A Kristen post!
rob and I did something we rarely do: went to a rock concert at a large(ish) venue! A few months ago I saw an announcement of an amazing triple bill: Primus, Coheed & Cambria and Fishbone were coming to The Anthem (a ~6000 capacity venue in DC that’s a few years old – we’ve never been). We quickly decided that was worth shelling out for the tickets and TicketBastard fees – though we opted for the cheaper standing General Admission over the seats. I’m not crazy about standing shows anymore, and really prefer seeing shows at small venues – but figured we could hang for this one.
A few days ago as TicketBastard was emailing me with reminders of the show, I saw that Fishbone’s name had been replaced with Puddles Pity Party. Major disappointment – we were really looking forward to seeing Fishbone. I last saw them back in 1998 at Oberlin College – my senior year – and my bestie Karen drove over from College of Wooster to attend with me. They put Fishbone in the gym rather than the bigger concert venue which I thought was odd (but the bigger venue was a church, so…OK). The turnout was embarrassing – there were maybe 30-40 people tops. We couldn’t understand it – this is one of the bigger-name bands that came to Oberlin during my time there. You could tell Fishbone were not happy with both the turnout and the lame venue, but they still put on an amazing show. Then later, we ran into Angelo Moore getting tator tots at the local late-night spot. We were too shy to talk to him, which I now regret. There is actually a review of this show from the Oberlin paper archives if you’re curious!
Fast-forward 26 years… so I’d heard of Puddles but had an impression he was just gimmicky. Cabaret covers in a clown costume. He was on America’s Got Talent. But some friends said he was amazing, so of course I’ll give him a chance. I checked out some videos and was impressed with his voice, at least.
On the day of the show, rob and I were having a case of the don’t wannas. Don’t wanna drive to downtown DC, don’t wanna pay $40 for parking (we debated Metro but decided we’d just shell out. I’m glad we did as the show ran late enough that I would have been worried about catching the last train), don’t wanna stand for several hours, don’t wanna feel OLD… but we gathered ourselves and made the trek.
We’ve never been to The Wharf before – it’s an area that seems to have exploded over the last few years. The rich park their boats here, there’s lots of overpriced restaurants, and in addition to The Anthem you have two other venues: Pearl Street Warehouse, a ~300 capacity that seems like the kind of place ilyAIMY should be playing, but we’ve never gotten an In… and Union Stage, which I don’t know much about but Lulu’s Fate has been asked a few times very last-minute if we want to jump on a bill there for Bluegrass Night. It’s never worked out. I guess I’m glad we’re on their list, but less enthused that it’s only as a last-minute fill-in call and never as a first call.
Anyhoo, we got to the area 90 minutes before doors and 3 hours before showtime. Got overpriced but good tacos and margaritas for dinner. Walked by Pearl Street Warehouse and thought…yeah, it’d be nice to play here, but how the hell would we deal with $40 parking for everyone in the band? Noticed that people were already starting to line up down the pier for General Admission at 5:00 – ugh. We joined the line around 6.
I’d heard that there were GA standing areas behind the seating on the second tier, so that’s where we went to be out of the fray of the floor. Got pretty good spots with a decent view and settled in for 90 minutes of waiting:
Though the crowd seemed to be largely various flavors of white Gen Xers and Millennials (with a fair number of younger folks that were probably there for Coheed), I was impressed with the diversity of our little box section. There was a ~10-year-old kid there with his dad, and most notably, two Black ladies with canes that had to be in their 70s. One was in a Primus t-shirt and was groovin’ in her seat for the whole show. I even saw her go on setlist.com on her phone during Primus’ set – she must be a die-hard! We really wanted to know more and be friends with them…but how do you start THAT interaction, especially if you’re not sitting next to them?
Now onto the show:
Puddles Pity Party
Yeah, he’s got a great voice. He’s very good at what he does, and I can respect that. But he sang to pre-recorded tracks, which was disappointing as a live music experience. He did a wild mashup of Stairway To Heaven and the Gilligan’s Island Theme. And later, he redeemed disappointment by guesting with Primus as they backed him up on Dio’s “Holy Diver” and Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song”!! He did lose some lyrics on Immigrant Song and maybe had trouble with the key overall, but it was fun.
Coheed & Cambria
This is a band I’ve never followed closely – but I’ve been impressed with what I’ve seen/heard, so I was excited to see them. rob was even more excited as he’s followed them for longer, but also had never seen them live. A lot of their music is concept-stuff based on lead singer Claudio Sanchez’ sci-fi writings and comic series, which I’ve also never delved into. When it was time for them to start, the drummer, bassist and guitarist walked out on stage to make an announcement to the audience: Claudio had been struggling with his voice all day, and finally made the last-minute call that he just couldn’t sing. His voice is completely gone. SHIT!! I thought they were going to apologize for having to back out of their set. But they said they’d just made the decision to play – only without the vocals, and implored the audience that they had to sing along. Well, OK then!
They were clearly broken up about this and seemed unsure that it was the right decision, but they ended up playing a killer set with a lot of energy. I was really disappointed not to hear Claudio sing – I think he has one of the most virtuosic voices in rock, and his vocals are a big reason why I like the band – but shit happens, and I give them major props for making this work. The road is really tough on a body, and I’m frankly surprised these singers don’t blow out their voices constantly. Claudio played guitar and bopped around Peanuts-style all over the stage – if he was sick in other ways, it didn’t show. He had his wife come out and sing a couple of songs, which was a little odd, but – yeah, just trying to make it work and deliver to the audience, who seemed to understand and roll with it.
And the audience did fulfill the request to sing. They probably would have regardless – but it was pretty cool “just” hearing the lyrics screamed back by the crowd. Here’s a bit of one of their bigger hits, “In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth,” which they opened with:
It was a moving example of making decisions and supporting each other in a band, and the pressure this probably puts on everyone to deliver and do your job at this level. Got me thinking about what ilyAIMY would do in this situation. I think the full band could pull off a full show without vocals and it’d be an interesting experience, as our instrumentalists are pretty badass (IMO). Though since we have 3 leads in the band and a big repertoire, we could adjust the set with little issue. And we’ve definitely done this before, if one of our leads isn’t feeling great or had an emergency and couldn’t make the show. We can lean more heavily on rob songs or Heather songs, or pick ones that are kinder on vocals.
It was also an illustration of how much the audience really is part of a live show. Performers and audience feed off each other and it’s part of why you never get the same experience twice. Overall I was impressed at how Coheed & Cambria handled this and I really felt for their situation. I hope Claudio gets his voice back soon.
Primus
Though I likely heard/saw “My Name Is Mud” on MTV whenever that came out, I specifically remember being introduced to Primus ca. 1993 at Tanglewood Music Camp. This is an elite classical music summer camp for high schoolers where we were expected to be doing great symphonic & chamber music things, and shedding in the literal “practice sheds” for a couple hours a day. A guy my roommate knew in the choral program whom we were hanging out with was really into Primus, and we sat in his room and listened to the full Pork Soda and Sailing the Seas of Cheese albums (god, when was the list time you hung out with friends and “actively listened” to music??). I think he made me dubbed cassettes of those. I had also picked up electric bass a year or two prior (and never really got anywhere), so Les and his bass stylings were just fascinating to me. Primus is also one of the very few bands I was introduced to that did NOT come to me via my best friend (usually from her older sister), or from my older sister (often via her college boyfriend, now husband).
I’ve always appreciated Primus’ unique instrumental prowess, unabashed weirdness, and abilities to improvise and experiment. They managed to have a very uncommercial sound & look, but still “made it” (whatever that means) commercially. As someone who’s always gravitated towards the bass end of things, Les Claypool is just an idol, of course. Recently, I’ve decided that Primus is a band that I LOVE but don’t always LIKE. What do I mean by that? I have to be in the right mood to listen to their recorded music. I have this big playlist of nostalgic 90s rock/alternative that I tend to listen to on long drives. Not too long ago, I took off the Primus albums because I was having the urge to skip. Sometimes, slap-bass rumblings, atonal guitar wanking and mumble-twang lyrics about weird things just…isn’t what your brain wants. But Live? It’s the stuff I love.
And this show, Primus BROUGHT IT. The only other time I’ve seen them is 10 years ago at the Lyric in Baltimore. I don’t remember much about it other than…there were Oompa Loompas on stage? It was cool to finally see the band, but I think it just wasn’t remarkable. It was more of a themed show of whatever they were doing at the time. For this Anthem show they seemed to be fully in their element. rob has seen them a few times including short festival sets, and said this was the Primus show he’s always wanted. They were groovy, funky, weird of course, improvisational but also tight. They kicked off with American Life which was aggressively perfect for this moment. They mostly played older stuff, including some songs from Frizzle Fry that rob said he had never heard live.
Another cool connection with Primus is that Les Claypool and I are both NS Design artists. We’re on their website together! Les’ NS upright bass was onstage, but he unfortunately never played it. Bummer, but a small gripe.
Other venue thoughts: I thought the sound was pretty good, for this environment. I will still always prefer small venues where the volume can be more reasonable, and assuming a capable sound crew (frequently NOT the case, sadly), you can really hear what’s going on. But, it was not bad. I had to wear earplugs for Coheed’s set, and didn’t feel I needed them so much during Primus. Les’ vocals could have been heard better. We noticed that there didn’t seem to be any side fill speakers in this venue, and rob theorized that would have improved things.
I would definitely go to a show here again (for the right band I really want to pay Ticketmaster fees and parking for), and the 2nd tier GA standing was certainly viable to be out of the fray of the crowd. A mosh pit eventually formed, but it seemed relatively tame. There was some crowd-surfing, and the bouncers seemed to efficiently and gently extract people from the end of surfing and funnel them down the side to re-join the floor. Including time in the line to get in, we were standing for about 6 hours. Not my favorite – but wear comfy shoes and pop some ibuprofen, and it’s doable once in a while.
Every time I go to a show like this it makes me think about the pros and cons of being at a higher level professionally. Would we like to be playing venues like this to thousands of screaming fans? Sure, I guess…but there is a whole lot that goes with it that I think I would not be into. I have a real moral issue with TicketBastard. I like playing for small audiences where you can really connect with people. Sometimes that means empty rooms, and that sucks – but as I’ve come to learn, someone is always listening, and what you do is important to them.