Pat Dailey - I had no idea who this guy was until my evil-ex-girfriend-number-two and I went to visit my dad and stepmom in Ohio. Pat Dailey is a singer-songwriter who plays at Put-in-Bay, an island on Lake Erie, and he also plays extensively in Florida. He is oftentimes compared to Jimmy Buffet and the guy has a fairly awe-inspiring legion of fans. Most memorable was a song about having a threesome with two girls and Pat as he "jumped into the pile." He also played at a place that called itself the longest bar, which was essentially a bar that wrapped around most of the restaurant. The show would have been a hell of a lot more enjoyable if my now--thank fucking god--ex-girlfriend had not been there. She disappeared during the show for over an hour, and I frantically went looking for her, only to see her outside smoking cigarettes, drunk and trying to hang with people who generally wanted nothing to do with her; she was probably trying to find drugs of some sort.
KMFDM x2 - I first saw KMFDM at the Ventura Theater and the turnout must have been very disappointing for the group; there were seriously like 60 people there. The band didn't seem to be phased and rocked the hell out of the place and quite possibly rocked some actual hearing loss in my left ear...seriously. My hearing has never been the same. Kids...remember your earplugs when attending live shows, especially when you are practically leaning against a monster-sized amp.
After apparently not suffering enough the first time, I went to the American Legion Hall in L.A. and saw them again. This show was completely packed and those crazy KMFDM guys put on a momentous show, but what struck me the most was spoken word artist Nicole Blackman who opened for the band and also sang during one or two of the songs. Ms. Blackman was all dark venom, beautiful voice and well...beautiful. She actually made the show for me. *She also went on to "sing" for The Golden Palominos
on the album Dead Inside, which I love. What is she doing now?Primus at some sort of big event thing - I don't really remember the deal with this one, other than a bunch of my musician friends worship at the alter of Les Claypool. I'm not a big Primus fan, but I vaguely remembered having an okay time.
Lollapalooza the third - Okay, I fucking hate big giant outdoor event shows. Sure some of the best bands do them, but they are usually in a fucking desert with very expensive refreshments and the highest proportion of drunken/drugged douche bags in existence. I cannot imagine a worse way to spend the day than in the baking hot sun, surrounded by an 85:15 dude-to-girl ratio of wasted morons trying to mosh to George Clinton and other non-moshable bands. I think the Beastie Boys, Smashing Pumpkins were there, although I was more concerned with the tumultuous sea of stupidity churning in front of my group.
One high point was a fist throwing, shirtless dude with a three-foot long stocking cap springing from the mosh malevolence straight at my friend's girlfriend. This idiot was three feet in the air and my friend, a pretty big guy, stepped in front of her, locked his arm forward and the flying moron slammed face first into my friends palm. Full on double palm face. The guy dropped to the ground like a rock, shook the stars from his head and rejoined the mosh.
Things were so stupid that the Beastie Boys stopped the show to yell at the assholes who were groping a crowd surfing woman and they also reprimanded all the moshers asking them to pogo instead.
Finally, after I had seen enough, I went to the mist tent to cool off so that I would not faint from heat exhaustion, and while standing there, an older hesher-chick walked into the tent, saw me and said, "Don't worry about it, Baby. Just take it off! Take it all off! Yeah!" Um...okay, but maybe not in the mist tent, and maybe after a shower, in a private air conditioned room, after a cool drink and a sandwich or something...wait...where did she go?
Lush x2.5 - I have a definite soft spot for this band. I love them. A group of us drove to Glam Slam in L.A. to see Lush with Weezer as an opening band. Weezer was great, but then Lush came on stage and I was loosing my mind. I then lost my mind in a completely different way when Glam Slam began to experience major technical difficulties during the second or third song. We ended up waiting for an hour and a half in the roasting nightclub, when finally Miki Berenyi took the stage to rip on the establishment and the two giant pillars in the theater that sported two naked women holding up the ceiling. The band later announced that they were canceling the night but they would attempt to play again the next day at the same bat-place at the same bat-time. Immensely disappointed we drove back to Santa Barbara, shuffled all of our work schedules and were able to return the next night to see the show. Lael also almost got kicked out of Glam Slam when he went into the unused Prince V.I.P. area, but he talked his way out of it. Regardless, the show was great and they played all of my favorite songs. The worst part was after the show had ended and roadies were packing up the gear, some asshole decided that he wanted the set list, jumped on stage, took the set list to which the roadies just shrugged their shoulders with indifference, and the guy leapt from the stage as if the theater was still full. It wasn't. Most everyone had left, except for my group who were chatting and the guy crashed into Rita, knocking her to the ground and giving her a raging headache. I went to find the asshole to pummel him, not something I do, but he was long gone.
I then saw Lush again in L.A. with the manager of the evil music store corporation, an odd and overly excitable but nice enough guy and a girl that I had been anguishing over for a year or two at that time. She ended up getting too hot down on the floor and went up to the second level to watch the show and pull herself together. This was not exactly where I wanted to watch the show, but I was happy to be with her anyways, despite firmly securing myself to the "friend/nicest-guy zone."
More of this stuff later...
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