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[I found this old review I wrote & figured I post it here on Last.FM]

Fri 24 Sep 2004 – An Evening With... Siouxsie

I'm not that much of a Siouxsie fan, but I am happy to say I had a wonderful time, and some great insight into human values was gained.

The show started with a Taiko drummer drumming on a big drum, which was impressive. Then the regular drummer joined in and they played off of each other for a while. Then the keyboardist, guitarist and two background singers (who are actually twins) came on stage, and finally Siouxsie herself. She was dressed in a kimono style dress, with a very low frontal cut revealing, in part, her... well, let's just say there was more of her than I imagined there could be. :-) Her voice was as clear and as good as on her records.

At the beginning of the third song, Siouxsie complained about the air conditioning and that if it wouldn't be turned off, this would be her last song! I was baffled for a split second, thought "how can it be cold up there with the lights and everything," then watched on curiously for how this would play out. Indeed, she walked off after the song ended, cursing the Warfield staff. Around me I heard people saying things like "She can't do that!", "What a bitch!", "Wow...", and "What happened?" I actually felt incredibly proud of her. I was surprised, of course, I mean, this was completely unheard of, comical almost, but let's face it: she is a rockstar and if things aren't going perfectly, she is allowed to not go through with it. So I started clapping really loud, as were many other people, making sure she would hear and return.

And after a few minutes she did, with two big white bathroom towels wrapped around her neck. I was impressed. By this time she had become a Goddess in my eyes, by her appearance and her actions. Some more songs went by -- the towels stayed on, but we felt the airco had been turned off -- and at one point there was a very low bass tone coupled with intense blue light coming from behind the stage (Siouxsie's own lighting, not the Warfield's). This was totally entrancing, hypnotic! A unique moment. Two or three more songs later the towels were no longer needed, and the show seemingly had gone back to the way it was meant to be.

Then a guy managed to climb on stage and started dancing. I don't think he moved towards Siouxsie, but she definitely approached him and started microphone-whipping him as if she was holding nunchakus! He swaggered around a bit more, and then dove/fell forward off the stage. I couldn't see how he landed, but afterwards I learned the crowd had moved away to have him experience the longest fall possible. 10 minutes or so later I saw the guy being taken out by security.
Siouxsie wasn't pleased. She flipped some people off. Some said she spit on a security guard and tried to hit a guard with the microphone. She said that we the audience ruled but that the Warfield staff were a bunch of assholes, and that she'd never return to this venue again. I feared there would be no encore, but she came back twice nevertheless.

And so, the lesson in values is this: No matter who you are, no matter how many people are affected by your decision, you make that choice. A choice you know is best; a choice you know you'll be happy with a day, a week, a year from now. Then dare to vocalize your choice, be prepared to live that choice, as it stands for who you are.

Siouxsie
Siouxsie Sioux
Siouxsie and the Banshees
The Creatures

Sat 24 May – etd POP


Arrived at about 10pm. Made our own parking spot near the end of the full lot close to the exit. Tickets had not arrived in the mail, so picked them up at will-call. There was no line. In the back of the office was a lady doing paper work (or counting money); on the hardboard walls unknown celebrities (or ex-employees) had left their messages or signatures. Here and there small pockets of youngsters in skimpy shorts and fake-fur calf-warmers in flamboyant colors. Back outside to the entrance. No line. Frisked. Ticket scanned.

Inside: a river. A tumultuous river of people streaming around the castle without a bridge to cross it. A boa-constrictor slowly slithering its glistening, sweaty, body tighter and tighter and tighter around its prey. Once inside of it, in the bowels of the concert machine, convulsions moves one onward. It's like a medieval marketplace. Drunken fools who drank too much too soon who stare you down as you move past them too close for comfort. A human chain of best friends who, hands locked, are undeterrable from their goal of reaching the other end together in one piece, not caring if you're in their way. And their eyes... they see something I can't see. Then there are shirtless wanna-be buff guys bumping into you and leaving their sweatmark on you. The folks on the side lines engaged in discussions of where to go next form the perfect lining to it all. All of this in the brightest artificial light possible.

Got the wrist band. Got the drink. Get me out of here. Through one of the tunnels to the main arena. And there... a massive amount of people... dancing... in the darkness... neon lights... the music... wow... I let this vision make a lasting impression. Up to the top of this new world. Overseeing it all is incredible. We catch an hour of Ferry Corsten and then Tiësto goes on. There's a guy who has two lights on strings and he can make them spin turning them into circles that dance in the air like a UFO and move over his chest like insects. The girl he's standing over is absolutely entranced and tracks the lights as if they were spelling out the meaning of her life. She also happens to be sitting on a guy's lap, which I'm sure gives her the need for some extra focus. Her name is Amy. Somewhere else someone else is getting a neck rub. His name is John, and shares his knowledge of some brain experiment led by some professor in the 90s. They are nice, approachable and friendly people, having a good time. They know a lot of other people. In fact it looks like there are large contingents of friends. 30-40 people spread out over 5 rows of seats all know each other, sharing cigarettes with one other, sharing glow sticks too.

Then, suddenly, the music stops and a minute later the lights go on. It's 1am on the nose. Tiësto is not knowing what to do. The crowd is just not knowing. Are they kicking us out an hour early? Did he sprain his wrist? What up?! Finally, after the crowed has expressed their dissatisfaction that even the trapeze artists were not able to restore, a voice comes on and says there was a power outage and (somewhat confusing) that they're working to restore it and to please make our way to the nearest exit. After 10 minutes the voice says the same thing again, and so... time to leave... 50 minutes to closing time... 50 minutes of missed Tiësto set...

My last rave was some 10 years ago. I'm happy to be back. But, dude, what's with grown ups sucking baby pacifiers?

Tiësto
Ferry Corsten

... attend the Berklee College of Music in Boston but make sure to drop out early (and possibly move to L.A.). That is what Melissa Etheridge, Aimee Mann and BT did. Go on read their profile info. Amazing.

Okay, so I'm completely off the Top Listeners lists. Here's my conclusion: the top listeners for a track -- even though it says it's over the last 6 months -- is really only over the last week.

I'm disappointed, but it kinda makes sense.

Now that I know how to play songs I don't own, I'm making full use of my playlist. In turn, the playlist has become a trusty source for playing a random song I'm interested in.

So here's my track 5,000: Fields Of Gold by Sting.

To continuing my hypothesis work from my last post, I ended up playing End of the Line 14 times, and for the first time also some other J.J. Cale songs. By now, I've played roughly 5000 songs total. That's 14/5000*100 = 0.28. Indeed, I am now a top listener of that song. Woohoo!! :-)

About that 0.2 assumption, I also became top listener of some other infrequently played songs this week. Let's see what the ratios are in those cases:

- You Can Call It Yours (550 plays, 146 listeners): 12 plays = 12/5000*100 = 0.24
- Beat Girl (1,895 plays, 817 listeners): 10 plays = 10/5000*100 = 0.2

However, I'm not top listener of these:
- Passion, Grace, and Fire (40 plays, 0 listeners): 11 plays = 11/5000*100 = 0.22
(Probably because there's not enough listeners.)
- blue muse (rib remix) (186 plays, 33 listeners): 10 plays = 10/5000*100 = 0.2
(Not sure, because there are 2 listeners listed... I did play it last week... I do show up in the full list of listeners... hmmm... I recall seeing a spam protection message while playing music from my external music player... some tracks were not added to my profile because they were submitted earlier than my last submitted track... maybe that's why.)

Lastly, I correctly do not show up for songs that I've played less than 10 times, and thus have a ratio below 0.2:
- Dream On (1,985 plays, 407 listeners): 9 plays = 9/5000*100 = 0.18

So, I conclude that my hypothesis is correct:
You show up as a top listener of a track if you've played that track no less than 0.2 % of your total number of tracks played. If you have a total of 5000 tracks played, you show as a top listener for all tracks played 0.2 * 5000 / 100 = 10 times.

To futher prove it, I will not play Beat Girl all week, and since I've played it 10 times now, I should drop off the list once I've played more than 5000 tracks.

At this point I'm pretty sure that'll be the case. :-)

How does one become a top listener?

First I thought to play it a fixed number of times. Based on other top listeners, I estimated it to be 10.

Not so.

There are top listeners who just joined Last.FM and only played a song once.

Aha!

So it's a percentage. Based on my analysis of the awesome song End of the Line, I estimate the percentage to be 0.2. In my case, I have played the above track 8 times. Since I have about 4680 tracks played total, that comes down to: 8/4680*100 = 0.17.

Correct, I'm not a top listener of that song.

To become one (according to my assumption), before I hit 4800 tracks total, I need to play it: 4800/100*0.2 = 9.6 times. Since I love that song, I've made sure it's been played 10 times. If I show up as top listener next week, my assumption was correct.

I have a lot of CDs, and have an online music subscription, but even then, there will be songs I don't have.

This is frustrating!!!

Then I found a solution: find the song on Last.fm, find the top listeners to that song, check their top songs/artists to gauge how probable it is they'd play that song on their radio. Then play the radio station of those top users you selected, and skip songs until you come across the song you wanted to hear!

Yeah!! I'm so talented!! I love me!

OK, so after doing the hard way for a while, I discovered there's a much better way:

Tag the songs you wanna hear, and then just play that tag's radio station directly.

WOW!!

OK, maybe I'm not so good. But hey, I am a quick learner!

(Edited 1/9/08 to add)

Dude, this is what the Playlist is for!!! Just make sure you check the option to show the playlist on your profile and you're set to go!

Doh!

P.S. I think only paid members can play full-length tracks...