckers tricked me. They made me think that they would be playing all if not most of the Tonight the Stars Revolt! album but instead for all intents and purposes played three songs from the album. Fuckers. To make matters even more confusing they decided to play covers of “Relax” by Frankie Goes to Hollywood, “Space Oddity” by David Bowie and “Seven Nation Army” by The White Stripes instead of “Good Times Roll,” which is the only cover song on the album they were supposed to play. You’re doing shows to commemorate an album but then spend less than 25% of the show actually playing songs from the album?

Overall it was still a pretty awesome show. This was the kind of performance that translated to a small club but probably would not have fared well with the stadium crowd. Brick by Brick is the perfect sized gritty rock joint with leaking roof and all that captures the energy in such a way to make you feel as though there are far more people in attendance. I enjoyed “Bombshell” and “Supernova Goes Pop” the most but am still really bummed they did not play “Operate Annihilate.” At the end of the day I just think they missed a huge opportunity to reintroduce this badass album to people.

SETLIST: Nobody’s Real, Invade, Destroy, Repeat, Hey, That’s Right!, Super Villain, Footsteps and Voices, Relax, How to Be a Human, Horror Show, Bombshell, An Eye Is Upon You, Supernova Goes Pop, Sid Vicious in a Dress, When Worlds Collide

Bring Me the Horizon 2/13/19

BMTH Ticket

Bring Me the Who? is the question I asked Bob when he proposed going to this sold out show. The name sounded familiar but in reality I had no idea what their music sounded like or anything about them. They were touring for their newest album called Amo released just a month before this show but did not schedule a San Diego show. Bob wanted to go so bad that he offered to drive, buy my ticket and pay for a hotel if I would join him. If I didn’t know Bob as well as I do this would sound an awful lot like an attempt to get in my pants. All jokes aside I am always down for an adventure, hanging out with Bob and possible amazing musical experience so I agreed to go back to beautiful Inglewood for the second time in less than three weeks.

Our story begins with a stop at BevMo in Huntington Beach to load up on beers. Right as we were about to walk in a homeless fellow that we did not previously see rolled up on us with his bike. I turned just because I sensed someone close to us and once I saw him just turned back around to walk in. This is when he said “Fuck you you white BITCH!” My brain could not process what was happening so we just continued walking in and he left. I could not stop laughing or saying “you white bitch” the rest of the day.

We arrived at the same hotel that doubles as a hostel that we stayed at for Temple of the Dog at 2 pm but they were strict about not letting us check in until 3 pm. This lead to the commencement of drinking said beers procured from BevMo. So 3 o’clock rolled around, we were assigned a room and learned that our room keys did not work once we showed up. By the way it was cold, windy and starting to rain and the rooms are the kind you enter from the outside. After multiple attempts a woman surprised us by opening the door and saying “this is my room.” Back to the front desk! After we finally got an actual room we sat around and drank some fairly stout beers which made us lose track of time which lead to me skipping dinner which lead to your everyday shitshow. I would like to tell you that I remember all or even most of the show but that would be a lie.

Remember those glasses that have built in cameras to record that I thought of while at the Forum watching Elton John a few weeks earlier? I bought some and used this show as my guinea pig show. Had I figured out how they worked maybe I could have reviewed the footage to have a better idea of what happened. What I do know is we were in the general admission floor section, we lost each other multiple times and we kept drinking. I remember a little of Thrice and I remember that Bring Me the Horizon was good. They have a wide range of musical styles from atmospheric to downright heavy. Yes this post is more about what happened leading up to the show than the actual show. Sue me.

Elton John 2/1/19

EltonJohn

Back in December of 2017 one of my work friends let me know tickets for Elton John’s farewell tour were going on sale through the fan club she was a part of and asked me if I wanted in. Stupidly I said no because the concert was not going to be for over a year and just thought I would figure it out when the show got closer. Well it turns out Elton John’s last tour ever was a bigger deal than I gave it credit for. The San Diego show sold out and the cheapest tickets on the secondary market were going for $400 each! Yikes! I like Elton John but I don’t like Elton John that much. Once I saw that he was playing two shows at the Forum in L.A. as well as a handful of shows at Staples Center and coming back to Anaheim in September I began to dutifully look at those options, reasoning that I could probably find two tickets and a hotel room for the price of one ticket in San Diego. Fortunately I was right. After much back and forth we finally decided to pull the trigger on the February 1st show at the Forum. This allowed us to get loose since it was on a Friday and as an added bonus we discovered that we had a free hotel night to use from hotels.com.

We left at 11:30 am to avoid the dreaded L.A. traffic and much to our surprise ended up getting to Inglewood in a record hour and 45 minutes. Inglewood is not a nice area…yet. I say yet because the brand new stadium being built next to the Forum for the Rams is a monstrosity and looks to be coming along nicely. With this I assume will come higher rents that will drive out some of the lower rent tenants.

After a short Uber ride we loaded up on $15 beers and found our seats which were off to the side of the stage. With all the shows I have been to I don’t know why it took me so long to realize that cheap seats to the side of the stage are way better than cheap seats that are dead center but at the back of the arena. Not only are you closer so you can see better but it also still sounds freaking amazing.

The familiar opening piano chords of “Benny and the Jets” kicked this party off and for the next three plus hours Elton John was damn near flawless. I was astounded and impressed at how amazing his voice sounded. He did not just sound great “for a 71 year old;” he sounded great period. His voice was powerful and he is the only “aged” vocalist I have seen maybe ever that did not have any dedicated backup singers. After some guy behind us kept yelling “sit down” even though nearly everyone else was standing up (it’s a concert not your living room!) Ingrid and I decided to simply move to the aisle end of our row instead of fight with this idiot the entire concert. That worked out well until the proper owners of the seats arrived and looked thoroughly dumbfounded. I could tell that they were bothered but when you are in the “cheaper” seats who really gives a fuck? They must not have been bothered enough because they never actually said anything to us other than what they said to us with their body language.

I would consider myself a casual Elton John fan but there are at least a solid 10-15 songs of his that I love and he played nearly every one of them. Beyond his piano moving around the stage on a motorized track at certain points and confetti falling from the sky for the grand finale of “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” there was not a lot of “glitz” to his show but the band just crushed it. Elton was very chatty and shared sincere, historical and funny anecdotes with the crowd throughout. This concert reaffirmed why I love going to concerts in the first place. There is something magical/primitive/otherworldly when you witness the naked power of just a guy and his piano wailing away. You hear the sounds with your ears but you also hear them in your soul. I am beyond ecstatic that I did not squander the opportunity given to me to see this living legend while I still had the chance.

SETLIST: Bennie and the Jets, All the Girls Love Alice, I Guess That’s Why They Call it the Blues, Border Song, Tiny Dancer, Philadelphia Freedom, Indian Sunset, Rocket Man (I Think It’s Going to be a Long, Long Time), Take Me to the Pilot, Someone Saved My Life Tonight, Levon, Candle in the Wind, Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding, Burn Down the Mission, Believe, Sad Songs (Say So Much), Daniel, Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me, The Bitch is Back, I’m Still Standing, Crocodile Rock, Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting, Your Song, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

Corrosion of Conformity 1/26/19

COCatBrickByBrick

This was only my third time seeing Corrosion of Conformity and I had not seen them since Blackest of the Black in May of 2017, which was before the release of their latest album No Cross No Crown almost exactly a year before this show.

I never really listened to enough Crowbar to get into them but wanted to show up a little early to check them out simply based on the Jimmy Bower/Kirk Windstein connection from the band Down. Unfortunately I could not recruit anyone to go with me once again so I flew solo to Brick By Brick after downing some Fat Tire. When I arrived there were a handful of people hanging out near the entrance and as I walked closer I realized the person I was about to pass was Pepper Keenan. He turned and looked at me so I said “Oh Fuck Yeah” and we fist bumped.

I had not been to Brick By Brick for some time so I forgot how small that place is. It only holds about 400 people. Once inside I grabbed a tallboy PBR and watched the remainder of Crowbar’s set. I also ingested the two gummy edibles I brought with me in hopes of timing the onset to coincide with COC’s set. Crowbar had some good grooves but I just did not know the songs.

After I had secured another tallboy ZZ Top’s “La Grange” started making it’s way out of the speakers to signify the end of the intermission. This is a fantastic song to take the stage to. As I looked around the room everyone seemed to be in agreement. COC opened with “Stone Breakers” and from then on it was an all-out onslaught of sludgy metal at it’s finest. I don’t remember exactly what else they played but I do know they played “Wiseblood,” “Wolf Named Crow,” Long Whip/Big America,” “Seven Days,” “Albatross” and closed with “Clean My Wounds.” Rocked my socks off. As I left the venue to walk to a spot to request a Lyft I realized that I was unknowingly following Pepper Keenan as he was walking back to his bus. Once I realized this I turned the other direction thinking that if he turned around and saw “this guy” again he might of thought I was stalking him. Then again that was probably just the gummies.