The Irish Thug

Last week was my birthday and to celebrate my friends and I went to see Queens of the Stone Age. The show was very good and was the best way I’ve celebrated a birthday in recent history. In an intriguing twist of fates, it was also the bassist’s birthday and according to Wikipedia, we were born in the same year as well. But that’s enough about that, let’s talk about the good stuff.

Joshua Homme is an underrated guitarist. It’s ok, I didn’t know his name either until just before the show. Queens of the Stone Age works essentially on the same level as Nine Inch Nails. It’s Josh’s band and the people he plays with is in a semi-constant rotation. That fact makes the following comment even more amazing. The band as a whole was very tight and always in time with each other. You could see that they were always looking around to catch one another’s eyes to make sure they were in pace with each other.

I went in expecting it to be an Era Vulgaris (newest album) show. I was happily surprised that is was not that at all. They even played some songs that I had not heard before. One of the best songs was Better Living Through Chemistry. It’s one of my favorites of the band, so it was great to hear it live. The lights they used the most were yellow-green and blue strobes that pointed at the audience. The lights were all programed to switch right on the beat of the song, which added to the tightness of the music. While this is a minimal lighting set-up, the performance of Sick, Sick, Sick had one of the best lighting effects I’ve seen. For this song, they added two lights that were pointed at Josh as he played. These two lights would strobe in opposition of each other so it looked like he was turning back and forth every quickly, almost as if two people were standing there.

Other comments on the songs they played go as follows. I would have preferred they use the slot for Feel Good Hit of the Summer for one of their stronger songs. I would have played Suter Up Your Future instead of Make It Wit Chu, but that song went very well so I can’t complain.

On the whole, great show and a great way to celebrate a birthday. Hopefully I’ll be able to top it next year.

As mentioned before, I’ve had to close chances to get to see Tool perform live. Wednesday I get a call from the same kid saying he has one ticket for Thursday’s show. With that short notice I know it’s a lock that whoever I’m replacing absolutely can’t make the show.

The show was at the Tweeter Center just outside of Boston. The seats were the last row before the roof ends, but were dead center. The stage setup was guitar front right, drums off center right back, the mike for Maynard off center left, bass front left. They pretty much never left those positions. The most interesting thing about the show was the fact that at no point was there ever a light on Maynard. All you saw was his profile, he didn’t face the audience, against the LCD screen behind him.

The set list was a great mix of their albums.
Jambi
Stinkfist
Forty-Six and 2
Schism (extended)
Rosetta Stoned
PUSHIT
FLOOD
Wings For Marie (Pt 1)
10,000 Days (Wings Pt 2)
Lateralus (With Big Business Drummer)
Vicarious

I really can’t say enough about the double drum solo during Lateralus. These two guys just went off on their drum sets. They did some back and forth drumming, but in general just played, and played some more.

It’s hard to pick a favorite of all the concerts I’ve seen since they all have different flavors. This concerts flavor was straight up, bad-ass, hard rock. Very glad I finally got to see them and check off another band from my To See list.

Album out in a week.

Plus:

The Beatles
My parents were fans when they were young, just like anyone else who grew up while they blew up in America. Because of this I had some introduction to their music, but never in the form of an album or actually listening to the music critically. Beyond that, my knowledge of them was hearing other people talk about how they shaped rock music and blah blah. I decided they were over-rated and never really took any steps to listen to their works.

Fast forward to a year ago. Evan tells me he’s going to make me listen to four Beatles albums, because I’m missing something by having not heard them. Ok, whatever. Evan proceeds to be lazy and not get the albums.

Fast forward to just under two months ago. Evan finally gets off his ass and gets the four albums.
He hands me Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt Pepper and The White Album.
The clouds part, the sun shines down, birds and angles sing.

Fast forward to now. I’ve listened to each album a couple times though, so I feel I can start making comments. Do be honest, I usually just stick to listening to music and not talking about it, so don’t expect lots of profound explanations to go with my comments.

My Rank of the Albums as of Now

4. Rubber Soul
We get it, love, where are the drugs? Stand out tracks: The Word, Wait, Run for Your Life.

3. The White Album
Long. The one down side of a double album is that it’s hard to get a feel for the whole album. Maybe I should try just doing it one disc at a time. The plus side is lots of songs means lots of good songs. Stand out tracks: Glass Onion, The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Blackbird, Yer Blues, Helter Skelter

2. Sgt. Pepper
Kinda at a lose for words. But then again I didn’t really make many real comments about each album, so why start here? I can say it’s one hell of a first third of an album (With a Little Help from My Friends, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, Getting Better) Other stand out tracks: She’s Leaving Home, Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!, Good Morning Good Morning, A Day in the Life

1. Revolver
From the first time I listened, I felt it. Every track is very good. With the exception of Yellow Submarine, everything fits in it’s place. Stand out tracks: Taxman, Eleanor Rigby, For No One, Got to Get You Into My Life, Tomorrow Never Knows

So there you go. Don’t think that Rubber Soul being 4 means I don’t like it. My mind can’t hold enough information at once, so the stand out tracks are just picked by re-listening to a few seconds of the middle of each track.

So Evan made an entry first, so most of my concert comments followed that. Nine Inch Nails was amazing and I’m looking forward to the next time I see them.

So, instead of looking at what was, I look towards the future.
The Next Band I am Most Likely to See in Concert
Tool
One of the few great hard rock bands of our generation. The fact that they just released an album gives them a big nudge into the lead as they will be on tour sooner than other bands that I really like. 10,000 Days is very good, and the rest of their collection makes them well worth seeing.

Bands I Would Go See in Concert Given the Chance (No Order)
Queens of the Stone Age - Another band with a very good collection. Rated R is most likely my favorite.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Female lead singers are not very common in rock, but Karen O does a very good job. They got a good deal of recognition when they released Fever to Tell’s ballad, however they don’t get enough recognition for the rest of their work. NOTE: I don’t listen to the radio or watch MTV, so I am basing that last sentence solely on the fact that I know like one other human that has said they really liked Fever To Tell.
The Strokes - The latest album is their third best album, but it has grown on me a lot. (Will, get off your ass and get me Ize of the World.) They just continue to make really strong songs.
Radiohead - Not at the beginning if I had to order this list, but 1) Evan would kill me if I didn’t list them and 2) I like them more and more as time goes on.
Rammstein - The lose some credit for being German and the fact that I would have to deal with a bunch of weird guys from the small continent with a lot of countries. Nothing makes rock sound angrier then when it’s in German.
Black Sabbath, Jimi Hendrix, Those guys with the flying bubble thing - They are not exactly touring our making new albums, but if I had a time machine, I would beginning head to some concerts after I made a bet or two.

Incubus and System of a Down are givens as they, along with Nine Inch Nails, are in my Big Three and the only bands I’ve distinctly made an effort to see live.

Do you think any one reads this?