Orgy

Filter/Orgy 5/19/16

Filter:Orgy

So this show had been on my radar largely because Orgy was opening up for Filter. I had only seen Orgy once (see Big Stink 4 8/8/99) and just missed them play a headlining show at the end of January. I was on the fence for this show since it was on a “school night” but decided against going once I learned that the only original member of Orgy was the singer Jay Gordon. I guess if you’re going to have only one original member the singer is the best person to have because the voice/emotion is not as easy to replicate as guitar tones. Ultimately I was just scared of tarnishing the memory of the first time I saw Orgy since it was so great. That is until I won four tickets on a lark from entering a contest from a Facebook ad. I never win anything so that was pretty cool. I got Tom and Bob on board but Tom flaked out at the last minute. I ended up selling one of the tickets for $10 to a guy that met us at the venue. There were two other bands (Death Valley High and Vampires Everywhere) but Orgy was already playing when we walked in. We got to see them play “Octagon,” “Fiction (Dreams in Digital),” “Suckerface,” “Stitches,” “Blue Monday” and a few new songs that did not sound bad. It was fantastic. Not as good as the first time I saw them but still fantastic (though apparently they could not afford to buy their own backdrop (see picture). For “Blue Monday” Jay walked around the floor and was going up to people having them sing verses of the song.

Filter headlined the show and were touring for their new album Crazy Eyes. I love Filter and saw them about five times prior to this but I have just not been able to get into any of the albums after The Amalgamat. Lucky for me roughly half the songs they played were from the first three albums including “(Can’t You) Trip Like I Do,” “You Walk Away,” “Jurassitol,” “Take A Picture,” “Welcome to the Fold,” “American Cliche’,” “The Best Things,” and “Hey Man Nice Shot.” Richard Patrick had an entirely new touring band that seemed to click a little better than the last time I saw Filter open up for Chevelle and Bush. Rich bore a slight resemblance to Hitler partially because of the lighting, partially because of my beer consumption and mostly because of his haircut. If he decided to grow that stupid little mustache he could get cast for the role of Hitler no problem. My faith has been restored in seeing Filter live. Now I just need to get into albums four through seven…

I would be remiss if I did not share the story about the Uber we caught after the show. Guy picks us up I say how’s it going? He says alright but my transmission is shitty. I say “you know what’s good for a shitty transmission? Pantera.” He says I don’t have that but fuck yeah! Then he puts on Metallica’s And Justice for All album (my favorite Metallica album) at full volume and we proceed to rock the fuck out the entire drive home but halfway through the ride he reaches for his glovebox and says “You guys wanna smoke some weed?” Best. Uber. Ever.

Filter Crazy Eyes

Big Stink 4 8/8/99

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Remember that other rock station in Portland I told you about? This was their summer rock festival. This was my second concert at the Portland Meadows and Roscoe and I drove down from Kennewick. The first band that I wanted to see was Zebrahead. I liked them based on their album Waste of Mind. They played on the second stage and with a very high amount of energy. They touted themselves as “mutherfuckinzebraheadbitch” which was also pretty damn funny. I distinctly remember using the time that Blink 182 was on to get food and chill since I didn’t and still don’t give a shit about them.  After they left we were on to the highlight of the show for me, Orgy. They are the darkest band I have ever seen in the daylight. They just had a very powerful stage presence. They were on tour for their debut album Candyass and this turned out to be the only time I saw them which sucks because I like their unreleased-at-the-time next album Vapor Transmission even better. The next band I wanted to see was Oleander. I started liking them thanks to their song “Why I’m Here.” They were on tour for their first album February Son and they rocked. After they were done the next band up were hometown boys Everclear. This was the second time I saw them but the first since they became huge MTV staples. I think they put on an extra special show since they were in Portland or maybe the stars just aligned but they put on a great show. The headlining band was Deftones. This was the fourth time I saw them and they were only getting better every time I saw them. You have to give them credit for touring their ass off and they still were for Around the Fur.

An interesting sidenote of this show was that I was approached by John Casablancas’ people about modeling. I was semi-interested because at this point I did not know what the hell I was going to do with my life, I knew that the possibility of travel existed and getting paid for hanging around with attractive women didn’t sound that bad either. It’s not that I’m incredible to look at, it’s just that my body type fits the mold and I don’t look like everybody else. This summer I had taken pictures and sent them off to modeling agencies in New York and Los Angeles. I heard back from 2 of the agencies that I sent pictures to, one in NY and one in L.A.

The Family Values Tour 10/13/98

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The Family Values tour was created and headlined by Korn and 1998 was the first edition. That year it also featured Rammstein, Ice Cube, Incubus, Limp Bizkit and Orgy. The reason why I included this show is because it never happened. This tour didn’t run through Seattle or Portland so we decided on Boise, Idaho since that was the closest the tour came. Instead of getting to finally see Korn (see Lollapalooza 1997) the curse continued and the concert was cancelled. The really shitty thing was they didn’t cancel the show until four days beforehand. I was so upset that I ended up writing Korn a letter (super funny to read now). Needless to say, I never got a response. They did end up releasing an album of material that was recorded live on that tour. Unrelated but I had also started a job at UPS working in the warehouse.

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