San Diego State University

Tool 5/2/07

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This show was originally supposed to be on March 20th but got rescheduled due to drummer Danny Carey tearing a bicep while “picking up his dog at home.” Danny Carey is six foot five so he must have a giant fucking dog! All joking aside this show’s audience was a little more under control than when I saw them at Street Scene about nine months prior because there were actual seats. Everyone had assigned seats even on the floor and ushers were walking around with flashlights to ensure people stayed in their seats. I am lucky that I have perfect eyesight because my seat was at the back of the arena but the silver lining was that it was behind the mixing board so the sound was excellent. The visual aspect of Tool’s performance intensified every time I had seen them and this my sixth time seeing them was off the charts. The floor of the stage was completely white and they used this previously untapped resource to project things onto the floor. Even the stage crew got in on the action by wearing white lab coats.

Since this was the official tour for 10,000 Days we got to hear some songs they did not play at Street Scene: “Rosetta Stoned,” “Right In Two,” and “Wings” Parts 1 & 2. I remember Maynard commenting something to the effect of how polite it was to drink beer and holler during a song that was written about his mother who passed away when they did “Wings.” Danny’s bicep must have healed up nicely because he put on an absolute drumming clinic during “Right in Two.” Phenomenal show.

SETLIST: Jambi, Stinkfist, Forty-Six & 2, Schism, Lost Keys (Blame Hofmann), Rosetta Stoned, Right in Two, Wings for Marie (Pt. 1), 10,000 Days (Wings, Pt. 2), Lateralus, Vicarious, Aenema

Pearl Jam 7/7/06

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Pearl Jam was touring for their eponymous album aka The Avocado Album that was released in May of this year. Growing up in Washington State I cannot believe that this was my first time seeing Pearl Jam…and it almost didn’t happen. I again for whatever reason did not have a ticket so I decided to scour Craigslist at the last minute. I came across a peculiar ad titled “Free Pearl Jam Ticket.” First I thought it was total bullshit but decided to click anyway. It said something to the effect of “My buddy bailed on me so I have an extra ticket. Just buy me a couple beers and the ticket is yours. First come, first served.” The ad had been posted about 40 minutes before my eyes laid upon it so I thought even if it was legit someone else would have already beat me to the punch but I called the number just to make sure. Guy (sorry I’m bad with names) answered the phone and I said “I know you’ve probably already gotten a million calls for the Pearl Jam ticket…” He said, “Actually you’re the first.” I shot the shit with guy for a couple minutes and we decided upon a meeting place. I was still super skeptical right up to the minute I met him but much to my pleasant surprise the guy met me exactly where and when he said he would. The only thing about the ticket was that it was in the section behind the stage but beggars can’t be choosers. We were looking at the back of the band a lot of the time but to their credit the band paid us a fair amount of attention. This was my first experience of seeing Eddie downing red wine throughout the show which was pretty entertaining. The band was every bit as great as I expected them to be, drawing from all their albums fairly evenly. Pearl Jam fans are a different breed and thankfully so because I was able to locate a YouTube video of “Yellow Ledbetter” from this show and a soundboard quality audio of the entire show. Enjoy!

Full Show Audio HERE

SETLIST: Oceans, Severed Hand, Corduroy, Brain of J, World Wide Suicide, Love Boat Captain, Gone, Even Flow, Unemployable, Wasted Reprise, Better Man, Satan’s Bed, Not for You, You Are, Inside Job, Life Wasted, Rearviewmirror, Long Road, Come Back, Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town, Crazy Mary (Victoria Williams), Crown of Thorns (Mother Love Bone), Alive, Last Kiss (Wayne Cochran) Comatose, Leash, Big Wave, Rockin’ in the Free World (Neil Young), Yellow Ledbetter

Foo Fighters 9/27/05

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A tour in which Weezer opened for Foo Fighters dubbed the “Foozer” tour. Weezer was touring for their underrated album Make Believe that had just come out in May. I think Dee may have came with me but I’m sure Macy came with me only because I remember she was scared shitless riding in my topless Jeep on the way home. I had only seen Weezer one other time up to this point eight years earlier (ironically also opening up for another band) so I was pretty excited to see them again. I think two bands of this caliber on the same bill elevates the performance of each because I’m sure they have no desire to be outdone by the other. Weezer’s backdrop looked like a jumbo version of the one that the band stands in front of on the Make Believe album. One of the things I love about Weezer is that the music is light, poppy, and heavy all at once and that was on full display here. Several three-minute bursts of hooky rock in rapid succession. Besides the new songs it was also cool to finally see songs from the Green Album and Maladroit performed as well.

SETLIST: “My Name is Jonas,” “Peace,” “Don’t Let Go,” “ In the Garage,” “This is Such a Pity,” “Big Me,” “Perfect Situation,” “Why Bother?,” “El Scorcho,” “Say It Ain’t So,” “We Are All On Drugs,” “Surf Wax America,” “Beverly Hills,” “Buddy Holly,” “Photograph,” “Island in the Sun,” “Undone – The Sweater Song,” “Hash Pipe”

This was my third time seeing Foo Fighters. I had just seen them about a year before this but now they were touring for the double album In Your Honor that came out about three months before this show. The album is one half traditional rockers (Disc 1) and one half slower acoustic songs (Disc 2). Foo Fighters flat out rocked on this night and were able to blend four new songs in with some of their classics. Their stage setup was a cool arrangement of asymmetric amps and video screens. I’m pretty sure Dave Grohl could have made it as a comic if he wasn’t so good at being a musician because he is a funny bastard. Besides rocking our world and making us laugh he treated us to a cover of CCR’s “Born on the Bayou.” Kick. Ass.

SETLIST: “In Your Honor,” “All My Life,” “My Hero,” “Best of You,” “Up In Arms,” “Learn to Fly,” “The Last Song,” “The One,” “Stacked Actors,” “Everlong,” “DOA,” “This Is A Call,” “Born on the Bayou,” “Breakout”

Nine Inch Nails 9/16/05

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There I was standing on the floor of the packed arena at San Diego State University watching Queens of the Stone Age for the first time. They were touring for the album Lullabies to Paralyze that had come out in March. I had come alone, which by this point was nothing new, because I couldn’t recruit any of my friends to come to the show with me. Shortly after the band started to play “Feel Good Hit of the Summer” I was lucky enough to meet two generous stoners who didn’t mind sharing their joint with me. I say lucky because this was a rare occasion where I didn’t just sneak in my own. Not that I “had” to have one, but it always enhanced my experience. The beauty of this concert was not only that I got to see Queens of the Stone Age for the first time, but the fact that they were opening for Nine Inch Nails. This was to be the second time I had the pleasure of seeing them. Towards the end of the interim between bands camera flashes started going off in anticipation of Trent Reznor and the rest of his band hitting the stage. This is when it finally hit me. I had always wanted to write a book but had never quite figured out what I wanted to write about. When I was younger I never really took that many pictures but the camera flashes got me thinking about how other people document their life through the pictures they take. It is said that a photograph is worth a thousand words. With that in mind someone can look at one of their photographs and tell you exactly where they were, who they were with, and all the circumstances surrounding that moment in time. When I started thinking about this it dawned on me that I document my life in the same manner through my concert ticket stubs because I’ve kept one from each concert I have ever been to. I can look at the stub and tell you the exact date, who attended the concert with me, where I worked at the time, who I was dating, etc. That is what spawned this blog (originally intended as a book).

This concert was special because it was a “2 for the price of 1.” Let me explain. By this point the internet had taken over the ticket world and more specifically the legal ticket scalping world. Basically even if you logged on to Ticketmaster, etc. right when the tickets first went on sale you would still end up getting really crappy seats that were expensive because the legal scalpers had figured out a way to suck up all the good tickets that were not already given out to radio stations, etc. I say this because I had pretty much all but given up on buying tickets the traditional way and instead tried to buy tickets off of people looking to get rid of them at the last minute. This was one of those times but I ended up buying it for way less than face value (I want to say $20) from a legal scalper. He said that they just bought too many and now were trying to unload them for something.

Nine Inch Nails was touring for With Teeth that had come out in May and this was the first night of the tour. They came out behind what looked like a giant mesh screen that images were projected onto and proceeded to take us on a thorough musical journey. Jeordie White (better known as Twiggy from Marilyn Manson) was in this incarnation of the Nine Inch Nails touring band. So they played what seemed like a full set but all of a sudden they stopped playing and disappeared for quite awhile. Nobody knew what the hell was going on until Trent came out and apologized to the crowd saying they had an unexpected emergency and would be coming back to make it up at a later date. It turns out what happened is they had to cut their set short because the drummer Jerome Dillon had a heart-related health issue that caused him to be rushed to the hospital. They ended up coming back on November 20th to play the “make up date” which was just fine with me.