I would not consider myself a person who really digs DJ’s and techno-ish music…unless I am on drugs. I imagine most people that really like this kind of music also really like the kind of drugs that are not normally in my wheelhouse. Ecstacy and me have a storied relationship but I can sum it up by saying that I have only felt the effects of it half the times that I ingested it. Rumor has it that too much LSD can burn out your receptor sites for ecstacy but I think weak ecstacy may be a better explanation. My roomie at the time who I lovingly gave the moniker “Techno” fell into both of the aforementioned categories. He also happened to love Deadmau5 specifically so late one night after drinking all day he gave me a proper introduction when he, Ingrid and I ate some ecstacy and sat in his car listening to Deadmau5 at full volume. That was all I needed to want to go see this madness live. Ingrid and I got floor tickets and you guessed it: ecstacy.
What I remember about this show is a very lightly packed baseball stadium. There were the haves (floor tickets) and the have nots (people in seats). The problem for the people in seats is that they were waaaay the fuck back there away from the stage and the floor was far from full. A couple rebellious attendees decided that the risk of getting caught trying to get on the floor was a better option than sitting at the back of the stadium.
The ecstacy was weak but Deadmau5 was still cool. I did not “know” any of the music but the light show and bass coming out of massive speakers more than made up for that. A dude onstage by himself wearing custom mouse heads hitting buttons that sent crazy noises into my ears was a different experience but one that I am glad I went out of my comfort zone for.
An excellent new album called Wasting Light meant a new tour and another opportunity to see Dave Fucking Grohl and his band. It had been about three and a half years since I had seen my old friends so this was overdue. Somehow Tom and I scored floor tickets to see Cage the Elephant open and Foo Fighters rock our faces off. I never get tired of seeing the Foo. I always enjoy when they play “Stacked Actors” but the encore was the best. Dave made his way to the back of the arena like last time to play a couple things by himself and then do a killer cover of one of my favorite Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers songs “Breakdown.” So good.
SETLIST: Bridge Burning, Rope, The Pretender, My Hero, Learn to Fly, White Limo, Arlandria, Breakout, Cold Day in the Sun, Stacked Actors, Walk, Monkey Wrench, I Should Have Known, These Days, This Is A Call, In the Flesh?, All My Life, Best of You, Times Like These, Dear Rosemary, Breakdown, Everlong
Three bands that you like for the price of one is always cool, even if it hard to understand how these particular three bands ended up sharing the same bill. Bob and Tom felt the same way so they came along for the ride.
Since the time I had last seen Filter about three and a half years before this at the Casbah they had released two new albums: Anthems for the Damned and The Trouble with Angels. These albums are decent and have grown on me over time but to me just do not hold a candle to the first three Filter albums. Unfortunately I feel that Filter’s performance also fell into the “decent” category for this show. The posturing shirtless bassist was distracting but even outside of that something was just not clicking the way I had seen Filter click in the past.
I had not seen Bush for almost 12 years so this was interesting. Since that time they had only released two albums including the newest album The Sea of Memories that had just been released two weeks before this show. I had not really kept up with Bush over the years or heard anything from the two newest albums. This made it that much better when they came out and rocked the fuck out of the place. At one point Gavin came out into the crowd and got on top of the side bar like he was auditioning to work at Coyote Ugly.
SETLIST: The Mirror of the Signs, Little Things, I Believe In You, Greedy Fly, The Sound of Winter, Everything Zen, The Chemicals Between Us, The Heart of the Matter, The People That We Love, All Night Doctors, Swallowed, The Afterlife, Machinehead, Come Together, Glycerine, Comedown
Apparently without realizing it I got on the every two year plan for Chevelle as I literally saw them every two years since 2003 with the last time being the drunken debacle at the House of Blues in 2009. These guys are road warriors. Despite being a little over two months before the release of Hats Off to the Bull we got to hear “Face to the Floor” for the first time. The highlight of the show and one of the coolest things I have ever seen at a concert was when a speaker house left literally caught fire and burned for a good 45 seconds before being extinguished. Fittingly enough this happened when they were playing “An Evening With El Diablo” but the best part is that they just kept playing without missing a beat. To be fair they may not have known the speaker caught fire but I like to at least pretend they did and just kept going.
SETLIST: Family System, Jars, Get Some, Letter From a Thief, Vitamin R (Leading Us Along), Face to the Floor, Sleep Apnea, Send the Pain Below, An Evening With El Diablo, The Red, The Clincher, I Get It
Apparently Weezer had grown fond of playing the Del Mar horse races as they were back for the second year in a row. I did not mind one bit as they always put on a light-hearted fun show that everyone seems to be in good spirits for. This show in particular had a lot of singing along going on which only backs up the assertion that people were having a good time. The newest album Hurley had now been out almost a full year and the only song they played from the album was “Memories,” which they got out of the way pretty early on.
Part of the fun this year was Weezer’s selection of cover songs. First up was Foster the People’s “Pumped Up Kicks” in which Rivers was holding a sheet with the lyrics for most of the performance. Apparently they just learned how to play it but they nailed it. The other cover they played was Radiohead’s “Paranoid Android.” At first I thought they were just fucking off but they put on a full on serious rendition of the song and it sounded pretty awesome.
SETLIST: Pork N Beans, Surf Wax America, Perfect Situation, Memories, We Are All On Drugs, Pumped Up Kicks (Foster the People), My Name is Jonas, Dope Nose, Island in the Sun, Troublemaker, The Sweater Song, Hash Pipe, Keep Fishin, Photograph, Paranoid Android, Say It Ain’t So, (If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To, Beverly Hills, Buddy Holly
As evidenced by the fact that A Perfect Circle played 10 of the 12 songs off of their 2004 album eMOTIVe, this was essentially a tour that never happened back when the album was new. I had not seen them since 2004 right before I moved from Portland to San Diego about seven months before eMOTIVe came out. The only new music we got to hear was the song “By and Down” that they closed the night with.
Although I respect their reworkings of an eclectic collection of politically charged songs I do not think I am alone in saying that an album of covers is not my favorite A Perfect Circle material. Despite my feelings about eMOTIVe the price of admission was worth its weight in gold when they played “The Noose” and “The Package.”
SETLIST: Annihilation, Imagine, Weak and Powerless, The Hollow, What’s Going On,” People Are People, The Outsider, Rose, Peace, Love and Understanding, When the Levee Breaks, The Noose, 3 Libras, The Package, Gimmie Gimmie Gimmie, Magdalena, Passive, Counting Bodies Like Sheep To The Rhythm of the War Drums, Fiddle And The Drum, By and Down
On April 9, 1997 Soundgarden announced they were disbanding. I felt super lucky to have been able to see them just the summer before this break up. Time warp with me to 2011 and Soundgarden announced that “school is back in session” and the band was going on tour for the month of July. When that was announced it was not a matter of if I was going to go see them, it was only a matter of where. Bob and I decided The Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel in Vegas would be the where in the form of a road trip with our significant others Ingrid and Jasmine. It would still be over a year from this point that the band would release the comeback album King Animal.
After spending Friday at the pool and Friday night at Dick’s Last Resort where Jasmine had a hookup we were all feeling pretty capital on Saturday, especially since it was over 100 degrees outside. After an early dinner Jasmine was DONE so retired back to her room, Ingrid decided to go out on her own and Bob and I hopped into a cab to get to the show. It was in said cab that we split up and ate the bag of mushrooms we brought with us. We were scared to each eat half the eighth because there were so many caps & stems but onward and upward.
The Joint reminded me a lot of House of Blues but it was a little bigger. We got general admission tickets and stood in the middle of the floor section the whole time. Surprisingly it was actually not very dense down there. This opened the door for some annoying drunk guy to keep bugging us when we could barely talk. We were ignoring him but he was not getting the hint. The next thing you know he totally redeemed himself when he disappeared, came back with two beers for us and then disappeared again for good.
Soundgarden ripped. It was a little different seeing them at their own show versus having a non-headlining slot on Lollapalooza. They set the tone early by opening with “Searching With My Good Eye Closed” in front of a giant backdrop of the Badmotorfinger album cover. Kim Thayil’s Guild guitar was literally snarling on “Gun” and “Beyond the Wheel,” Chris’ voice sounded fucking incredible and Matt and Ben held down some furious rhythms. One might argue that it was the shrooms, but Chris Cornell’s long hair and long beard left me feeling like we just saw Jesus play a show.
Our night and the “trip” was far from over after the final notes of “Slaves & Bulldozers.” My first indication was when we spilled out into the casino and the floors appeared as if they were “rolling” beneath us. Bless Ingrid for cabbing it to the Hard Rock to help us out. The three of us got into a cab and my fits of laughter were too contagious for the cabbie to resist laughing right along with me. We had him drop us off at the AM/PM across the street from the Excalibur where we were staying. I was too effed to go into the store to buy beer so I waited outside. As I did an SUV full of possible prostitutes pulled up and said “Heyyyyyyyy. You wanna party?” Hell no. Beer in hand we walked across the street and found three giant rocks amongst astroturf near an Excalibur sign that we decided would be a perfect spot to drink. We seemed to be there for hours and drank all the beer. During this time we made friends with an Iron Maiden loving guy who had been quarreling loudly with his girlfriend only moments earlier. He left and in his place a drunken Irishman appeared. He loved our rock ways and said “I have to go to my room to get my whiskey. Don’t leave. I’ll be right back.” That was fine and dandy except after he left a security guard for Excalibur showed up on a bicycle and informed us the party was over…after we had already been there for hours…but what do I know? I was under the influence of mushrooms and Bud Light.
The next day we caught a movie to try to avoid some of the traffic but it did not matter. Driving back from Vegas is always hell. You feel like shit from drinking and not getting enough sleep and to top it off most of the way back is two lanes of asshole drivers that will cut you off if you do not ride the ass of the car in front of you. Getting to Vegas from San Diego is about a four and a half hour drive on a good day. The way back is always longer but this particular time took over 10 hours! It was at that moment I vowed to never drive to Vegas again. I reasoned that if I did not have enough money to fly then I probably did not have any business being there anyway. Despite the hellacious car ride home it was worth every minute to get to see Soundgarden again.
SETLIST: Searching With My Good Eye Closed, Spoonman, Gun, Jesus Christ Pose, Blow Up the Outside World, The Day I Tried to Live, My Wave, Pretty Noose, Fell on Black Days, Ugly Truth, Big Dumb Sex, Loud Love, Outshined, Rusty Cage, Black Rain, Black Hole Sun, Head Down, Burden in My Hand, Superunknown, 4th of July, Beyond the Wheel, Hands All Over, Slaves & Bulldozers
It is probably a very strange thing for an artist to be playing at fairgrounds after selling out arenas in the past. Pat Benetar was a mega star back in the 80’s. In fact the second video ever played on MTV was “You Better Run” by Pat Benetar, which made her the first female artist ever played on MTV and Neil “Spyder” Giraldo the first guitar player to ever play on MTV (for those of you that don’t know MTV used to be a channel that played music videos). They played a really cool acoustic version of the song with just her and Neil. They interlaced the songs with storytelling of how some of the songs came together and how Pat and Neil came together and got married (they were bandmates first and have been married since 1982).
I have always liked the harder edged Pat Benetar songs because they are very guitar driven and she has a great voice. Both her voice and Neil’s guitar playing still sounded incredible. Pat Benetar had no backup singers at her age; just her wailing away. I don’t remember them playing my favorite song “Treat Me Right” but I do remember them playing “Hell Is For Children,” “Invincible” and “Heartbreaker.” If they had any weird feelings about playing the San Diego County Fair they certainly did not show it. They just seemed genuinely happy to still be able to do what they love doing.
After a very non-traditional route I finally graduated with my Bachelor’s Degree from San Diego State University. Once the guys in System of a Down caught wind of this they decided to play San Diego on the same day the graduation ceremony took place. All right so maybe that’s not exactly how it went down but nonetheless I could not think of a better way to celebrate than to go see one of my favorite bands play a show. And play they did! This is one of the bands that have the ability to sound even better live than on the recorded albums. Ingrid, Larry and Christi accompanied me to the cookie cutter amphitheater out in the middle of nowhere to witness a very charged performance. Did they really play 30 songs? The newest album was still 2005’s Hypnotize and I had not seen them for almost five years. Daron Malakian could not stop moving throughout the entire concert. He kept dancing and spinning around which enhanced the overall vibe. They went deep into the catalog as I cannot recall seeing “Suggestions” or “P.L.U.C.K.” played live before or at least not very often. “Holy Mountains” was holy fucking intense.
SETLIST: Prison Song, B.Y.O.B., Know, Needles, Deer Dance, Attack, Radio/Video, Hypnotize, Question!, Suggestions, Psycho, Chop Suey!, Lonely Day, Soldier Side – Intro, Soldier Side, Bounce, Kill Rock ‘N Roll, Lost in Hollywood, Forest, Science, Holy Mountains, Aerials, Tentative, Cigaro, Suite-Pee, War?, Toxicity, P.L.U.C.K., Sartarabad, Sugar
Big shout out to YouTube user “DoubleAdaFool” for catching nearly the entire concert on high quality video for me to relive or for you to pretend like you were there.
