Tag: concert

Show Burgers

Last Saturday Sue and I got out to see Wil play at Lucky Bar. We’ve seen him many times now, and every time I love the show. He is such a strong performer with a great stage presence. He is very appreciative of the audiences support of his music, and music in general. Add in the fact that his music is outstanding and we have the setting for a good evening.

To top it off we invited a couple friends to come see him too. The play was to take in the show, then head up to Bin4 for half price burgers. Part way through the show it suddenly dawned on me that they might not like the music as much as we do. I was a little worried, but then I saw them dancing along and figured they weren’t hating it and I relaxed a bit.

The show covered lots of his older material, as well as his newer stuff. He has such a powerful voice and so much energy. Most of the way through his set he called for a couple shots of Tequila. For the encore he played the 4 String Song.

Perfect way to end the show.

After grabbing our jackets we headed up to Bin4 for some delicious burgers a drink, and some catching up. Then the night was done. We managed to grab a taxi pretty quickly and managed to zip home in no time flat.

All in all a very adult evening, something that Sue and I are getting to enjoy a little more frequently.

Dessert Favorite

Last night Sox and I went out to see Wil play at the Upstairs Cabaret.

We arrived way, way, way too early, so we went and had a drink and dessert at Ferrisses. Yum!

We got to the club in time to see CR Avery perform. We could have arrived a lot later. His performance wasn’t our sort of thing. He is a beat boxing, spoken word artist. He even went off on the audience telling them to shut up and be quiet so he could get into it. In the end he said that that was part of the act, and it was his buddies that were making the noise as part of his show.

Still, we were really glad when Wil hit the stage. He put on an excellent show as always. He played some tracks from his new album, and many from older albums. He played my absolute favorite (Honey Pie), to round out his set. His encore was an absolute mind blowing song that I had never heard before, and was him going off on the guitar.

My only complaint about his music was that it seemed short.

Anticipated Voice

What a weekend. I’ll recap that in another post. This post is all about Friday night. Soundgarden concert. My most anticipated concert in a very long time.

How was it? Fan-fucking-tastic. They played songs from all their albums, and they nailed them all. They played tons of my favorite songs, and even played a couple that I was not expecting. Drawing flies was the first one. On the album it is a fast paced song with non stop singing. Live it was off the hook. When the song was done Ben Shepherd (the bassist) bumped fists with Matt Cameron (the drummer). They knew they nailed that one, the other song that I never expected to hear live was Born on the Fourth of July. When they started playing that, I nearly lost my mind.

They just kept playing and playing too. They played for over two hours before they left the stage.

Chris Cornell’s voice was outstanding too. He was hitting, and holding, all the high notes in all the songs they played. The biggest example of this was during Ugly Truth. Sounded so awesome.

The light show was awesome too. There were some very cool projections on the backdrop that were animated at times. The light bars would get reconfigured between songs, so it always seemed new and different. The backdrop animations for Drawing Flies was fast paced and chaotic, matching the song perfectly.

Rusty Cage, Jesus Christ Pose, Slaves and Bulldozers, Spoonman, Gun, Loud Love, Beyond the Wheel, Outshined, and a whole lot more.

In case you can’t tell, I had a great time at the show. I would have loved to have heard some new material though, that would have been killer.

We missed the first opening band, but it sounds like I didn’t miss all that much anyway. Queens of the Stone Age were good. I definitely enjoyed their set, but they seemed a little subdued.

At the end of the encore when the lights came up, I was happy that I was there and had seen the show, but sad it was over.

The setlist:

  • Searching With My Good Eye Closed
  • Spoonman
  • Gun
  • Jesus Christ Pose
  • Blow Up the Outside World
  • The Day I Tried to Live
  • My Wave
  • Burden in My Hand
  • Ugly Truth
  • Fell on Black Days
  • Loud Love
  • Drawing Flies
  • Black Hole Sun
  • Outshined
  • Rusty Cage
  • Superunknown
  • 4th of July

    • Encore:

  • Beyond the Wheel
  • Mailman
  • Slaves & Bulldozers

via setlist.fm

Songbook Scream

Friday night was one awesome concert that I was looking forward to for a very long time. Not something I say very often. Chris Cornell came to Victoria on his Songbook tour. This was a solo tour with him playing mostly acoustic.

In a word: wow.

The show was awesome. One of the best concerts I’ve been to. It helped that I got some pretty awesome seats, about 10th row, almost centre.

He played a bunch of Soundgarden songs, some of his solo work, a couple tracks from Audioslave, and a few covers too. It was mesmerizing to watch him play and hear him talk. He bantered with the crowd quite a bit and was quite funny at times. Listening to him sing was the reason we were all there though. His voice sounded great the whole night too. He has such range, and power throughout his entire range. He still has his signature scream that he can hold for a long time.

Hearing so many of the songs done acoustically was interesting. Sometimes it took me a while to figure out what song he was playing, and other times I knew right away. The most surprising song I heard was Mind Riot. Loved it. Hunger Strike was fucking amazing. That for me was the highlight of the show to hear that one live. Seasons was a great song to hear.

Were there any disappointments? No. Every song was enjoyable. I was surprised to not hear Spoonman. I was hoping to hear Outshined too. At the end of the show I was thoroughly happy to have spent the money on the tickets. He put on a great show, sounded great, and was very entertaining.

The setlist:

  1. Be Yourself (Audioslave cover)
  2. Ground Zero
  3. Redemption Song (Bob Marley cover)
  4. Sweet Euphoria
  5. Can’t Change Me
  6. As Hope and Promise Fade
  7. Call Me A Dog (Temple of the Dog cover)
  8. Sunshower
  9. Fell on Black Days (Soundgarden cover)
  10. Burden in My Hand (Soundgarden cover)
  11. I Am the Highway (Audioslave cover)
  12. State Trooper (Bruce Springsteen cover)
  13. When I’m Down
  14. Seasons
  15. All Night Thing (Temple of the Dog cover)
  16. Thank You (Led Zeppelin cover)
  17. Man of Golden Words/Comfortably Numb
  18. Say Hello 2 Heaven (Temple of the Dog cover)
  19. Mind Riot (Soundgarden cover)
  20. Like Suicide (Soundgarden cover)
  21. Like a Stone (Audioslave cover)
  22. Doesn’t Remind Me (Audioslave cover)
  23. A Day in the Life (The Beatles cover)

    24. Encore:

  24. Scream
  25. Hunger Strike (Temple of the Dog cover)
  26. Better Man (Pearl Jam cover)
  27. Billie Jean (Michael Jackson cover)
  28. Black Hole Sun(Soundgarden cover)
  29. Imagine (John Lennon cover)

via setlist


  • Plans Apologized

    I had the kids to myself for Thursday and Friday while Sue was off to Vancouver to take a test. The plan was for me to bring the kids to Vancouver Friday after work, then we would visit with some friends over the weekend.

    Then my friend Erin pointed out that Jeff Martin was playing in Vancouver Friday night. Plans were made, and somehow I managed to get downtown and met up with Erin in front of the club. We got in and grabbed a seat to wait for the show to begin.

    The show started off with a bang. The band opened with the title track (The Ground Cries Out) from the new CD. Sounded great. On the second song I started to notice that Jeff Martin’s voice sounded different than the album that was just released days earlier.

    Another song later he announced his voice was a little under the weather. That explained what I was noticing.

    They played quite a few songs from the new disc, and it was fantastic to hear them live.

    They also played Cathartik (I think?), a Tea Party song, and they segue’d into a Nine Inch Nails song.

    Sure enough though, after mentioning his voice, it started to go downhill quickly. A few more songs and his voice was done. He couldn’t even sing any more. He spoke his way through one soft song, and they took a quick break. He had something to drink, and tried to resume. You could see the frustration in his face, and he apologized a few times.

    At one point he said fuck it, and started belting out the next few songs forcing them to happen. I can’t imagine how that would have felt. During one pause between songs he said very nicely “Could someone please bring me a Jack Daniels on the rocks”.

    At the end of their set, they exited the stage, and the club brought up the house music. Pretty evident there would be no encore. I was hoping they would come back out and just play some of their songs without singing, or even just get out there and jam. Alas it wasn’t to be. We waited a few minutes, then grabbed our jackets and left. Outside we could see the band in an anteroom talking and looking rather upset. There were a few of us watching, and just as Erin and I were about to go, someone poked their head out and said something that sounded like “he’s coming back out”.

    We went back inside, but the guitar tech was packing everything up, and the house music was still on. We waited a couple minutes in case, but in the end we did not hear any encore.

    The show we did see was good though. Jeff Martin is an amazing guitar played, and I could watch him for days on end. Magical really.

    Overall I enjoyed the concert, but I left disappointed. I felt bad for Jeff since it really looked like he was upset. I don’t know if he would have had it in him to keep playing and not sing. He was supposed to play the next night in Duncan, but I am guessing that didn’t happen. His tour schedule was pretty aggressive, with him playing every day or two. Hopefully he can recover quickly and not have to cancel too many stops.

    Pilots Show

    On Saturday night I got out to a concert. It was the most enjoyable concert I’ve seen in a very long time. I think I had the appropriate number of beer before hang to get me in the right mood.

    Can you tell who it is? No? It is the Stone Temple Pilots. A while ago I had given up on concerts, but when I heard these guys were coming to town I jumped at the chance to go see them. I’ve been into these guys since their first album (92/93 era).

    A buddy and I headed down to the show and had a few beers before they took the stage. Right from the first song I knew I was going to enjoy it. They have so many awesome songs that it was impossible for me to now have fun. Vasoline, Plush, Creep, Crackerman, Dead & Bloated, were all awesome. The standout song for me was Sour Girl though.

    The TC writeup by Mike Devlin didn’t have much good to say about the show, felt like he didn’t put much effort into the article, yet still rated the show 4/5 stars. Weird mix there.

    I felt bad for the guys in front of me though. They were having a good time at the show, but they were smoking. One third of the way through the show security came along and kicked them all out. They weren’t bothering anyone, they were just having a good time. Sucks to be them.

    I’ve said it to many people, but I find Victoria concert goers to be pretty boring. Most people were sitting in their seats watching the show. A rock show like this needs to be experienced. I was standing the entire show, dancing, jumping, generally making a fool of myself, and damn it was fun. I haven’t done that in a long time.