I'm an expat Californian who is obsessed with traveling to strange and exotic destinations in the former Communist Bloc. I also like tacos, surfing, and the geopolitics of oil. Washington, D.C. is currently my home, but I'm looking to break out of this fetid swamp someday. Read more about me here, check out my photo album, or send me an e-mail.
And honestly, my first reaction is "Meh." BRING BACK RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE!
This year's headliners: Jack Johnson, Portishead, and Roger Waters. I listen to Jack Johnson occasionally, like when I want to pretend I'm at the beach instead of this cesspool city, but there is no reason he should be headlining. Portishead...zzz. And Roger Waters playing Dark Side of the Moon? I guess that would be cool if I was, like, 30 years older (ok, admittedly I do like some of Pink Floyd's stuff).
Flogging Molly and Gogol Bordello always put on an amazing show, and it would be cool to see DeVotchKa, Cold War Kids, and the Streets, but overall this lineup is very underwhelming. Don't think I'll be wasting the vacation days on this one.
I didn't really take many photos at Coachella due to my laziness, so a majority of these I stole from Kat. And yes, I realize this happened like two months ago.
This one photo pretty much sums up the entire weekend
Jack's Mannequin
Some beautiful desert scenery
Kat, Danielle, Laila
Willie Nelson
Not really concert-related, but this is my friend Lindsey and her then nine month old son, Hayden. When Kat picked me up from the airport and said that Lindsey, a friend of ours since first grade, was meeting us at In-N-Out, I was stoked because I had never met Hayden. He is seriously the cutest baby ever...and a true SoCal boy at heart, as he kept lunging for our double doubles and fries (sorry dude, you still gotta eat baby food for now).
Great footage of Rage Against the Machine at Coachella
This is by far the best footage I have come across of RATM's performance at Coachella. I have no idea who shot it, but it looks like a rough cut of some professional footage. This video includes "Testify", "Bulls On Parade", and "People Of The Sun".
Tom Morello, no doubt one of the best guitarists of all time. Nice to see a guy who graduated from Harvard with an honors degree in political science make a name for himself, eh?
I survived the Battle of Coachella and all I got was this overpriced t-shirt
The reason I never write about concerts is because, in general, I suck at reviewing them. I have to write about Coachella, though, so forgive me if this totally sucks or if I use the word "awesome" way too much. Pictures will be up later. I'm liberally sprinkling YouTube and professional photos throughout this post to give you some eye candy.
Day 1 - I'm not drunk, I just haven't slept
My flight out of DCA left at 6am. I thought it would be quiet and relaxing - I mean, Jesus, who flies to Houston at 6am besides businessmen? Unfortunately, I was inundated with annoying middle schoolers in matching maroon sweatshirts, all of them on a simultaneous caffeine and candy high. I switched planes in Houston and landed in Palm Springs before noon. Kat picked me up and we met up with Lindsey and Danielle at In-N-Out. It's a tradition that my first meal upon arrival in the Great State of California has to be a double double - been that way since I was a freshman at GW.
Danielle and I headed out to the Empire Polo Fields in Indio (location of Coachella) shortly thereafter. The traffic was a nightmare, compounded by the fact that my hometown had been inundated with idiotic East Coast drivers. ("New Jersey? WTF are you doing here? Hell no we're not letting you in our lane!") By the time we got there, the temperature was hovering around a balmy 100 degrees (oh, trust me, it gets much hotter there). Teenagers roamed the fields and scavenged through recycling bins in search of ten empty water bottles, which they could exchange for a full one. Personally, I opted to spend the $2 per bottle.
That night I saw the Arctic Monkeys, Interpol, and Gogol Bordello. The Arctic Monkeys and Interpol were good...nothing to really write home about. Gogol Bordello, however, put on an amazing show. They were playing opposite Bjork, but the crowd was much larger than I expected. Gogol Bordello, if you have never heard of them, is a punk band composed of immigrants from Eastern Europe. A Slavic Flogging Molly, if you will. The lead singer, Eugene Hütz, is an absolute madman who enjoys crowdsurfing on a large drum. Check out the video below:
If you get a chance to see these guys live, jump on it. The music has a Slavic twist to it with an accordion and violin that will have you dancing around like a fool in no time. They were the last band of the night, which was great, because by then I had been up for 24 hours straight with three hours of sleep the night before, and was subsequently staggering around like a drunk without the benefit of actually being drunk ($7 for a Heineken?! ARE YOU SERIOUS?!). Trying to leave the concert was an absolute clusterfuck, as you had thousands of cars trying to get out and no cops directing traffic. It took us TWO hours to get out of the parking lot. WTF?
Day 2 - it's not hot, you're just weak
The first band I saw was Jack's Mannequin, a solo project of Something Corporate's lead singer Andrew McMahon. Something Corporate, which is now kinda defunct, was one of my favorite bands - nice SoCal rock with some piano thrown in. Jack's Mannequin's performance at Coachella was solid, and I loved hearing them perform "Bruised" live ("Vacation's come and gone too late / There's so much sun where I'm from").
Next up was Travis. I had never heard of these guys even though they have apparently been around for quite awhile, but Olga raved about them so I decided to check them out. They were pretty damn good, although I could barely understand a word the lead singer was saying, his Scottish accent was so thick.
Saw the Decemberists next. Gotta love a band that's kinda named after the boys of 1825, although I was a bit disappointed that they didn't play 16 Military Wives. In between the Decemberists and Arcade Fire we met up with my friend Kim, who was lucky enough to be covering the concert for WORK. I shoulda been a journalist.
I started listening to Arcade Fire a few months ago at the suggestion of my roommate, Mike, and they put on an amazing show. Definitely a crowd favorite. The final band we saw that night was the Red Hot Chili Peppers. There's not much to say about the Chili Peppers. As expected, they were awesome live. And yeah, they played "Under the Bridge", with a crowd of 60,000 singing along.
Flea, with RHCP
Day 3 - THE DAY RAGE REUNITES! "What better place than here? What better time than now?”
First up was Kaiser Chiefs. I became quite familiar with these guys while living in London, as it seemed every third song played on the radio was "Oh My God" ( "Oh my god I can't believe it / I've never been this far away from home"). I love Kaiser Chiefs, but they just didn't sound that good live. Whatev.
Ryan and headed over to the main stage a few hours early in order to get a decent spot for Rage Against the Machine. We had to stand through Crowded House, some Australian band I've never heard of. They were alright, I guess...I wouldn't buy their CD or anything. No idea why Coachella put them so close to RATM, though. Really effin' idiotic, as the hardcore RATM fans in the front were throwing bottles at Crowded House and chanting "RAGE RAGE RAGE!" I felt kinda sorry for those poor Aussies.
Manu Chao with Radio Bemba Sound System played after Crowded House. Oh...My...God...these guys were amazing. I've never heard any of their music before, but I was impressed with their entire setlist. Intense mix of rock, reggae, ska, a few foreign languages thrown in...these guys really blew me away. I had no idea what they were saying, but they kept screaming California, so that's gotta be something.
FINALLY, the last band of the night, the last band of Coachella 2007, the only band I would fly 3,000 miles to see reunite...RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE.
Ryan and I had a decent view...we were probably about 30 feet in front in front of the soundbooth. I found myself surrounded by half-naked, sweaty men wearing bright orange "Drive out the Bush regime" bandanas, shouting "RAGE RAGE RAGE!" RATM walked on stage and Zack shouted "Good evening, we're Rage Against the Machine from Los Angeles, California!" The crowd went nuts. SEVEN LONG YEARS WITHOUT RAGE! Abandoned in our time of need! With everything that has been going on these past seven years, we could have had five new, angry albums!
They opened with "Testify", the Battle of Los Angeles anthem railing against our runaway oil consumption and subsequent military intervention in the Middle East ("Mister anchor assure me / That Baghdad is burning").
Yeah, kinda like this
All hell broke loose when Morello started on the main riff. The crowd was packed so tightly where we were that I was literally picked off the ground and moved 10 feet left then 10 feet right, then 5 feet front, and 5 feet back - my feet weren't even touching the ground. It was like some sort of bizarre tug of war using human bodies. The heat was suffocating, and I managed to take a knee and elbow to the head from some crowdsurfer. A few guys were being carried out, all bloodied up. It was freakin' intense. After the first two songs, I moved back about 15 feet where it wasn't as packed, and the air was a bit, uh, fresher. A moshpit formed to the left of me, and to my right, three guys climbed on top of the soundbooth, with security following soon thereafter.
That's gotta hurt
Setlist:
01 "Testify"
02 "Bulls On Parade"
03 "People Of The Sun"
04 "Bombtrack"
05 "Bullet In The Head"
06 "Down Rodeo"
07 "Guerrilla Radio"
08 "Renegades Of Funk" (my current ringtone, ooooh yeah)
09 "Calm Like A Bomb"
10 "Sleep Now In The Fire"
11 "Wake Up"
12 "Freedom"
13 "Killing In The Name" (with a little improvisation thrown in "Some of those who hold office are the same that burn crosses.")
At one point, during "Wake Up", the crowd cheered loudly as Zack called for the Bush administration to be "hung, and tried, and shot":
"A good friend of ours said that if the same laws were applied to U.S. Presidents as were applied to the Nazi's after World War II, then every single one of 'em, every last rich white one of 'em from Truman on would have been hung to death, and shot. And this current administration is no exception. They should be hung, and tried, and shot. As any war criminal should be. But the challenges that we face, they go way beyond administrations. Way beyond elections. Way Beyond every four years of pulling levers. Way beyond that, because this whole rotten system has become so vicious and cruel, that in order to sustain itself, it needs to destroy entire countries, and profit from their reconstruction, in order to survive, and that's not a system that changes every four years, it's a system that we have to break down generation after generation after generation after generation after generation. Wake up!"
WARNING: Political rant about one minute in
I was like, whoa, did he just say that? And poor Jimmy Carter, what did he ever do to deserve that fate? And aren't you supposed to try a person BEFORE hanging and/or shooting them?
The last song of the evening was "Killing in the Name." It was like seven years of pent up anger exploded at the end, with a crowd of 60,000 screaming "Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!" over and over.
"Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!"
I was so amped after that set I wanted to put on a bandana and start throwing molotov cocktails at Wal-Mart. The only "raging against the machine" I managed to accomplish that night, however, was pushing my way past a security guard who was yelling "This exit is for wrist bands ONLY!" But that exit was closest to where we had parked, and we were in no mood to walk all the way around the polo fields. Allllll hell can't stop us now!
The very next morning I was on a plane headed back to DC. Back to reality, working for Big Energy, filling up the 14mpg SUV, and thinking, hmm, business school...maybe I'll give that a try.
There are very few things I regret not doing, but I have the feeling that if I did not go to this concert I would have really regretted it. I saw one of my favorite bands reunite after a seven year hiatus...and yeah, I've got the "Battle of Coachella" shirt to prove it.
Raise your hand if you had to do a school project on Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire"
It's yet another rainy and cold day here in our nation's capital, which translates into canceled Wiffleball games, copious amounts of green tea, avoiding the torrential downpour and flooding streets, and, god help me, watching Billy Joel music videos on YouTube.
You're soooo hardcore, Billy
This all started when, out of pure boredom, Mike and I started comparing the famous people who we share our birthdays with. I, sadly, have the same birthday (May 9) as former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft and the esteemed musical artist and Russophile, Billy Joel. I wonder if everyone born on May 9 has a slight obsession with Russia, due to it also being Den' Pobedy. Billy, though, seems to put out really sappy Cold War ballads (i.e., "Leningrad") whereas I tend to pursue useless, and very expensive, academic degrees. I don't know which is worse, but he does have a lot more money in his bank account than I do.
Anyways, Mike and I discovered that, while in middle school, we both had to do class projects on his famous 1989 song, "We Didn't Start the Fire." Even before this sixth grade project, I was quite familiar with this song, as my Dad was (still is?) a huge Billy Joel fan and would often play his tapes in the car (that, along with Toto and Meat Loaf and Boston and Tom Petty and ohmygod I can't believe I left my Walkman and Pearl Jam tape at home, I'm going to start banging my head against the window now).
The actual "project" consisted of our world history teacher playing the song over and over and over to the point where we had all memorized the lyrics and loved shouting "JFK BLOWN AWAY, WHAT ELSE DO I HAVE TO SAY?" in the hopes that our principal, a Catholic nun, would walk by at that very moment. I don't remember actually learning anything with this particular assignment, but I did make a kick ass poster by cutting up a few volumes of National Geographic and presenting it to my class:
"This is a photo of some Soviet soldiers. Billy Joel talks about the Soviets in his song."
"Very good, Lindsay."
"And this is a photo of a guy in China being run over by a tank."
"Uh, yes, that is Tienanmen Square."
"Uh-huh. And here is Coke and Pepsi and a space shuttle."
"Great, great. Very good."
I'm pretty sure I got an A on that assignment, even though I obviously spent more time cutting up magazines and gluing photos of Mickey Mantle and crack cocaine to a poster board than I did researching the actual subjects he was singing about. Whatev.
The song has annoyed me ever since, though, because I really effin' hated the whiney chorus:
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it
Well, OK, Billy, maybe you have a point in that your generation (the Baby Boomers) didn't start the fire, but then again I don't think you put much effort into fighting it, as you claim you "tried" to do. Rather, you and your cohorts just stood around the fire, occasionally dousing it in gasoline while clad in tie-dye and Birkenstocks, dropping acid, and then writing songs about how you played no role whatsoever in the problems plaguing the world, which apparently include the bloody Cola Wars of the 1980s. Hippies.
For those of you who were lucky enough not to have to do a project on this song, here are the lyrics and music video:
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to purge this song from my memory by listening to Something Corporate and Rage Against the Machine. Coachella in 12 days, ooooh yeah.
Well, it was hard to keep this list to just five, but here are a few songs that "hit" me (i.e., actually make you think, reminisce, identify with the lyrics, whatever) in no particular order:
Ben Folds - Landed If you wrote me off
I'd understand it
Cause I've been on
Some other planet
So come pick me up
I've landed
Counting Crows - Long December And it's been a long December and there's reason to believe
Maybe this year will be better than the last
I can't remember all the times I tried to tell my myself
To hold on to these moments as they pass
And it's one more day up in the canyon
And it's one more night in Hollywood
It's been so long since I've seen the ocean...I guess I should
Her Space Holiday - Sleepy California It's just Sleepy California
But I just hope they know
It's just Sleepy California
How much I really care
It's just Sleepy California
How I want the best for them
It's just Sleepy California
Even though I'm hardly there
Athlete - Tourist This European air
it always warms my face
I wish I could buy some
I will bring you stories
And bleary-eyed photos
like a regular tourist
Something Corporate - Down Wish upon a star but
Do you know what stars are?
Balls of fire, burning up the black space
Falling from the landscape
Exploding in the face of God
Let's get crazy,
Talk about our big plans
Places that you're going
Places that I haven't been
Build my walls up
Concrete castle
Keep this kingdom free of hassle, yeah
Honorable mentions that you should download (I guess I couldn't really keep the list to five after all):
Young Dubliners - Foggy Dew
Dispatch - The General
Подмосковные вечера (aka "Moscow Nights")
The Postal Service - The District Sleeps Alone Tonight
The Used - The Taste of Ink
Chronic Future - Time and Time Again
Something Corporate - Cavanaugh Park
Beach Boys - Sloop John B
Third Eye Blind - Motorcycle Drive By
It is a very rare instance when I don't have my mp3 player with me. Even for a three block stroll to the local CVS, I need my own personal soundtrack. Sometimes, for whatever bizarre reason, I might find myself on the metro sans iPod/iRiver and think to myself, "Oh my god...no music...I might actually have to just sit here and think." Thankfully, that doesn't happen very often. So, taking a cue from another recent post by Cincy (dude, you just blog and I'll follow) here are my top five remakes of great songs:
5. "Smooth Criminal" - Alien Ant Farm (originally by Michael Jackson, before he was effin' insane). "Annie, are you OK? Are you OK? Are you OK, Annie?"
4. "99 Red Ballons" - Goldfinger (originally by Nena). "99 Luftballons" has been covered by several bands, but IMO, Goldfinger's cover is the best. It also helps that I absolutely adore Goldfinger. And yes, their cover of "Just Like Heaven" is great as well.
3. "Hotel California" - Gipsy Kings (originally by the Eagles). Lindsay, surely you must be joking? A cover of Hotel California? The song is already perfect as it is! Yeah, yeah, I know...I love the original as well. I first heard this song while watching "The Big Lebowski" (RENT IT NOW if you haven't seen it) and downloaded the mp3 ASAP. The Gipsy Kings speed up the tempo and throw in a nice little Spanish twist (because any song that seamlessly transitions between English and another language is pretty sweet in my mind). This song just works...trust me.
2. Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) - Marilyn Manson (originally by Eurythmics). I'm not a big Marilyn Manson fan at all. Like a few of his songs, but never got into him. I looooove his remake of Sweet Dreams, though. He covers the Eurythmics's 80s song with a much darker and heavier tone (as to be expected, this is Marilyn Manson after all). I actually think that if you read the lyrics to the song, his cover makes a lot more sense mood wise.
1. "Renegades of Funk" - Rage Against the Machine (originally by Afrika Bambaataa). This was a really hard one, as I could have filled this entire list with songs from Renegades, Rage Against the Machine's album composed entirely of covers. I'm a big fan of their covers "The Ghost of Tom Joad" (Bruce Springsteen), "Street Fighting Man" (Rolling Stones), and "Maggie's Farm" (Bob Dylan), but if I had to pick one, it would be "Renegades of Funk." Goddamn, this song wakes me up in the morning. I don't need that overpriced Starbucks brew (ok, lie...caramel macchiato, please), I just need me some good ol' RATM. Whenever "Renegades of Funk" starts playing on my iPod in the morning, I want to start jumping around the metro car I am riding in while shouting "NO MATTER HOW HARD YOU TRY, YA CAN'T STOP US NOW!" I restrain myself from doing this, however, as I am often packed in there like a sardine and do not want to be the subject of a craigslist rant ("MC with idiot who bumped into me while dancing around metro car and singing along to RATM")
Any suggestions on other covers I might enjoy, let me know. I will admit to having a ridiculous amount of punk covers. Who ever thought that "Build Me Up Buttercup" could actually sound good?
I'm definitely going to Coachella. Just gotta get my plane ticket. Gonna listen to some RATM and RHCP and eat some In-N-Out and Mexican food with my SoCal friends.
The star said that there was a political element to the band getting back together.
He said: "Is it a coincidence that in the seven years that Rage Against The Machine has been away that the country has slid into right-wing purgatory? I think not.
"It occurred to all of us that the times were right to see if we can knock the Bush administration out in one fell swoop, and we hope to do that job well."
Do you realize what this means? When I go back to DC on April 30, apparently BUSH WILL NO LONGER BE PRESIDENT THANKS TO RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE! This is gonna be the most amazingnest concert evah!!!
"Rock music, along with other elements of Western culture, is part of an arsenal of subversive weapons aimed at undermining the commitment of young Russians to Communist ideology." - Konstantin Chernenko, General Secretary of the CPSU
So there's this music festival in SoCal. Coachella. You might of heard of it. Started a few years back in October '99, when I was a senior in high school. When the news broke that the music promoter Goldenvoice was planning a two day concert with Tool and Rage Against the Machine at the Polo Fields in Indio, we were a bit puzzled. A concert that doesn't involve Wayne Newton or Tony Bennett? In the Coachella Valley? At the Polo Fields? WTF? I didn't end up going to that concert for whatever reason (out of town? $150 tickets? Can't quite remember) and when the subsequent annual concerts happened, I was in the midst of finals at GW.
Then last weekend Ryan IMs me with the LA Times article Rage Against the Machine will reunite for Coachella (April 27-29) and "I'm going. Get tickets and go." And then Katerina calls me and says she is going. And I'm like "DAMMIT I WANT TO SEE RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE." I'm still pissed at them for breaking up SEVEN YEARS AGO IN THE MIDST OF THE 2000 ELECTIONS, especially when these trying times (Iraq, global warming, hurricanes blah blah) could provide them with some good material for like, 10 new albums.
Anyways, some of my other favorite bands are playing (Arctic Monkeys, Gogol Bordello, The Decemberists, Jack's Mannequin, Kings of Leon, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Kaiser Chiefs) so after mulling over it for a week, by Friday evening I was determined to buy tickets as soon as they went on sale today at 10AM PST. So now I am the proud owner of an effin' $290 three day pass to Coachella.
I'm thinking of flying in to Palm Springs on Friday morning...earliest flights get in around 11am...and flying back to DC on Monday. And yes, I realize this is a violation of my strict "don't use vacation days for domestic destinations" policy, but eff it, it's Rage Against the Machine.
Granted this is all contingent on me actually getting these two days off work, so I have to clear it with the bossman first. If not, I'll just eBay or Craigslist the tix.
Coca-Cola is back in the veins of Saigon
And Rambo too, he got a dope pair of Nikes on
And Godzilla pure muthafuckin filler
To keep ya eyes off the real killer
Now go and show the world what the valleys already know
Two weeks ago, my friend Kim and I went to the British Sea Power/Killers concert in Long Beach. Over the past few months, I've been corresponding via e-mail with Mark, BSP's (now former) tour manager. He contacted me one day to let me know he used my site to get some info for the band's upcoming tour to Russia, and we've been e-mailing ever since. In September, he told me that BSP would be touring with The Killers out here and asked if I'd like some tickets, so of course I had to take him up on the offer, as I love both bands.
After a long drive on the traffic-laden freeways of Southern California, we arrived at the Long Beach Convention Center. You know what's odd? I don't think I've ever been to Long Beach. Well, maybe I have a long time ago, I just can't remember ever being there. Let's be honest, though, there isn't much in Long Beach except the Queen Mary, so I don't feel as if I have a huge void in my life because I haven't spent a significant amount of time in Snoop Dogg's hometown.
I picked up the tickets from will call at the window with the "KILLERS GUEST LIST" sign. The employee handed me two pairs of these:
She told us to put the bracelets on right away, as they were our "ticket" but didn't say anything about the green passes so I asked her what we were supposed to do with them. She looks at me like I'm an idiot, and says "Uhhh...they are your backstage passes."
"Ohhhh....right, of course."
Wow, definitely wasn't expecting that! I've never had backstage passes before, so it was pretty exciting.
We got in line, went through the security check...they were confiscating cameras but luckily didn't come across Kim's. Actually, they did a rather poor job of finding cameras, as it seemed like everyone and their mom had smuggled them into the venue. When we got in, we checked out the merchandise and food stands. I wanted to get a beer, but paying $10 for a plastic cup of watered down domestic draft seemed incredibly ridiculous. The beer at Angel Stadium seems like a downright bargain compared to that. The opening band, Lemon Sun, had just started playing so we went to go check them out. They were good! (You can listen to some of their songs here). After Lemon Sun, there was a pretty large gap in between them and BSP, so we decided to check out the magical area known as backstage, where they have wonderful things such as free cans of Coke. We went back out to the arena area, and BSP came on shortly afterwards. Here's the setlist, which I took from another site because my memory is not THAT good:
Men Together Today
It Ended On An Oily Stage
Remember Me
Oh Larsen B
Apologies To Insect Life
How Will I Ever Find My Way Home?
Please Stand Up
Carrion
Lately
Rock In A
This was my first time seeing BSP in concert, and I must say that they are very entertaining because they do the most RANDOM stuff! We were on the floor, near the right end of the stage, pretty close up, so we had a good view of everything going on. Eamon got off the stage and started wandering around, banging his drum with a palm frond. The Killers fans were clearly puzzled. During the performance of "Lately" (a track which is a bit under 14 minutes), the band members started jumping on each other's backs and pretty much just acting crazy. Noble started climbing the ladder which led up to the rigging for the lights, and then came down and jumped off some equipment in the center of the stage, spilling beer everywhere. It was quite a site to behold.
After BSP finished, there was a bit of a delay while the stage was readied for The Killers. They turned on all the lights in the arena and started playing Frank Sinatra over the loudspeakers. Now, Frank Sinatra has some good music, but Kim and were still like "WTF?"
The Killers came on and played:
Jenny Was a Friend of Mine
On Top
Somebody Told Me
Midnight Show
Believe Me Natalie
Change Your Mind
Under the Gun
Smile Like You Mean It
Andy, You're a Star
Indie Rock n Roll
Mr. Brightside
Everything Will Be Alright
Moonage Daydream
All These Things That I've Done
After they played Mr. Brightside, Brandon Flowers, the lead singer said "We'll be right back" and the band left the stage for a few minutes. Then they came back on and he said "OK, encore!" which was kinda random. During one of the last songs (forgot which one) he told everyone "Let's see those cellphones" (or something like that) and the crowd got out their phones and started waving them around. I remember thinking "Oh, wow, this is soooo ridiculously southern Californian" but at the same time it looked pretty cool, since the entire arena was dark and filled to capacity (it was a sold-out concert, so duh). And safer than swaying lighters, right?
After the concert, Kim and I headed to the backstage area, where there was already a crowd waiting to get in. Of course, it didn't help that there were a lot of people in the crowd who didn't have passes and were trying to talk their way in. You know that part in Wayne's World where Wayne and Garth have backstage passes to Alice Cooper and have to work their way through the crowd to actually get there? It was kinda like that. There was a group of teenage girls behind us who asked us why we had pink bracelets instead of the yellow ones that signified floor tickets. Before I could mumble an answer that I wasn't quite sure why they were pink, they saw our passes and started screaming "Oh my God! You get to go backstage!"
"Er, yeah."
"Oh my God, do you get to meet Brandon?!"
"Uh, well if he is there I suppose we will see him."
"Oh my God, tell Brandon that we love him!!"
"OK, will do."
Almost backstage
We finally got backstage and walked around a bit to check it out. We saw Yan and Hamilton from BSP, and said hello to them, but they seemed pretty tired, and wandered off somewhere shortly thereafter. We went into another room where everyone was congregating, and there was a huge steel container filled with ice and bottles of Corona (nice!). The problem was, someone had neglected to bring along a bottle opener, and not one person in the room had one on them. How odd is that? There was a very talented lady, though, who did a neat little trick to get the caps off, so beer was finally enjoyed by all present. Brandon Flowers came in, followed by a guy who I am almost positive was Ryan Reynolds. Ryan (or whoever this fellow was) was holding a mini box of Raisin Bran cereal over his head, and violently shaking it back and forth, so that raisins and bran flakes were flying everywhere. Everyone was shaking hands with Brandon, congratulating him on the show, and taking pictures with him. He finally came up to a group of girls, one of which had to pur her heart and soul out to him and tell him all about her internship at MAC cosmetics company (uhh, maybe he uses MAC, I'm not quite sure). Kim and I snagged a picture with him...forgive the fact that I look like a total idiot, I wasn't even drunk!
The poor guy was so busy talking to everybody that he didn't even get to finish his beer. Kim and I decided to hit the road for the long drive ahead, and when we were leaving the backstage area, came across Noble from BSP. He was sitting there, strumming on his guitar, with two huge bottles of Blackthorn nearby (the man has good taste in drinks, apparently). We told him we enjoyed his acrobatics with the rigging and he said he would have liked to do more but we are a bit lawsuit happy in America. Yeah, he sure got that right.
Before leaving, we managed to catch the t-shirt people as they were packing up, and purchased some BSP shirts. They have a polar bear on them (some people who went on the DC trip senior year of high school might get a kick out of that) and said "Now go and show the world what the valleys already know" (hence, where the title of this post comes from).
We managed to get back to the desert around 3:30...stopped at Del Taco on the way back...highly recommend their new fish tacos.
It was a great concert, and overall awesome experience, and THANK YOU MARK for making it all happen!
1) This week I learned that Dr. Pepper, 7-up, and A&W Root Beer are owned by Cadbury Schweppes plc, a British candy company. That's quite sad, really...I totally thought they were owned by Americans.
I don't have a trendy iPod (instead preferring to use an iRiver, which IMO, is actually better) but I've noticed that the problem associated with using an MP3 player is that my music collection tends to stagnate. I used to listen to the radio a lot when I lived in Palm Desert, but here it's mainly MP3s, and I haven't been keeping up with the latest music. A few weeks ago Rehan gave me his radio (first of us to move out of Bankside, lucky him) and I've been listening to it a lot lately in an effort to actually hear some new bands. So if your musical tastes are anything like mine, check out these guys (some are British, not sure if they are getting airtime in the U.S.):
"In an effort to crack down on yobbish behavior, authorities are considering requiring juvenile offenders to wear uniforms while completing their community service. In the U.S., they make them wear orange suits and break rocks." - British guy on the radio.
We still make prisoners break rocks? What is the point of that?
5) Um, is it May?
This weather is horrible...mid 50s...uh, spring, where are you? Nevertheless, we still had the RPSS BBQ at Olga's place:
Check out that view...right on the Thames. I live right across the river. See those cranes? Yeah, major construction project going on right outside my door...it's great, especially when they start loading the trucks at 7:30am.
6) My Onion horoscope:
"You'll be pressured to resign as chairman of the board of directors when it comes to light that you are, in fact, absolutely terrible at sitting at the head of really long tables."
7) I miss processed nacho cheese.
Can someone please go to CostCo and pick me up a five gallon bucket of Tostito's Salsa con Queso? Thanks.
8) Star Wars : I don't care
9) OMG two weeks until my first final...AHHHHHHHHH! Off to read...
Coolio, the illustrious rapper that we listened to in middle school, is apparently on tour in the former USSR. I was surprised to find an article about Coolio's Baku concert in the latest EurasiaNet newsletter, as most of their articles are about terrorism, oil, dictatorships, human rights violations...eh, you know, typical Central Asia topics. I didn't realize Coolio still had a music career, much less was actually touring.
The first weekend of April saw what could easily have been taken as April Fool�s joke come true in Baku, as the American rap artist Coolio swung through town as part of a seven-month tour across Europe, the Middle East and the CIS. Coolio, who described himself in an interview as an "international emcee and entertainer," devoted much of his two days in Baku to issues concerning Azeri youth. Despite an evident desire to serve as a positive role model for young people, and to live down the Gangster Rapper moniker, he managed to stir things up during his time in Baku � offending Azerbaijani viewers with a lewd gesture during a televised interview, and rattling security at the concert venue by encouraging the audience to get up and dance.
The buzz had reached a steady roar by the time Coolio � known for hits such as "Gangsta�s Paradise," "See You When You Get There," and "I Like Girls" � arrived in Azerbaijan on April 2, several weeks after promotional posters about his concert had first appeared on the streets of the Azerbaijani capital. At a reception hosted for Azerbaijani youth by US Ambassador Reno Harnish and his wife Leslie, as well as during interviews with the local media, Coolio stayed largely on message. "Be you," was his main mantra for the youth of Azrebaijan, "don�t try to be like me, or like anyone else in this room."
Azerbaijani teens seek social acceptance just like teenagers everywhere around the world, but they tend to do this not by asserting their individuality. Instead, they seek to establish an identity within a traditional framework, which stresses obedience to parental and societal norms. The public actions of many Azerbaijanis of all ages appear to be predicated on the answer to a fundamental question: "What would my neighbors think?"
You could feel the hold of that question begin to lose its power over the course of Coolio�s performance, as the crowd loosened up, stopped worrying about acting proper, and started to groove to the music. At first it was only pockets of people, mainly in the front, who defied the security guards by dancing. A nod of Coolio�s head and a call to "jump � jump!" about four songs into the concert brought swarms of young audience members to the front of the auditorium with their hands in the air to see who could jump the highest. When security protested, Coolio and his sidekick Gangsta Lu announced that they had been told the show would be stopped unless everyone returned to their seats � the ultimate concert buzzkill.
I found a wav file of the ridiculous song we would sing at Moscow State University. It's called "Moi Adres Sovietskii Soyouz" (My Address is the Soviet Union) and was released in 1972 by D. Tukhmanov and V. Kharitonov.
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