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Snow's Vanity, whimsy, and foolishness site... |
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Concrete Blonde 2003
At the Showbox in Seattle, WA. 1/25/03 (Concert Review) They came back. It was a long night, but they made it worth while. We thought the show was to start at 8 pm. But upon closer look when we got to the Green Room at about 6:15 pm showed us that the ticket said "Doors at 8 pm" and someone at the bar told Michael that there were two opening acts and that CB was not really expected to take the stage until midnight. I didn't want to believe this. It seemed nuts. Michael and I had a couple of drinks and then a few friends joined us, then they went out for some food. About 7:30 pm I decided to start hovering near the gate between the bar and the theatre. There were already four other people hover there in a rough line and of course all of them had arrived well after us. True to their word they opened that gate right about 8 pm. Michael and I ran straight for our desired tables. Well, not exactly straight since I was a wee bit drunk and it was up some stairs and then a ramp and more stairs. But we made a bee-line for it at any rate. We got four tables in a row with 10 chairs and this was just enough for our extended group. Then we wait and we mingled amonst ourselves. Michael got some food and another drink that we shared. I ran into a couple of friends in the audience that I hadn't seen in ages. I don't think the first act went on until 9:15-30 pm and they sucked. We don't know who they were, we didn't understand a word they said, and we really didn't care. I think shitty equipment must be the bane of small bands. The second act was a little better. The John Auer Band. John announced right off that he used to be with the Posies. Well, I don't really know the Posies, but I have heard of them. The sound quality as well as the music itself was much improved over the first act. But it was getting late and we hadn't expected such a long show, so again we really didn't care. When they were done there was another half hour/45 min wait before the lights dimmed and it was finally time for Concrete Blonde to take the stage. I was completely sober again by then and it was 11:45 pm. I was very happy to see them. Johnette Napolitano, Jim Mankey and their new drummer Gabriel Ramirez-Quezada put on an amazing show. Johnette is always the center of attention whether she likes it or not. She looked great, and she sounded amazing. The audience worshipped her. Jim always seems content to stay out of the spotlight, happy to be onstage playing. Gabriel seemed very happy to be up there. He did a great job. I hope he will be more reliable then Harry. Johnette told us about how they had made a great effort to play a different selection of songs from last year when they were here. (1/31/02: play list) And I think they did a really good job of it. We had this drunken guy behind us dancing around like a lunatic and screaming and whistling at inappropriate intervals. The girl that was with him looked embarrassed and I hope he got to hear about when he sobered up. All I can figure is this middle aged idiot is wasting his life in some sort of 9 to 5 that he hates and going to 'rock concert' was his chance to cut loose. Well, that's no excuse for turning into a drunken asshole and making it hard for those around you to enjoy the show. Everybody do the concert going world a favor, if you are the one lucking embarrassed next to some drunken jerk, you need to tell them yourself. I've been there myself and the guy I was with didn't like hearing that he was acting like an asshole, but he certainly shut up and stopped embarrassing me. Actually, he didn't believe me at first and turned to ask a stranger for an opinion and they nodded agreement with me, and that was what shut him up. But you see nice people, especially when dealing with a stranger are not usually confrontational enough to tell someone off. I always thank Michael when he takes it upon himself to ask some rude person to keep it down. He's usually very polite, and they are almost always abusive anyway because they don't like being called on it. Anyway, enough my soapbox. As far as people watching went, the perky goth with the banana clip in her hair was the most fun. Johnette later told us that about her day shopping in Seattle. She said she hadn't done any shopping in quite awhile, but she hit Seattle and suddenly it was like she had a 'black belt in shopping'. That was cute. A little ways into the show when Johnette took on the guitar and Jim had to play bass we got a little excited, hoping desperately that we would get to hear them play our favorite song: Take Me Home. But no, it was just a tease. They played a Kinks song, and Mexican Moon. They played Take Me Home in Denver last year and we were terribly jealous. I guess I should be happy that we heard them play it aucoustically in Stockton (11/08/01) but that was before the album had come out. We didn't completely fall in love with the song until we listened to the album a few times but the seed had been planted in Stockton. Anyway, I got distracted again. Sorry about that. By the time the show wrapped up with an amazing encore of 'Everybody Knows', some blues sang solo by Johnette (no music, just a mike) and 'Haunted Head', it was 1:30 am we had been there for 7 hours, we were exhausted and sick from the cigerette smoke but we didn't regret a minute of it. ~Snow Playlist (They took the stage at 11:45 pm) Here are some Lyrics for Concrete Blonde Songs.
* I couldn't find a page of lyrics that had these words Johnette was sing so I don't know they are suppose to be a song originally by Bessie Smith, or if Johnette is just so brilliant that she made them up herself on the spot, and they were just meant to really sound like Bessie.
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