2008

Helmet 4/17/08

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Cane's

Wow! Helmet is in town again and I consciously decided that I didn’t care to see them because I didn’t think they would be able to top their last performance @ the Casbah. Boy was I wrong…Marvin let me know the day of the show that he scored two free tickets and asked me if I wanted to go. Without hesitation I was in. When Marvin got home from work I was pleasantly informed that Nick Oliveri’s band was opening. The moment we flipped the corner to enter Cane’s who was there going in at the same time? Nick Oliveri. Funny huh? Especially since I had randomly seen him at the recent Foo Fighters show in the midst of that fiasco. So Marvin and I go to the bar to talk to his bartender friend Sabrina and who comes rolling up next to us to order a drink? Nick Oliveri. We just couldn’t shake this guy. I gave him a fist bump and life was good. He was on next and his little three piece band busted out some punk rock fury and three Queens of the Stone Age songs, “I’m Gonna Leave You,” “Hidden EP,” and “Rated R.” Next up, Helmet. The same incarnation as the last Casbah show with the exception of a different guitarist. They started out with the first song on Aftertaste, “Pure,” and got about five into it before he stopped and started bantering with the crowd. I didn’t catch anything he said but, “No. First we’re going to play the rest of Aftertaste and then we’ll take requests.” I thought he was kidding but he wasn’t. I’ll be damned if they did not play the whole fucking album in sequence from front to back! That’s when they left the stage before the inevitable encore. They came back and played “In the Meantime,” “Wilma’s Rainbow,” “Milquetoast,” and “Give It.” Amazing. Then after the show Page decided to hang out by the T-Shirt stand. I went and started chatting him up. I told him he should make his new band learn “Clean” and “Speechless.” He told me they knew “Speechless” and then he picked up a copy of Strap It On and pointed out the songs they knew from that album. I praised him for the show they had just done and went on my way. I was content and obviously elated. Thank you Marvin.

Ministry 4/7/08

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The “C-U-LaTour” was meant to be Ministry’s farewell tour in support of their final album The Last Sucker that had come out about seven months before this show. Apparently Uncle Al felt like the band had run its course. You could have fooled me. This two plus hour romp felt more like a band trying to recruit new fans rather than say goodbye to existing ones. I love that every time I have seen Ministry has been in a different city and venue. Since I had not seen them for about five years it was great to finally see “Wrong” live. The three cover songs at the end of the set were a bit of a surprise since Ministry’s own catalog is so deep but it looked like they were having fun. Thanks to the person on the balcony that caught “Under My Thumb” on video for all to enjoy.

SETLIST: Let’s Go, The Dick Song, Watch Yourself, Life Is Good, The Last Sucker, No W, Waiting, Worthless, Wrong, Rio Grande Blood, Senor Peligro, LiesLiesLies, Khyber Pass, So What, N.W.O, Just One Fix, Thieves, Roadhouse Blues (The Doors), Just Got Paid (ZZ Top), Under My Thumb (The Rolling Stones)

The Last Sucker

Foo Fighters 3/3/08

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Donna being the dear that she was bought a pair of floor tickets as a birthday present for me. Foo Fighters were touring for Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace that was released about six months before this. All was well until we tried to get in. The tickets were the printout kind bought off of Craigslist and when the barcode was scanned we were informed that the tickets had already been scanned…as in the person who sold her the tickets printed out multiple copies to sell to us and arrived before us, making our tickets absolutely useless. I was livid. Donna still had the phone number to the gal that sold the tickets to her and I called to light her up. She played stupid and agreed to refund Donna’s money…which did us no good in that moment. We still needed tickets. Walking around in these seeing red moments looking for scalpers I thought I saw Nick “Peeps” Oliveri walk by us. This was later confirmed by a picture I found on the San Diego Union Tribune website. We eventually found someone to sell us two tickets at the very back of the arena in seats near the top. This was a far cry from being on the floor as I anticipated but at least we were still there to witness the greatness that is Foo Fighters. Everything ended up turning out alright because halfway through their set they all came down to a smaller stage that had been set up towards the back which in effect gave us front row seats for their mini-set.

SETLIST: Let It Die, The Pretender, Times Like These, Breakout, Learn To Fly, Cheer Up, Boys (Your Make Up Is Running), This Is A Call, Stacked Actors, Skin and Bones, Marigold, My Hero, Cold Day In The Sun, But, Honestly, Everlong, Monkey Wrench, All My Life, Big Me, Long Road To Ruin, Best Of You

Filter 3/2/08

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Concerts two nights in a row? Hell yeah. I saw Richard Patrick about a year before this with Army of Anyone but I hadn’t seen Filter since 1999 when their newest album was Title of Record. The tour for The Amalgumut was cancelled when Richard entered rehab and now here we were six years after that and still a couple months away from the release of Anthems for the Damned. I vaguely remember Marvin and myself buying tickets off some dude from Craigslist at the last minute and the meeting feeling like a sketchy drug deal. Apparently San Diego was the very first stop on this tour. The band was well rehearsed and the energy in such a small place was electric. It reminded me of the first time I saw them at DV8 in Seattle about six months after Short Bus came out.

Dirty Sweet 3/1/08

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Dirty Sweet was a San Diego band I was introduced to by Lucinda. They were just pure rock n roll in a classic rock kind of way. It sounded pretty badass to me so years later when I found out they had recently released an album called Of Monarchs and Beggars and were coming to the Hard Rock Hotel Downtown I took Donna. They played this little room up on the second floor that overlooked the Gaslamp sign. At one point I was right in front of the stage and some gal who had clearly never been to a concert before screamed at me for barely bumping into her…right in front of the stage…where people were moving around. It was a weird moment. After I got the fuck out the front I went to the bar to watch the rest of it. The band was good. Good enough to be tight as a band but play loose and look like they were actually enjoying themselves.