KJames199
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|  #1 Posted on 4.11.16 0105.59
Reposted on: 4.11.23 0107.46 | My goodness. The last time I saw these guys was 19 years and 249 reviews ago. I was not quite 21. Pat was there. We hoisted. It was a different time.
I wasn't sure about going to this. For as much as I enjoy some Bush songs (Machinehead) (maybe some other ones) (no, mostly Machinehead), I don't know if I think of them as GOOD, exactly. For all the hey-remember-your-faraway-youth concerts I go to, I was more uncertain about this one than most. I discussed the situation with Jeff and he seemed equally hesitant to get tickets. Finally, I left it up to fate. If I could get really good seats, we'd go. If not, such is life.
I do not believe that there is a god, but if there is one, he or she must have been really into the idea of us seeing this show, because we wound up in the front row. That is a super weird thing for a supreme being to care about, but I suppose I wouldn't be able to comprehend how its mind would work anyway, so maybe it's not? If I quit listening to new music in the 90s, maybe God did too. "I dunno, I had the radio on, and Sarah McLachlan did this XTC cover, and I was just like... this just isn't for me anymore."
I figure we lucked into front row seats because the Conexus Arts Centre ticket website machine won't let you leave one empty seat by itself, and there were three seats open in the front row, so if you wanted to buy a pair, you couldn't. I debated it briefly, but ultimately figured we could give the third one a good home - or a good butt, as the case may be. The third ticket wound up with Scott, a guy I work with who was also at that Bush show in Saskatoon 19 years ago. He said it was his first "real" concert, apart from going to see The Nylons for a classmate's tenth birthday, which still seems like the oddest idea for a kid's party.
My first non-kids' concert was Rod Stewart, for the record. Next up was Billy Joel. Musically sated, I then took something like eight years off. Then Céline Dion. That is such a bizarre contrast to this past year. Or to a normal person's life, probably.
Anyway. Scott picked me up and we met Jeff walking into the auditorium. It was a slow process; Scott knows everyone. We approached our seats and simultaneously remembered that we were sitting in the front row. I mean, we all knew, but I didn't really think about it once I bought the tickets, but then you actually get there, and it's pretty exciting.
Our openers were the Dead Deads, playing their first-ever Canadian show. I think they said they come from Nashville? Five young girls with X's painted on their eyes, presumably because they are dead dead. I didn't really know what to make of this? It wasn't SUPER loud but did have some death metal growwwwwwwwls thrown in there. One of my cohorts said this may have been the worst band he'd ever seen. The other said it was "okay." I fell closer to the "okay" side but in that "this is not really meant for me and I don't feel the need to seek out more of this" sort of way. If you were at that Bush show 19 years ago, you may know what I mean when I rank these guys closer to Souls (fondly remembered by me for the non-hit song "Fuckmonkey") and less like Veruca Salt.
There was an unusual moment when the singer said that their new album was produced by Page Hamilton, the lead singer of Helmet. "And he's sitting right there!" she says, pointing into the crowd at the other side of the stage from us. It just seems really weird that he'd be there. We weren't able to see him from where we were sitting, and after their set, Scott went on a reconnaissance mission but never found him.
After a short intermission, Bush took the stage and it did not get off to a great start. They opened with Everything Zen, which was good, but things fell apart a few songs in. During a song I didn't know, it seemed like there was a long awkward pause. Jeff leaned over. "I think that was a fuck-up." Sure enough, Gavin Rossdale called a halt to the song. "We don't play like that. We play good." I've seen a number of shows this year where a song hit a snag, and to a one, the performer had a good sense of humour about the situation (or could at least fake it well enough). Not here. Rossdale was clearly frustrated. Then they restarted the song and he messed it up again, and at that point, the rest of the band was looking frustrated too.
Later on, a guitar tech came out to switch out Rossdale's guitar, mid-song. Rossdale shooed him away, looking pretty unhappy about the interruption. But he didn't notice that the tech had turned down the guitar he was playing in preparation for the swap, so he kept on playing the original guitar, just very quietly.
Jeff tells me that in that first song, there are supposed to be two verses before the chorus, but Rossdale was trying to go into the chorus after the first verse. It's good to know people who know things. He also told me the song was called "the Disease of the Dancing Cats," which sounds like the kind of thing he'd make up to see if I put it into my review without checking. The setlist.fm record of the night backs him up, but I don't know that Jeff didn't upload the setlist, playing the long game. Devious.
Here's that setlist. You'll note that a few songs are marked as having been played live for the first time. That's what Rossdale said, anyway; I don't know if it's true, but if so, that's pretty neat:
Everything Zen
Just Like My Other Sins
The Chemicals Between Us
The Disease of the Dancing Cats
The Sound of Winter
Greedy Fly
The Gift
Earth Keeps Burning (live premiere)
Monkey
The People That We Love
Swallowed
This House Is on Fire
Lost in You (live premiere)
The Only Way Out
Insect Kin
Little Things
Before getting into the encore, I want to note a few things. There was a big screen behind the band that played during the whole show. Often, the videos playing were abstract and just there for decoration. But during one song, there was a video of a man with a briefcase. He checks a scrap of paper. 999 999. Aha! He unlocks the briefcase. Oh no! It wasn't 999 999! It was 666 666! And the briefcase is full of evil! In the form of many CGI blackbirds!
The more I talk about the show, the less good it sounds. But that's not fair - it was a lot of fun too. If you check that setlist, there are a lot of good songs on there. And sitting right up front helped a lot; it was really cool to see Rossdale singing and playing guitar literally two feet from me at times. And to his credit, he tried his best to bring that experience to as many people as possible. He'd hop off the stage, run up and down the aisles, hugging and high-fiving whoever he could. The highlight of this was near the end of the main set, when he disappeared out the back of the auditorium and reemerged on the second balcony. This was all really cool.
And though it's not 1997 anymore, there were nearly as many high-pitched squeals for Rossdale as there were 19 years ago. Girls behind me shrieked "We made eye contact! I SWEAR!" And there were three girls up on the balcony who looked ready to faint after their surprise front-row show. This fantastic reaction really helped the atmosphere.
You might notice some prominent singles missing from the setlist above. Unsurprisingly, the encore included Machinehead, Glycerine (Rossdale solo), and Comedown, in that order. More surprisingly, between Machinehead and Glycerine, they played The One I Love. As in, the R.E.M. song. Nobody saw that one coming, but it went over really well. As did all the hits, of course.
So yeah, it was not without its flaws, but overall, it was a fun show. You might be advised to temper your expectations a bit, but if you want to relive your (well, my) just-after-University years, you could do worse. | Promote this thread! |             | Whitebacon
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|  #2 Posted on 4.11.16 1133.25
Reposted on: 4.11.23 1136.42 | Bush played Fresno State's Vintage Days festival some sixteen years (04/30/2000!) ago now and before their amphitheatre was condemned for safety reasons. Even in 2000, I was there for the nostalgia of 1994.
I was really impressed with Moby and his show, and he falls nowhere near my normal musical wheelhouse. That man works the hell out of his set.
(edited by Whitebacon on 4.11.16 0934) | Toast Jr
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| #3 Posted on 10.11.16 0938.25
Reposted on: 10.11.23 0939.26 | | The Dead Deads will be opening at a show I'm going to later this year. I like Veruca Salt, but I don't know the Souls. Do you have another 90's band to compare them to? | KJames199
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| #4 Posted on 10.11.16 2057.54
Reposted on: 10.11.23 2059.01 | Originally posted by Toast Jr
The Dead Deads will be opening at a show I'm going to later this year. I like Veruca Salt, but I don't know the Souls. Do you have another 90's band to compare them to?
Was Kittie a thing where you live?
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