2002

Korn 11/18/02

Disturbed was opening for Korn on this tour and it is the humble opinion of the author that Disturbed blew Korn off the stage on this night. They had just released the album Believe a few months prior and tore through much of it without stopping to take a breath. Maybe they knew they had to bring it having Korn follow them, maybe they hit a stride around this time, maybe it had something to do with the new album or maybe Korn just had an off night. Whatever it was the band was tight. I do remember at some point David Draiman explaining the artwork on the cover of Believe as a combination of four religious symbols that represent the faiths that span this globe and how every major conflict the world has seen has erupted because of differences in belief.

Korn was touring for the album Untouchables that had come out in June of this year. As stated before they were just out-rocked on this night. I still enjoyed it because Korn is one of my favorites but it was just a little disappointing. This was my third time seeing them. One highlight I do remember is them playing “Here to Stay,” which has one of the heaviest riffs I have ever heard.

Aerosmith 11/12/02

So here we are a little more than a year since the first time we had seen Aerosmith. With it being Lucinda’s favorite band we simply had to go. You just never know if you will get another chance to see these bands again, especially the older ones. Just her and I took a little road trip. Kid Rock was very “country” at this concert. I remember a lot of him sitting on a stool and playing an acoustic guitar. I never really liked his music anyway. Although our experience seeing Aerosmith at the Gorge set the bar high, this show was equally great. There was a long catwalk that went out into the crowd that Steven Tyler and Joe Perry took full advantage of.

SETLIST: Toys in the Attic, Love in an Elevator, Same Old Song and Dance, Sweet Emotion, Livin’ on the Edge, What It Takes, Let the Music Do the Talking, Big Ten Inch Record (Bull Moose Jackson cover), I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing, Back in the Saddle, Jaded, Pink, Stop Messin’ Around (Fleetwood Mac cover), Rag Doll, Dream On, Cryin’, Dude (Looks Like a Lady), Draw the Line, Mother Popcorn (James Brown cover), Walk This Way

Big Stink 7 9/1/02

Claude came in from the Tri-Cities to go this with Lucinda and I. This remains the only time I have been to PGE Park, which I believe is normally used for soccer games. I remember that I had our tickets but as we approached the entrance and I doled out the tickets Lucinda’s vanished into thin air somehow. We simply lost it. It was shitty to have to buy another but at least the show was not sold out. I remember this being a particularly nice day in Portland but an extremely long one because the first band we were kind of interested in was Earshot yet we showed up super early in the afternoon. A lot of sitting around. To pass a little time Claude and I partook in something where you put on sumo wrestler suits and go at it. Finally Earshot came on and they were quite good but remind me too much of Tool wannabes. Cake was also pretty good. The big reason we came was Cypress Hill. I don’t think I had seen them since that first time at the Gorge when they had the giant bong onstage. This time was even better because they brought along two live guitarists a la their excellent double album Skull & Bones that had come out a few years prior. They rocked which was not something that comes to mind for most when thinking of Cypress Hill. There was a near riot at the end of the show because the powers that be cut the power on them once they started to blaze onstage. They tried to play it off until it became clear the power was not coming back on. The crowd went nuts but ultimately after a lot of fuck you’s everyone left the venue in peace.

Ozzfest 8/27/02

Main Stage: Ozzy Osbourne, System of a Down, Rob Zombie, P.O.D., Adema, Black Label Society, Tommy Lee

Second Stage: Down, Hatebreed, Meshuggah, Soil, The Used, Chevelle, Mushroomhead, Seether

Where to start here? All that really needs to be said is two words: Ozzfest and Gorge. I believe the first band playing that day I really wanted to see was Down. The day was overcast but Down came out and darkened the day even more with their version of Rock N’ Roll. They were touring for Down II: A Bustle in Your Hedgerow that had come out in March. I wish I could remember seeing Chevelle and Seether but I think they happened to be on when I wanted to be at the main stage. The other strong memory from this show was System of a Down playing a cover of Black Sabbath’s “Snowblind.” Toxicity had come out almost a year before this show so by this point they were huge. I do not remember a lot of talking from them on this night. They just came out and let the music do all the talking that was necessary.

Billy Idol 7/26/02

What do I remember about Billy Idol? I remember that from afar the man looked the same and from close range I remember that he still had it. Not that I ever knew he had it in the first place. I am what could be called a casual Billy Idol fan but the songs that I do like, I like very much. “Rebel Yell” is pretty badass live. Lots of energy out of a somewhat older crowd. The kicker for this show is the fact that I was heading to the Tri-Cities directly after the show for boat race weekend. I ended up arriving at about 2:30 a.m. to Marvin’s house and there were a few drunken stragglers still awake. Got a few winks and started up the debauchery train again with some drinks.

Garbage 5/25/02

I first heard Garbage through Rose. She liked them so I heard the first two albums via musical osmosis. Lucinda ended up also liking them and purchased the third installment from Garbage entitled Beautiful Garbage when it came out in late September of the prior year. They have never been a band that I have been just absolutely obsessed with. It is one of the few bands in rock that I actually like with a woman singer. I’m not opposed to women in rock. It’s just a fairly rare occurrence for me to find a rock band I like fronted by a woman, though it could be argued that Garbage blurs lines between rock and other experimentations. The ensuing tour came through Portland at the Roseland. It turned out to be a great show (from what I remember of it). I was a baked potato. Lucinda and I smoked a lot of pot in those days. We also watched a ton of movies, and listened to music frequently. It was just a way to tune out the world for a period of time.

Incubus 4/11/02

It had been about a year and a half since I last saw Incubus and about six months since the release of their stellar album Morning View. This trip to the Memorial Coliseum was the familiar lineup of Lucinda and I. We lucked out because this was the very first stop of the tour. They were fresh and down to play many of the new songs (which was alright by me). The opening band was Hoobastank, which I thought ironic because my ears always processed Hoobastank as a shittier version of Incubus. That set aside the selection of songs had me beside myself in pure bliss.

SETLIST: Circles, Nice To Know You, Stellar, Glass, Wish You Were Here, Warning, Vitamin, Make Yourself, Echo, Mexico, Pardon Me, New Skin, Privilege, Are You In?, Just a Phase, Nowhere Fast, Drive, A Certain Shade of Green, The Warmth, Aqueous Transmission

Drowning Pool 4/5/02

I first heard Drowning Pool through their song “Bodies.” It caught my interest but I didn’t really start liking the band until Lucinda picked up the Sinner album and I heard the rest of their songs. They were coming to town on the very first Jagermeister Music Tour with Coal Chamber, and Ill Nino but all I really cared about was Drowning Pool. It was just Lucinda and I in attendance at my personal favorite Portland venue, The Roseland, and they did not disappoint. They played the whole first album and lived up to the way they sounded on the album, which is not always so common. Unfortunately for fans the singer died just four short months after this show. There was originally speculation that he had pulled a Bonzo and choked on his own vomit, but the autopsy later revealed that he passed in his sleep due to a rare heart disease. R.I.P. Dave Williams.

Many things happened between this concert and the last. Lucinda and I were hell-bent on moving to L.A. as soon as possible because she wanted to act and I thought I could make some money doing modeling. The other reason was because the California school system is very reasonably priced once you are a resident. The weather was also a big selling point for me. I was tired of the constant rain Portland had to offer and felt like all I was really doing there was spinning my wheels. Long story short we decided to fly out to L.A. and stay with our friend Aria to look for a place to live. Our efforts were fruitless after about four days of constantly driving around and calling people who would not return our phone call so we had to return to Portland. Lucinda was on edge since we had already left our 30-day notice at the place we were currently living in Portland but if there is one thing I’ve learned in life it is that if you have money then there are certain things that shouldn’t worry you. Not that we had a ton of money, but certainly enough to get into another place. We decided to stay in Portland awhile longer to save up more money. “Awhile longer” ended up turning into another two years, but I digress. I had grown equally discontented with my job at Meier and Frank because it is not what I really wanted to be doing and I didn’t get paid all that great. I decided the trick to getting out of debt was not to spend less, but make more. Those thoughts lead me to the auto business. I figured if I could sell clothing then I could sell cars. The problem was the stigma attached to “car salesmen.” Everybody either has been screwed at the dealership or knows someone who has. That is why I chose to sell new Hondas and why I was decent at it. I wasn’t your typical car salesman and never related to my job. For me it was a means to an end but I did learn sales there from the school of hard knocks. It was sell or make no money, be fired, or both. Anyways, one thing I always reserve money for is going to concerts and this time the band of the night was Drowning Pool.

Adema 1/11/02

I first heard Adema because they were playing the crap out of the song “Giving In” on KUFO. The fact that the singer Mark Chavez is the half-brother of Jonathan Davis from Korn was made a big deal of. It certainly didn’t hurt anything seeing as how Korn pretty much ruled the earth in this window of time, but Adema actually had talent. I wasn’t impressed with them based on “Giving In” but became a fan the instant I heard “The Way You Like It” power its way out of the speakers in my Jeep CJ-5. I had purchased the self-titled album and was pretty much obsessed with it by the time of this show. The B-Complex is essentially a small warehouse that was turned into a music venue. I would say there might have been 200 people at the show tops. The energy of their music translated to a small venue very nicely. I’m pretty sure it was just Lucinda and I at this one but I found out later that my soon-to-be good friend Marcus was also in attendance. They rocked through every song on the first album without missing a beat. The one thing that surprised me was how large one of the guitar players was. He seemed like a giant compared to the rest of the band.

Rock N Roll Recollections

Fuzzy recollections of bands that rocked my world