Dumbek's Random Stuff

A few quick thoughts on the last couple of days...

The Rollins Band show was intense. By the time the drummer would count-off a song, Henry already had veins popping out of his neck and sweat was flying all over the stage. He looked like he was ready to eat your children. Brutal would be another good word to describe it. Fantastic show. Good enough that I almost forgot they weren't the headliner. And loud. Boy-howdy were they loud. Search and Destroy, indeed.

X had the unenviable task of following Rollins. Not a task 98% of the bands out there could handle. X did a great job though. A few technical difficulties at the beginning, but they came through in a big way. Focusing on the first 4 records, they just kicked-it non-stop. Classic after classic. A few songs into it and I forgot all about Rollins. Billy is just as weird and flawless as ever. John always gives his all. Exene was...well...Exene. And that's always a good thing. I can't get enough of John and Exene singing together. That being said, having seen them more than a few times now, I can't say this was my favorite show. Maybe it just seemed too low-key after Rollins. I'm probably in the minority here when I say I wouldn't mind them expanding their setlist a bit. I know their first few records are classics, but I wouldn't mind a couple songs from See How We Are or even Ain't Love Grand. I'll take whatever they give me though. They certainly never disappoint. This show was no exception.

One weird thing....After about 6 songs there was a bit of a crowd-swell to my left. After a few seconds we noticed someone lying on the floor. Bob ran out to get help and within a few seconds the staff was there, helping the guy to his feet and walked him off of the main floor. I had just assumed someone had passed-out, but in the comments on my last post, John mentioned that someone fell off the balcony. Is that what happened? We were quite a bit in front of the rail. I would think he would have almost had to jump to get out that far. Nobody else appeared to be hurt. Did someone really fall off? Did anyone see that happen? I hope he's ok.


Anyway....Yesterday we ventured up to Philadelphia to catch Foo Fighters at The Tower. They're doing a short acoustic tour, featuring a lot of the songs from disc 2 of In Your Honor. I bought that disc the day it came out - not realizing it had copy-protection software on it. As soon as I put it in my computer it tried to install software. Nice. As a result, it's not on my iPod and I think I've listened to it 3 times. Thanks a lot BMG. F--kers. (I'm sure there are ways around this. I'm just too lazy.)

We went to Philly because the DC show was the same night as X/Rollins. I'd rather see the Foo acoustic show in a theater rather than DAR anyway. We were about as far away from the stage as you could get - upper balcony back in the corner. I think were were about 4 rows from the top. Yikes. But at least we got in. I think it was a pretty tough ticket. Unfortunately, due to a subway mishap we ended up missing all but 2 songs of Frank Black's set. Even those we heard from the concourse. Oh well...

The songs from In Your Honor were beautiful, as were the stripped down versions of songs from their other records - like "Big Me", "Times Like These" and "Next Year". They still managed to rock a little - even in this setting - with songs like "Best of You". Not surprisingly, "Everlong" closed the show. I didn't realize Pat Smear was playing with them on this tour. Bonus. Very nice show.

Slickee Boys tomorrow. WOOHOO!