Sexta-feira 21 Abr 2006, 12h:28
If you’ve been reading my previous entries on 1981 through this, you might say that 1989 was a wind-down year, I didn’t pick up a lot of new bands. But I did get to see bands I loved a lot and had seen before several more times. So that year I saw
REM (7 times)
The Connells (5 times)
The Poster Children (3 times)
Robyn Hitchcock (3 times)
Big Dipper
Thin White Rope
Love Tractor
Camper Van Bethoven
Alex Chilton
Fetchin Bones
The Elvis Brothers
How can a girl really complain about that? If you want to read what I have to say about seeing those bands live, visit the back entries in the journal cuz they’re all there.
I did see some memorable bands I’d never seen before:
Dinosaur Jr. Who were okay but really not all that memorable.
Throwing Muses (twice) Who were really very very good. My friend Josh who had died of lukemia the year before had befriended them – they were his favorite band – and there was something really poignant about seeing them so soon after he’d died. His parents came and Kirsten Hirsch dedicated things to him and his presence was really felt, so that added something special to what was already a really good pair of shows.
Hot Glue Gun. Champaign – Urbana funkpunk band (I’m sure there’s an official name for that genre but I don’t know what it is). Always fun.
NRBQ (3 times). These guys were one of those bands that vast legions of alt people slightly older than I thought were the coolest best awesomest band ever. And they were definitely onto something, boy were they fun to see live.
Syd Straw. She’s got one of the most amazing voices I’ve ever heard and was such a charismatic performer I was ready to jump the fence and run away with her if she’d have had me.
Chris Isaak. I was in California and he played a little place out in the middle of nowhere. The show was sold out, but my friends and I decided to just hang out so we could at least hear the show through the door. Just before he came on, the doormen took pity on us and, I suspect, recycled a few used tickets on our behalf. So we were making the place over capacity, but we got in. I had been a sucker for his records for several years at this point, but I don’t think I was really prepared for what an incredibly funny and charming presence he is (that he’s massively handsome was a given). At one point he beckoned me on stage to dance but I declined, after which he didn’t look at me again (oops), but the girls who did get up shook their booties in the biggest way and were probably far more entertaining than I would have been. He had his original twangy guitar player still and watching him make those noises come out of his guitar was about as exciting as watching Chris make that voice come out of his mouth.
The Buzzcocks. Also from my California trip. This was their first tour after they reunited. I saw them in LA, which was an extremely fun people-watching occasion to begin with. And then they were so completely great. I had sort of thought it would be a nostalgia trip to see them, but I remember them playing their song “Nostalgia” and my thinking “there is nothing nostalgic about this, they are better than almost any band I’ve seen in the last decade and they sound fresher than almost any of them.”
Toad the Wet Sprocket. Boring.
The B-52s Love Tractor was opening for them, which gave me a good excuse to do the roadtrip. I never really adored this band, though they are without doubt the ultimate summer-having-a-party-band and I do have a couple of their records and deeply love some of the songs on them (especially Cosmic Thing). Live they earned the title of ultimate etc band. Sheer fun! I’d see them again in a heartbeat.
And like every year, I was also seeing a lot of local music that I haven’t listed because no one on here would have heard of them unless they were there seeing them too (there was more to the C-U music scene than the Poster Children).