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Post by Unkie on Mar 21, 2024 8:17:40 GMT -5
It's been a hot minute since I gave you a rankdown, so here goes.
On December 5, I saw Queens Of The Stone Age in concert, my last concert of 2023. Looking back, they were the 30th artist I saw a full set from in the last year.
Talk about making up for lost time after first going to concerts in my late 20s.
While preparing for a second 20Hitz episode dedicated to artists M4B Radio's DJs saw in concert (it aired January 27), plus going over concert photos to share selections from the latest batch of shows to the My Concert Photos thread on here, I thought it would be fun to rank the concerts I went to from worst to best. Most of the headliners and some undercard bands strongly impressed me. There were a handful of just OK and slightly disappointing shows. And the bottom pick, honestly, sucked. (I'm posting this 2 months later than I planned because I just now finished it. As I write this I have since seen 4 bands at 2024's Innings Festival and I'm a day away from seeing The Armed.)
I am only counting sets I saw in full, so the Pretty Reckless (whose set I only caught the end of at the 2023 Innings Festival), Ludacris and Spiritualized (the latter two whose sets ended just after I arrived at the venue) are not included here.
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Post by Unkie on Mar 21, 2024 11:18:21 GMT -5
30. Good Boy DaisyDate: September 23, 2023 Venue: Tempe Marketplace, Tempe, AZ This pop rock duo with a supposed 90s influence opened a free Beach Weather concert in Tempe in September, but I left before Beach Weather because I wasn’t feeling the vibe of the crowd or the music of this duo. Plus, it doesn’t help that one of the songs in their set was a cover of one of the year’s most overrated and overexposed songs, “Flowers” by Miley Cyrus. 29. GlixenDate: October 24, 2023 Venue: The Van Buren, Phoenix, AZ I like shoegaze. I like to support local music. But Glixen, a Phoenix-based shoegaze band that was one of the openers of Citizen’s October 2023 show, bored me. The sound quality of their performance bothered me, too. I have seen their name thrown around as a band to watch, so I'm hoping they will better connect with me in the future. 28. SlumpedDate: May 11, 2023 Venue: 1720, Los Angeles, CA This little-known California emo pop group opened for Superheaven on their May 2023 West Coast tour. I tried to get into them, but I walked away from their performance not feeling wowed.
27. Taipei Houston Date: February 18, 2023 Venue: Crescent Ballroom, Phoenix, AZ The sons of Metallica’s Lars Ulrich make music together, but their sound is more Royal Blood than the band that made their music piracy-hating dad famous. Their set was unmemorable to me, with one exception: a radical instrumental reworking of the Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby”. 26. Slow Joy Date: October 7, 2023 Venue: Soda Bar, San Diego, CA I enjoyed part but not all of Slow Joy’s performance (I even charted one of their songs last summer and they have a song currently sitting on my bubbling under list), but the thing I remember more about them than the music was that I had an actual conversation with the band when I saw them in San Diego. 25. Troubled Minds Date: August 20, 2023 Venue: Crescent Ballroom, Phoenix, AZ This local to Phoenix band had a lot of promise when I saw them open for Fireworks in August, though they weren’t instant with me and I had a hard time getting into their studio recordings. The best moment of their set was a cover of “Shed” by Title Fight, probably the closest I’ll get to seeing it performed live by the original band as they’ve been on indefinite hiatus and its frontman has now turned to his Glitterer side project full time. 24. Modern Color Date: October 24, 2023 Venue: The Van Buren, Phoenix, AZ “Fortress”, the song Modern Color put out days before I saw them open for Citizen this past October, was a moderately big #2 hit for me, and it was one of the highlights of seeing them in concert. And it gave me an appreciation for a handful of their other songs. But they weren’t my first, or even second, choice for a band I’d want to see live. 23. Initiate Date: August 20, 2023 Venue: Crescent Ballroom, Phoenix, AZ It was hard to make out what the singer was singing - or in this case, screaming - and I couldn’t get into their studio recordings at all. But they got brownie points with me and the M4B Radio DJs for the fact their guitarist was wearing a T-shirt with the cover of Phil Collins’ album Face Value on it. If a person who plays in a hardcore punk band thinks Phil Collins is cool, f*** the haters. 22. Sydney Sprague Date: September 23, 2023 Venue: Zia Records, Mesa, AZ I probably would have given this M4B genre-favorite singer-songwriter from Phoenix, first introduced to the DJs through Cody, a higher rank had I seen her do a full set. But this is just based on her free in-store acoustic performance at Zia Records, where she performed the four singles off her second album Somebody In Hell Loves You. I didn’t chart any of the first three singles - I didn’t like them enough - but “Terrible Places” made my top 20 as a result of the concert. 21. The Breeders Date: October 3, 2023 Venue: Talking Stick Resort Amphitheater, Phoenix, AZ I saw the Breeders open for the Foo Fighters in October as part of a run of performances celebrating the 30-year anniversary of their album Last Splash (another leg of this run includes opening for Olivia Rodrigo), and their setlist focused heavily on the album’s songs. While it was cool to see Kim Deal, once one-half of the core of influential indie rockers Pixies, in concert, my opinion of the set mirrored my opinion of Last Splash when listening to it in preparation for the concert: halfway decent, but short of being great. It was bold for them to not save “Cannonball” for last, but the sleepy, countrified “Driving On 9” made for an unmemorable end that just made me wish for Dave Grohl to get on stage already. (They were still far, far better than the Struts.)
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Post by Unkie on Mar 21, 2024 11:54:52 GMT -5
20. Cloakroom Date: May 11, 2023 Venue: 1720, Los Angeles, CA This heavy shoegaze band first hit my radar when its singer, Doyle Martin, became a member of fellow heavy shoegaze band Nothing during their 2020 comeback era on my chart, The Great Dismal. The album Cloakroom put out two years later, the self-described space western Dissolution Wave, was an impressive work and its songs “Lost Meaning” and “Fear Of Being Fixed” - coincidentally, the first two songs of their set opening for Superheaven - were a huge deal with me. (“Fear Of Being Fixed” was my chart’s second biggest hit of 2022.) But other than those two songs, their music didn’t seem to translate well in a live setting and the last couple of songs felt like they dragged. 19. Spiritual Cramp Date: October 7, 2023 Venue: Soda Bar, San Diego, CA This post-punk revival band seemed out of place on a grungegaze bill topped by Teenage Wrist, but they got the crowd moving when I saw them. Their lead singer, Michael Bingham, carried himself with the energy of a capable headliner. I imagined these self-proclaimed “hard mods” as what it would have been like to catch a show at the bygone New York City punk club CBGB in its heyday. I just wish I enjoyed them more than I actually did. 18. Metric Date: June 11, 2023 Venue: Talking Stick Resort Amphitheater, Phoenix, AZ One of the biggest surprises for me this year was how impressed I was with Metric’s set opening for Garbage and Noel Gallagher’s co-headlining tour. They got things off to an instant start with “Gold Guns Girls” and from there I knew it would be a far better opening act experience from most other opening acts. While they packed a lot of memorable songs into their tight set time, I was slightly disappointed they didn’t do their big M4B hit from 2005, “Monster Hospital”. 17. Narrow Head Dates: February 18, 2023 / October 24, 2023 Venues: Crescent Ballroom / The Van Buren, Phoenix, AZ Narrow Head, a Deftones-lite band from Texas, is the only band I saw in concert twice in 2023: first as an opener for White Reaper in February and again as an opener for labelmates Citizen in October. The concerts gave me an appreciation for the key songs off their latest album Moments Of Clarity (particularly “Caroline”, which hit #2 on my chart after the February show), though I wish they included more songs from their previous album 12th House Rock in their two sets (for example, they snubbed “Night Tryst”, that album’s lead single and their other song to reach #2 on my chart). Points were taken off for the fight in the audience that broke out during “Gearhead” in the February show, which almost cut their set short. 16. Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds Date: June 11, 2023 Venue: Talking Stick Resort Amphitheater, Phoenix, AZ It’s obvious why Noel Gallagher gets points off on this one - the first half of his set. It was hard to keep my attention during his performances of the songs from his latest solo album Council Skies (though “Open The Door, See What You Find” is pretty good) and the whole time I was thinking to myself, GET TO THE OASIS SONGS! The second half of his set, fortunately, redeemed him - he did six Oasis songs, closing with the legendary and iconic “Don’t Look Back In Anger”. Even if he never reunites with Liam, it’s nice to say that I have the experience of seeing one of Oasis’s greatest songs played by its vocalist and writer in a live setting. 15. Janet Jackson Date: June 7, 2023 Venue: Talking Stick Resort Amphitheater, Phoenix, AZ As someone accustomed to rock shows, it was interesting to see how different a pop show was when I took Jessica to see Janet Jackson on her Together Again tour, with a career-spanning set that affirmed her legacy as one of our generation’s most defining superstars, Nipplegate be damned. Janet’s show involved little to no full-length song performances in favor of medleys, a way to incorporate as many songs from as many eras as possible without the set cutting too close to curfew; from reviews of other pop concerts I’ve read, it seems like it’s a common practice. In her two hours on stage, I could only recall the set closing “Together Again” being played in full. At times I wondered if Janet was singing live or if her voice was coming from a backing track. But I thought it was impressive that her singing and dancing felt like her peak era, that she hadn’t lost a beat from her Rhythm Nation days. 14. The Offspring Date: February 25, 2023 Venue: Innings Festival at Tempe Beach Park, Tempe, AZ Innings Festival 2023 was can’t miss for me because of that stacked lineup on the first of its two days: The Offspring, Weezer and Green Day back to back to back on the main stage. It felt like Hella Mega all over again, with The Offspring subbing for Fall Out Boy. The Offspring, one of the most influential bands of Southern California’s wave of punk music, loaded their set with hits - mostly from Smash and Americana - and wisely played only two songs released after 2008 (one of those songs was one of their very few keepers from that era, “Behind Your Walls”). While they did not appear to have the same energy as their peak and it felt like they were showing their age in places, it proved a solid start of what was to come later in the evening. And it was fun to hear lead singer Dexter Holland and guitarist Noodles leading the crowd into a shoutalong of the vulgar bridge of road rage anthem “Bad Habit” with banter describing the audience as “a heavenly choir who loves their curse words.” 13. Garbage Date: June 11, 2023 Venue: Talking Stick Resort Amphitheater, Phoenix, AZ In 2019, determined to cross a big item off Jessica's concert bucket list, we did a weekend trip to New Orleans after learning Garbage would headline a club show there. They played a career spanning set that stretched a little more than an hour and a half, with a solid mix of hits and deep cuts. (The best moment of that show for me was the encore when they unexpectedly did the Bleed Like Me opener “Bad Boyfriend”, a song that Dave Grohl played drums on for the album version.) That night, neither of us imagined we'd end up seeing them twice more, both times at amphitheaters in co-headlining bills with other Jess cores. Last time it was with Alanis Morissette, this time it was with Oasis’ Noel Gallagher. Their set was heavily singles oriented, promoting a greatest hits compilation, and the crowd pleasers like “Only Happy When It Rains”, “Stupid Girl”, “#1 Crush”, “I Think I'm Paranoid” and “Special” shared space with more obscure singles like “Bleed Like Me” and “Run Baby Run”. Their more recent “The Men Who Rule The World” and cover of Siouxsie and the Banshees’ “Cities In Dust” sounded great live. They dedicated their encore song “Cherry Lips”, with its bridge of “Go baby go”, to the Arizona Diamondbacks, who went on to make it into baseball's World Series that fall. Of the three times we saw Garbage, I would rank the June 2023 show second best. (Jess and I agreed the 2019 New Orleans show was the best we saw.) Now we wait to see which Jess core they coheadline with next. 12. Fireworks Date: August 20, 2023 Venue: Crescent Ballroom, Phoenix, AZ When I saw Fireworks, the pop punk band with strong indie rock influences, I was expecting their set would draw almost entirely from Higher Lonely Power, the album they surprise released on New Year’s Day 2023 that was a significant style shift from their previous albums (though in a good way). While they did play five songs from that album, their August show at Phoenix’s Crescent Ballroom instead was an hour-long reminder of their place in indie music, leaning more on songs from the pair of albums that became beloved among pop punk and emo audiences in the early 2010s, 2011’s Gospel and 2014’s Oh, Common Life. The biggest surprise of the show was that they did “Arrows”, their best known and most streamed song, third. (I expected it to be their closer.) 11. White Reaper Date: February 18, 2023 Venue: Crescent Ballroom, Phoenix, AZ This garage rock revival band-turned-Cheap Trick for the 2010s/20s headlined a show at the Crescent Ballroom around the time their single “Fog Machine” was taking off on my chart, and after spending weeks debating whether to go to the show, I decided to check out both their first album in their current style, 2017’s The World’s Best American Band, and the album their tour supported, Asking For A Ride, and liked both enough to get a ticket for the show. Their music absolutely translated well in a live setting, and despite the small venue they impressed me for sounding like they were arena ready. “Fog Machine” was a highlight, of course - the song spent five weeks at #1 on my chart thanks to the concert and ranked as my #6 song of 2023 - but so were “Little Silver Cross”, “Might Be Right” (the #1 alternative hit that the band introduced as the song they got on the radio), “Real Long Time”, “Bozo”, “Pink Slip” and their set closing “Judy French”, a song that held up well with me over the years despite only getting to #38 on my chart.
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Post by Unkie on Mar 21, 2024 16:02:31 GMT -5
10. Gin Blossoms Date: February 9, 2023 Venue: Super Bowl Experience at Hance Park, Phoenix, AZ They came to kick ass and chew bubblegum…and they’re out of bubblegum. So said Robin Wilson, the Gin Blossoms’ lead singer, during a hometown show as part of Phoenix’s Super Bowl festivities on a bill with fellow local heroes Jimmy Eat World. They wasted no time reminding the crowd of their standing as one of 90s alternative’s most reliable melody makers - they got right to it and did “Follow You Down” as their first song. Seven of the 13 songs they played came from New Miserable Experience, including the hits “Hey Jealousy” (played second to last), “Until I Fall Away” and “Allison Road” (introduced as the only song in the set about a street in Tempe). It was a satisfying set that proved their value above the nostalgia bait tours. Even the newer songs they played, including M4B hits “Break” (which peaked at #4 on my chart) and “Face The Dark”, don’t sound out of place alongside their classics. 9. Jimmy Eat World Date: February 9, 2023 Venue: Super Bowl Experience at Hance Park, Phoenix, AZ Taking cues from the band that came before them during the free Super Bowl week concert at Phoenix’s Hance Park, Jimmy Eat World started with a crowd pleaser without going for the most obvious crowd pleaser first, opening with “A Praise Chorus” from Bleed American. (They closed with “The Middle” because of course they did.) The rest of their set was all killer, no filler, focused almost entirely on their 2000s alt rock hits, though also squeezing in “Lucky Denver Mint” from their cult classic second album Clarity to please the fans that knew them from when they were playing basement shows in their hometown of Mesa, minutes from openers Gin Blossoms’ hometown of Tempe. While I wished their set was maybe a little bit longer (they played for about an hour and 15 minutes, ending just before 10 p.m. to avoid breaking the venue’s curfew), you can’t beat free. 8. Citizen Date: October 24, 2023 Venue: The Van Buren, Phoenix, AZ “Again?” The reaction from Jessica when I mentioned plans to see Citizen on their tour supporting their latest album Calling The Dogs suggests I’ve probably had enough of seeing this shape shifting Midwestern rock band in concert. (The answer after the third time is yes, for now: I’m skipping their upcoming return to Phoenix opening for Taking Back Sunday.) The advantage of seeing a band often is getting to see how their sets evolve over time and what surprises they might pull. The biggest surprises of their October show at the Van Buren, the same venue where I saw them the second time as an opener for Joyce Manor, were that they didn’t entirely reach for their most obvious crowd pleasers. They did the sparse, haunting ballad “Yellow Love”, which has since become one of their most streamed songs, despite rarely performing it on previous tours. They did “Stain”, a reinterpretation of the noise rock song “Then Comes Dudley” by the Jesus Lizard, despite it being one of the most divisive songs in their catalog (it has been both favorably and unfavorably compared to Brand New’s “Vices”). They did “Your Head Got Misplaced”, a song from their debut album Youth that doesn’t really get as much love as the album’s flawless first half. While I enjoyed seeing Citizen on this third go-around (as I did the first and second times) I noticed the crowd did not seem as enthusiastic or energized as they were the previous times I saw them. During the first two times, I stayed far behind the stage to avoid getting caught in circle pits. Even when lead singer Mat Kerekes shouted for a circle pit during the beginning of the not-really-suitable-for-moshing “When I Let You Down”, I got the sense the audience thought of it as a chore. This time I was able to be close to the front without risking rib injuries. 7. Superheaven Date: May 11, 2023 Venue: 1720, Los Angeles, CA It seemed like an absolutely questionable decision. Less than two days after returning to Arizona from Jessica and Kim’s wedding ceremony in Florida, I embarked on a mini-vacation to Southern California that included exploring downtown Palm Springs and driving through Joshua Tree National Park to see its scenic overlooks (I did attempt a hike, but it was too damn hot for it). Before that was probably the most questionable stop on the itinerary. East L.A. is sketchy as f*** and the warehouse district where the club 1720 is looked like its best days were far, far behind it - if it ever had best days at all. During the entirety of the four hours I was inside the venue, I feared that my car might be broken into. But it was worth it. I got to see Superheaven. Superheaven (first known as Daylight) is a grunge revival band who released two albums in the mid-2010s before breaking up. But after the pandemic they reunited for a series of anniversary concerts celebrating 10 years since the release of the first of those two albums, Jar. Its songs, particularly “Life In A Jar”, “Last October”, “In On It” and their most popular song “Youngest Daughter” (which went viral on TikTok two months after I saw them in concert), grew to become favorites of mine in the years when the musical influence of ex-friends influenced me to seek out more obscure music on my own and Youtube and Last.fm rabbit holes led me to many of the bands playing some hybrid of grunge, punk, emo and shoegaze who’d come to fall under the umbrella term of “Unkiecore”. The show I attended featured the band playing Jar in full for the first time ever (Setlist.fm says it was their first time performing “Last October”) and ended with an encore of two highlights from their second album Ours Is Chrome, “Downswing” and “Poor Aileen”, a song inspired by the 2004 biopic of serial killer Aileen Wuornos, Monster. Fortunately, my car wasn’t broken into. But I ran into two nails that punctured one of my tires. I had to get the tire patched up before leaving Los Angeles, and weeks later I had to get all the tires replaced as they were on their last legs. I am in no hurry to return to L.A., and it would take a big deal event I can’t experience locally for me to come back. 6. Heavenward Date: October 7, 2023 Venue: Soda Bar, San Diego, CA When I went to L.A. for Superheaven, Jessica said she could have pictured me traveling to California for Teenage Wrist, but not for Superheaven. Jess’s comment proved prophetic: My next trip to California involved seeing Teenage Wrist in concert. But I could have seen the Wrist in Phoenix, as they played the Rebel Lounge, the midtown club where I saw them on their previous tour just three days after moving to the city. Why did I go out of my way to California for them? The ex-lead singer’s new band Heavenward. Kamtin Mohager, a former touring bassist for the shitty electro-rap duo 3OH!3, launched a music career in the late 2000s/early 2010s as the Chain Gang of 1974, performing indie-adjacent electronic music. But his heart was in the shoegaze and dream pop music of the 1990s, and Teenage Wrist - named for a song from Afghan Whigs side project Twilight Singers - formed out of a desire to chase his love for that era of music. Mohager left Teenage Wrist in 2019 after an album and two EPs; everything they’ve released since then sounded far more accessible. During the pandemic he formed a new shoegaze-inspired band and released a series of one-off singles that sounded like they wouldn’t have been out of place on the Wrist’s first album, Chrome Neon Jesus; in fact, current frontman Marshall Gallagher played guitar in the band. (Interestingly, he didn’t play guitar for Heavenward when I saw them in concert.) Heavenward’s first batch of singles were overshadowed by Teenage Wrist songs that were released and/or charting for me concurrently, but with their debut album Pyrophonics, the tables turned - Heavenward outlasted the Wrist. “Gasoline”, which became an important song for me in the months when I began a self-improvement journey, and the era’s third M4B crossover hit “Tangerine” were huge #1s on my chart and absolutely refused to die. “Gasoline” ended the year as my chart’s #1 song of 2023. So far, the very few shows Heavenward played were in Southern California, and Mohager seems to express a reluctance to touring; the only upcoming date I could find for Heavenward was a sold out April show in Anaheim supporting British metalcore band Static Dress. Their October 2022 shows opening for Teenage Wrist’s San Diego and LA dates were, to my knowledge, their second and third concerts. On a trip where I did a lot of touristy things (most notably the San Diego Zoo) my favorite things involved the local color, and that included being able to see Heavenward. Second of four bands to play San Diego's Soda Bar that early October night, it was great to hear the songs of the Pyrophonics album in concert and to finally see Kamtin Mohager perform after more than five years of following the Wrist and their related projects. But Mohager's best moment of the evening is still to come. Also worth mentioning: I interacted with Mohager, he manned Heavenward's merch table when he wasn't performing and I went to purchase Pyrophonics on vinyl. My interaction was solely transactional. I wanted to say something about how important his music has been to me over the last five years, but I couldn't think of the right words.
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Post by Unkie on Mar 21, 2024 19:56:16 GMT -5
5. Weezer Date: February 25, 2023 Venue: Innings Festival at Tempe Beach Park, Tempe, AZ It would be nearly impossible to fathom a world where Unkiecore exists but Weezer does not. Weezer's self-titled 1994 debut, known today as the Blue Album (they've since released several more self titled albums in an array of colors, but Blue remains their peak), hit the sweet spot with its hard rock and power pop fusion that fit in with the prevailing grungy strains of modern rock radio but in a way that gave them their own identity. The 1996 followup Pinkerton lost many fans upon its release, but the ones that stayed started bands. Many bands I got to see in concert since the pandemic ended owe a debt to Weezer. Pinkerton influenced countless 2000s emo bands like Jimmy Eat World. Joyce Manor made their career imagining what Weezer would sound like if they continued making music that sounds like their first two albums. My gateway to Turnstile was Diamond Youth, an obscure side project singer Brendan Yates and drummer Daniel Fang played in with Sam Trapkin, the guitarist in the hardcore band Trapped Under Ice, singing lead vocals, and its music was widely compared to Weezer. After having the chance to witness many of their contemporaries playing shows, seeing Rivers Cuomo and company was a natural progression. I went into Weezer’s Innings Festival set with expectations in the middle, like this could go either way. It turned out to be a very good show, and a much better show than I thought it would be, for focusing strongly on their best eras and avoiding most of their more questionable musical decisions (I’ll forgive them for “All My Favorite Songs”). The highlights were the more unexpected selections: They did “The World Has Turned And Left Me Here” from the Blue Album, the Pinkerton-era B-side “I Just Threw Out The Love Of My Dreams” and not one, not two, but three songs from Pinkerton, when I expected they’d do one at best! I probably should have figured the occasion of warming up for Green Day would have led to “El Scorcho” with its lyrics “I asked you to go to the Green Day concert / You said you never heard of them” - during the concert, Rivers Cuomo played the intro to Green Day’s “When I Come Around” on his guitar as a break between the lines. Like in September 2022 when I traveled to Louisville, Kentucky for Bourbon and Beyond to see Pearl Jam’s headlining set, I was far in the audience and packed in a sea of people - and thanks to my camera’s 40x optical zoom, still managed to get a few decent pictures of the show that could fool you into thinking I had a view near the stage. 4. Green Day Date: February 25, 2023 Venue: Innings Festival at Tempe Beach Park, Tempe, AZ The soundtrack of countless Millennials’ childhoods, often their gateway to alternative and punk rock music. (True of our own JessieLou, who credits “Boulevard Of Broken Dreams” with broadening her music taste 20 years ago.) With two front to back classic albums to their name in Dookie and American Idiot, plus other highlights in their discography like the one-two punch of “Brain Stew/Jaded”, the acoustic ballad “Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)” and the underrated banger “Minority”, a Green Day show was bound to be a good time, and I was grateful to have the chance to see them play the 2023 Innings Festival. Like Weezer and The Offspring before them, Green Day prioritized the hits - but unlike them, there was no occasional nod to the present. They didn't play a single song past 2009's 21st Century Breakdown, a wise choice given the inconsistent quality of the band's work since then (let’s try to erase the memory of whatever unlistenable bullshit that Father Of All Motherf***ers was trying to be). Green Day are continuing to play to their strengths on stage - despite releasing their latest album Saviors in January, their upcoming tour supporting the album will celebrate the milestones of Dookie turning 30 and American Idiot turning 20. If Green Day are still filling stadiums in 2034, I predict they won’t be celebrating Saviors turning 10. (I think “Bobby Sox” would be great live, though. I might find out for myself if I see them on their tour with Jess and Kim.) Green Day not only played a setlist that could have been pulled from their peak era, but they sounded as if they hadn't aged a day since those generational classics. They kicked things off with “American Idiot”, setting the tone as the rest of the show sped with constant ferocity. They'd do six of the songs from American Idiot that night, including the deep cut “St. Jimmy” (ending with “and don't f***ing wear it out!”) and all nine minutes of “Jesus Of Suburbia”. They did all the hits from Dookie, too, with “Basket Case” prompting mass singalongs. And much like my elementary school graduation, the festivities closed with “Time Of Your Life”. 3. Teenage Wrist Date: October 7, 2023 Venue: Soda Bar, San Diego, CA Heavenward serving as a support act for Teenage Wrist during their San Diego and Los Angeles tour stops raised one obvious question: Would ex-frontman Kamtin Mohager perform with them? The band's social media posts regarding their tour made a passing reference to special guests appearing during some tour stops. Heavenward's inclusion as a support act led me to think Mohager would show up as a guest during the set. And it happened. And it was the clear highlight of a set full of them. Five songs into their set, Teenage Wrist played “Humbug” from their latest album Still Love. The studio recording featured Mohager as a guest singer and bassist, credited as “featuring Heavenward”. After the first verse, a tall figure in a jacket (a costume change of sorts - he only wore a white T-shirt when he played earlier with Heavenward) rushed toward the stage, taking the mic and jumping toward the front of the audience as he screamed out his lines. Yes, Mohager, for a brief moment, had rejoined Teenage Wrist. He stuck around for the next song, their breakout single “Stoned, Alone”, leaning as close as he could toward the audience during the chorus. “I love these guys,” he said at the end of his cameo appearance. The brief reunion of the Chrome Neon Jesus era lineup of Teenage Wrist was not the only reason why I thought their 2023 San Diego show was better than when I saw them a year earlier in Phoenix. For one thing, they did more songs from that era on tour. They reintroduced “Swallow” and “Dweeb” to their set on this tour - the two songs that got me into the band to start with. (The 2022 show didn't have either of them, though they did do album closer “Waitress”, a song I entered into the latest M4B Song Contest.) But the highlight of that show resurfaced here, too - a set closing extended jam version of “Earth Is A Black Hole”, which I first got to see during their pandemic era 2021 live stream at the LA recording studio Kingsize Soundlabs, a moment that convinced me I needed to see them in concert the next chance I had.
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Post by Unkie on Mar 23, 2024 18:32:04 GMT -5
2. Queens Of The Stone AgeDate: December 5, 2023 Venue: Arizona Financial Theatre, Phoenix, AZ You know you went to a great show when the mention of seeing the band sparks the envy of people around you, as I found when I discussed seeing Queens Of The Stone Age with coworkers. I pregamed the concert at a downtown gastropub where a professional association related to my line of work was hosting a Christmas party. (This is why I missed the opening set from Spiritualized.) Everyone I mentioned the concert to thought it was so cool that I was going, mostly everyone was asking why I was hanging around as long as I did out of fear I’d miss the show, and at least one was like “they're in town right now?” The head of my job, one of my boss's bosses, was there, and after the fact he was curious why he had so little face time with me that night. When I told him about the concert, he gushed. He's a fan, too. He also asked me for my thoughts on Kyuss, the stoner rock band Josh Homme played guitar in before forming QOTSA. (I listened to Blues For The Red Sun, Kyuss's most popular album, shortly after that conversation. I wasn't a fan, apart from about three or four songs.) Queens Of The Stone Age were a band whose discography I dug into during the time I was going over my ex friend's MP3 collection, and they impressed me for their unique and distinctive “desert rock” sound - imagine a fusion of psychedelic rock, blues rock and heavy metal - and the unexpected musical twists many of their songs take, from the fast-slow-fast-false stop-slow-fast-false stop-fast-who knows what pace of the excellent “Song For The Dead” to the slow building experimental dirge “Mosquito Song”. Around the time QOTSA returned with their latest album In Times New Roman…, I watched a video of the band performing “Song For The Dead” at a UK concert out of curiosity to see how they're able to make it happen, as I thought it a challenging song to perform. It was enough that I wanted to see the band in concert, and I jumped at the opportunity when they announced a Phoenix show as part of the second leg of their The End Is Nero tour. The concert leaned heavily on material from two of their three best albums, 2002's Songs For The Deaf and 2013's …Like Clockwork (Dave Grohl drummed on both albums). They did four songs from the new album, including M4B hits “Emotion Sickness” and “Paper Machete”. (“Negative Space”, which shockingly was a bigger hit for Jess than it was for me, was not one of them though it got to its peak for me because of anticipation for the concert.) They boldly opened their show by getting their token appeal to the oldheads song (“Regular John” from their self titled 1998 debut) and their biggest hit out of the way (“No One Knows”, a song I thought they'd save for the encore, was the SECOND! song of the show). The four-song encore was long enough it probably would have put the 12-year-old version of Kim to sleep. It started with a two-song tribute to former band member Mark Lanegan, also known for leading the Seattle grunge band Screaming Trees, who died in February 2022; after asking the audience which Lanegan-fronted song they wanted to hear more, “In The Fade” from Rated R or “God Is In The Radio” from Songs For The Deaf, the band did both songs. The show closed with the reason why I wanted to see them in the first place - “Song For The Dead”, which felt unreal to experience in person. 1. Foo Fighters Date: October 3, 2023 Venue: Talking Stick Resort Amphitheater, Phoenix, AZ Honestly: Did anyone else stand a chance? The tragic, untimely death of Taylor Hawkins in 2022 gave Jessica and I a greater appreciation not only for the Foo Fighters’ music (which we already greatly appreciated) but also for the fact we got to see the band in concert with Taylor at the kit when we had the chance with their Florida tour stop in April 2018. When our nearly last minute Houston getaway for a Jerry Cantrell concert in April 2022 went from something we were just talking about to a sure thing, I broke the news to our parents - who were initially opposed to the idea because my original plan involved getting us back home in one straight shot the day after the concert, which would have been exhausting for both of us - by invoking Taylor Hawkins’ death. “I know we could wait things out, but imagine if the Foo Fighters came to Florida in 2018 and instead of seeing them when we had the chance we brushed it off and were like ‘maybe next time’ - between the pandemic and Taylor Hawkins dying unexpectedly, ‘next time’ might not have come.” Instinctively, I knew Taylor Hawkins’ death would not be the end of the Foo Fighters. Dave Grohl is a lifer - to me, he is a Paul McCartney or Mick Jagger who will keep making music and touring into his later years because it's what he enjoys doing. I figured what came next for the band would involve Grohl drumming on record and finding a new touring drummer. That's exactly what happened. The Foo Fighters’ But Here We Are was the band's first album in many years to feature Grohl on drums. Their promotion of the album included the announcement that Josh Freese, a career session drummer whose credits range from A Perfect Circle, Devo and Nine Inch Nails to Kelly Clarkson, Avril Lavigne and “I'm Just Ken” from the Barbie movie, would succeed Hawkins as drummer for the tour. I also thought, well before the album and tour were announced, that seeing the Foo Fighters a second time despite Taylor's absence would still be a great show. That's exactly what happened. Like the 2018 Tampa show, the Foos’ performance was greatest hits centric and showcased their songs in extended, freeform jams highlighting the talents of the rhythm section. (There wasn't anything like Dave playing the drums for a song like he did in Tampa, though.) To start the show with “All My Life” and “The Pretender” and still have so many highlights to get to is emblematic of how this band operates. I liked how during “Under You” they played an animation on the screen featuring the artwork of posters from past concerts. (I looked for but couldn't find the one from the 2018 Tampa show, depicting the Hindu god Vishnu holding a vinyl record.) Also like the Tampa show, the Foos played for nearly 3 hours. I was totally unprepared for the trick pulled during the encore - they played the entirety of the 10-minute “The Teacher”, a Pink Floyd-inspired tribute to Grohl's late mother Virginia. Grohl also, for the first time on the tour supporting But Here We Are, played the song on a double necked guitar, something Grohl joked would require having to see his chiropractor. And the show was destined for a crowd pleasing finish… the Foo Fighters don't say goodbye, they play “Everlong”.
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