Bush

Epicenter 9/22/12

Epicenter 2012

What started in 2009 became “Southern California’s Rock Festival” that took place annually at various venues around Los Angeles. I had not attended since that inaugural date but this year’s lineup piqued my interest because it had been four to five years since I had seen Scars on Broadway, Deftones and Stone Temple Pilots. As far as I’m concerned the other bands were a nice bonus. Bob drove Tom and I up to Irvine with just enough time to make a beer run, check into our hotel and get over to the Irvine Amphitheater. The trouble began with a toothache that turned our beer run into a beer and whiskey run. My tooth had been bothering me for a couple days but I did not have time to go to the dentist so I figured whiskey would act as a redneck remedy. Unfortunately for anyone in my path it also acted as a gateway to a very intoxicated me.

I remember wandering around the grounds and seeing a little bit of bands on the second stage like Hollywood Undead but Dead Sara was the first band we really gave any shits about. It had been five months since we saw them open for Chevelle and blow them off the stage, which was just a couple weeks removed from the release of their self-titled debut album. They put on a hell of a show this time too but the music just did not seem to translate as well to a bigger stage.

Chevelle made good on the opportunity at redemption by cranking it up to the level of performance we had come to expect over the years. It was weird to see them play in the daylight again since we had grown accustomed to the headlining shows.

Four years had elapsed since I was introduced to Scars on Broadway right here at this very same venue during the KROQ Weenie Roast. It was fun the way it went down that original time but now I had a solid four years of digesting the eponymous album, which made this show so much more fun to watch. Thanks to YouTuber “Gun Dink” you can also watch:

Bush was up next. It had been almost a year to the day since we had last seen them open for Chevelle. It was essentially the same show as that occasion with Gavin coming out through the crowd again.

I had not gotten the chance to see any songs from the excellent Diamond Eyes album performed since my last Deftones concert was about five years before this so I was beyond elated when they started their set with my two favorite songs off the album. They were still a couple months away from releasing Koi No Yokan but they still played two songs from the album. Deftones rocked but it must be said that right about this time I was getting really ornery and ended up breaking the seat in front of me if that is any indication of what planet I was on. I also found a number of shitty 5-10 second videos on my phone afterwards of really good shots of the ground and pretty much anything but the stage with me screaming along for audio.

SETLIST: Rocket Skates, Diamond Eyes, Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away), My Own Summer (Shove It), Digital Bath, You’ve Seen the Butcher, Bloody Cape, Leathers, Rosemary, Change (In the House of Flies), 7 Words

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STP had released their eponymous album since I had last seen them about four years before this so I excited to see them again. I was pretty lit for their performance but do remember Scott Weiland was a dancing machine and seemed to be very present for this performance as he provided a lot of banter in between songs. I also remember that Dean’s guitar playing was on fire. We did not know it at the time but sadly this would be the last time we would see Scott Weiland front Stone Temple Pilots as the very next night would be his final performance ever with the band.

SETLIST: Crackerman, Vaseline, Hickory Dichotomy, Meatplow, Big Empty, Between the Lines, Interstate Love Song, Plush, Tumble in the Rough, Big Bang Baby, Trippin’ on a Hole in a Paper Heart, Unglued, Sex Type Thing

After the show we took a bus to our hotel and I almost immediately got kicked out of our hotel bar because I basically fell forward into the bar. This lead to all three of us smoking weed in Bob’s car in the parking lot. Neither Tom nor Bob ever smoke weed so that was a fitting end to such an eventful day.

 

Chevelle 9/27/11

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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

 

Snowball 12/8/99

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Apparently Filter and Bush played but I only really remember the Foo Fighters because I had never seen them before. I became an immediate fan simply based on Dave Grohl being in Nirvana but actually liked the music too. Dave Grohl is a badass and he kicked a lot of ass that night. They were on tour for the recently released There Is Nothing Left to Lose album. One memorable moment was when Dave said “I’m gonna sing this next song to Taylor” and played whatever song it was just facing Taylor Hawkins but the highlight was when Dave got behind the drum kit himself. He just went nuts and reminded everyone just how talented he is.

This was an interesting show for me because of my love life. I was hired on for the holiday season at a retail store called Meier & Frank. Working in a four level retail store at the mall was a wonderful way to meet women. The problem was that I was not interested in any of the girls that outwardly showed interest in me. I worked as a “floater,” which meant I didn’t know what department I was going to work in until I showed up for work. One day I was assigned to Men’s Sportswear and that’s when I saw her. An angelic, sweet, and innocent looking girl named Lucinda. I couldn’t stop looking at her but she wanted nothing to do with me. A day shortly after I was assigned to a department that was right next to Men’s Sportswear and I happened to work with a girl named Robin, who happened to be Lucinda’s best friend. Turns out Lucinda had a boyfriend. Not that long after she broke up with him and invited me to her birthday party. It was at Robin’s apartment, which happened to be in the same building as Lucinda’s apartment. You get where I’m going with this. I previously agreed to go to this concert with Rose but had since fallen for Lucinda harder than any girl I had ever fallen for. Rose’s friend Tyler worked at the Memorial Coliseum and I remember not really wanting him to see me there with another girl because I really wasn’t trying to be with Rose at that point.

SETLIST: Stacked Actors, My Poor Brain, Breakout, Learn to Fly, Up in Arms, Ain’t it the Life, Monkey Wrench, Alone + Easy Target, Everlong, Aurora, This is a Call, I’ll Stick Around

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Bush 4/26/96

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Jack was responsible for introducing our group of friends to Bush. He had bought Sixteen Stone pretty early on and we all liked it. The album was successful enough for them to headline a tour and this was that tour. Jack, Earl, Marvin, and I made the drive to Tacoma in Marvin’s Chevy Cavalier. We had some time to kill before the concert so we went to a thrift store, which is something we did pretty frequently at this point, to look for cool clothes that were cheap. Jack ended up buying a flannel shirt (sounds cliché for the time and location, right?). Somehow Marvin and I ended up with seats while Earl and Jack had floor tickets. The opening band was No Doubt, who was just starting to get popular at the time with the release of Tragic Kingdom. I believe this was the tour where Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale started their romance. They put on a great show but next up was the Goo Goo Dolls. I did not and still do not care for them. The whole time these two bands were playing Marvin and I were trying to think up a scheme to get down to the floor. It was quite a drop from the seats to the floor so jumping down was out of the question. Then it hit us. After the Goo Goo Dolls were done Jack and Earl spotted us in the stands. Jack convinced the bouncer to allow his newly acquired flannel shirt to be passed over the wall to us. Inside the pocket were the two floor ticket stubs. We immediately left our seats and headed for the floor. The guards were apparently waiting for someone because one said, “oh, you must be the two we got the radio call about.” We obviously went along with it and soon were directly in front of the stage with our buddies. Bush played almost all of Sixteen Stone and maybe even a song from the yet unreleased Razorblade Suitcase. We didn’t have anywhere to stay in Tacoma so we decided to drive home after the show. It is normally about 4 hours to Kennewick from Tacoma but this drive took forever! It started to snow as we were going over the Cascades so we had to slow down in order to see and stay on the road. We were all wired on caffeine and didn’t end up making it home until the sun came up at about 6 in the morning but it was worth the while.

Tragic Kingdom

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