Cowboy Junkies, May 19, 2019 at the Fonda

I discovered Cowboy Junkies (besides just a minor entry on the Pump Up The Volume soundtrack) past their prime, mostly through my brother’s recommendation of Studio, and over time I drifted into their stuff, not much beyond that album until later, but I eventually realized that it had settled fairly deeply with me. They were also still an active band, even if anything they’d done since hadn’t gotten much traction, and still together for the intermittent show. It was easy enough to get a ticket for the show (a single, just to make it easy) and see if I could catch up on what I'd missed, even this late for us all. Being a show at the Fonda is also encouraging (especially on an off night when parking in Hollywood is easier). I was having a low day but I could look forward to the warm comfort of their music. I got there early (8:09) but they started earlier (8:00), showing chiefly how outside of rock n' roll they could be by actually starting on time. They’re not a band that can add a lot of energy in a live setting such as to defy the gentle lilt of their music, but that’s a feature, to run parallel to the minimal production on much of their records. Still, I was hoping for a burst of enthusiasm in the second set, when the first was unfamiliar (from a new album) and seemed to take its time, mirroring their age-earned placidity (and gray hair), but a measured count of how they performed. The singer's voice was scratchy, but it was a patina earned from age. (And whose name I've never looked up, which says something about the appeal of the band as a whole.) It was fine, but maybe they could go to something livelier after the break. A few songs from the end of the set there was an altercation at the bar (of all shows, betraying the meek nature of the night’s performance), then something going on outside. The band took a break as planned but during that time the place was evacuated -- calmly, to match the vibe -- and we all shuffled outside and waited. And waited. Then fire trucks came to the place next door. But no one had us leave. Apparently a fire had broken out at the neighboring weed shop (that I didn’t even know was there (but also had no reason to know)). We waited some more but after a while it was apparent the rest of the show wasn’t happening. For a show that actually got away with starting so early it got cut off, like it was punishment for defying rock concert standards. (Also to us, with no refund for the abbreviated show.) It was a bummer to not get all of an infrequent show by a band I had so recently found, but I ended up being able to get home in time to see the Game of Thrones series finale (the original plan for the night, though I would have rather had the show).

Afghan Whigs/Har Mar Superstar, October 13, 2017 at the Fonda

The Afghan Whigs had stayed together after their big reunion, even if it was only switching out one member with the Twilight Singers and had settled into basically doing Twilight Singers stuff along the continuum, well after where the Whigs had left off, only with the classic bassist, but still all Dulli. Do to the Beast was a good effort, and one that rewards repeated listening, but it never had the initial crunch like they used to have for it to leave an impact. Still, I’m enough of a fan to want to hear what the new stuff sounded like live and what tricks they might pull off (also after having had to go so long without them, arguably at the height of their prowess and my fandom). I waited only a few days before the show to get a ticket (on Seatgeek, $40, all told) and presumed the wife would get a ticket if she wanted in, but celebrating a Friday and a show and the anticipation of rolling into a free weekend doesn’t always beat the exhaustion of a work-week, so I went alone. I even got there early enough to see what Har Mar (Superstar) would do, after the days of seeing him dance along to canned beats on a boombox, and he had a full band and didn’t sound bad for what he was doing, but the seedy, lascivious shtick was getting older than he was, and he had plenty. Yet there was energy in the room, and when the 'Whigs went on they brought a fury they haven’t had in a while, at least since getting back together. If the first post-reunion album was a clearing house to make the transition from Twilight Singers to the full Afghan Whigs again, then In Spades was something that could be manipulated to go heavy and loud live, and they knew well enough how to make that happen. The post-grunge crunch still wasn’t there, but at last they finally brought the volume again. The first few songs, at least, were the kind of rock majesty that a band even half their age couldn’t always bring (saying something for the experience they’ve had with this music and Dulli putting in getting through his shit (though it’s a shame he didn’t go through the same if it would inspire the kind of albums they used to do)). It was focused as if making the point of bringing the noise, but there was a soberness of approach to getting unhinged like the best rock, which didn’t replicate the sloppy, sweaty, fun shows they used to do, but could age into a precise assault on accusations that they might not have anything to offer with the long-awaited reconciliation and using the old name (which is Dulli’s right anyway). If nothing else Dulli earned a trade for the new songs by returning to “My Curse” with Marcy Mays, the original singer, whose warble always brought more heart and darkness to that song than a surer, accomplished performance did. (Dulli made a point of thanking the guests on stage with a full-on kiss, and included Har Mar, though he noted that it was good that Lanegan wasn’t there since doing the same to him "would freak him the fuck out".) Even getting “Debonair” out of the way early, they got back to the older songs in the second half, returning to the comfortable energy they left off with, and even including a good helping of 1965, for how much neglect that album got (even though they pushed it as far as it could go, it still deserved more). They had to include a Twilight Singers song as if it was some obligation (and Dulli is the boss, after all), but it was the material that most matched the original 'Whigs material anyway, and it rocked as hard as anything else (as it always does). And missing “Gentlemen” or “Miles Iz Dead” in exchanged for “What Jail is Like” is always a fair trade (for another song that never got a fair airing, perhaps from Dulli exposing himself too much in it, but it's up to him if he's still wrestling those demons by keeping it alive in every show). It was a show that displayed Dulli and his band -- whichever one he picked, with whatever combination of members -- had righted themselves not back to where the 'Whigs were but on a new road that didn’t necessarily have to be the Twilight Singers or any of Dulli’s other stuff. They all carry similar themes of personal pain, regret, and trauma, and fans that can enter that darkness don’t have to care about the details of names or chronology. Dulli has established himself as a rocker for life, with volume and fury accessible when he wants it, and maybe it’s always the case that he’s never bothered to prove himself and rather just made something true and we’ve followed. It turned out to be an ideal mix of the new and the old, before they started going more fully into the newer stuff just because it’s new.

The Afghan Whigs’ set-list:
“Birdland“
“Arabian Heights“
“Matamoros“
“Debonair“
“Light as a Feather“
“My Enemy“
“Oriole“
“Toy Automatic“
“Can Rova“/“Last Goodbye“
“My Curse“ (with Marcy Mays)
“What Jail Is Like“
“Teenage Wristband“ (The Twilight Singers) (with Petra Haden)
“Going to Town“ (Slight Return)
“Demon in Profile“ (with Har Mar Superstar)
“Dear Prudence“ (the Beatles cover)
“John the Baptist“
“Somethin' Hot“
“Into the Floor“ (with "Boys of Summer" outro)

“Parked Outside“
“Summer's Kiss“
“Faded“ (with "I Can't Make You Love Me" intro)

PJ Harvey, August 19, 2016 at the Fonda

PJ Harvey has always been an interesting creature. Once she had some the pull from a quasi-hit in the alt-mid-’90s, she went from rough demo-level catharses to changing up her sound from the ground up with each album, which became an event unto themselves. This also led to some wholesale inconsistencies, sometimes just in alternating albums, and the moments of brilliance had to do a lot of work to make up for the lesser stuff. Still, in concert to present new stuff, she would pull in the older stuff to match it and somehow make it flow seamlessly, or at least put a new spin on material we’d gotten used to. She didn’t even have make a statement as an artist, she just did it. Still, lesser moments existed but with some rejigging weren’t an albatross in the modern shows if the new material didn’t drag them down on its own. Some of the albums took a while to come around to, and often they would work out anyway (save for the still-challenging Is This Desire?), but we were still waiting on The Hope Six Demolition Project. By the time for that show I still hadn’t found official word if that project was a side experiment or if it was an official album intended for the same level as the rest, with the attendant tour and all accompanying a full-on album release, and the fact that I had to wonder might say it all (or just take it for granted that it's all official). But every release gets its shows (at least in L.A.) and we probably would have gone anyway no matter what she was playing for. We’d had tickets for the next night at the Shrine well in advance but when Carla had a chance for the Fonda show that was announced just before, even trading a Friday night for a Thursday, we went for it (though she was playing much the same set each night, so the only big difference was the smaller and closer venue). Unfortunately, the show didn’t do anything more to sell the album/project but she had enough of the old stuff -- not being too much of an artiste to eschew the stuff the crowd might have known (and liked) more -- and reconfigured it to make it interesting for herself, if not us. In her habit of learning a new instrument and writing each new album with it, this was the one with the saxophone, which must have been ill-advised, even beyond its being out of style to the point of ironic/non-ironic ridiculousness, it at least was a way to change up her stuff. This was also the tour where she filled the stage with musicians, evidently to reach the sonic ranges she needed for the material, but it sure looked crowded up there. It might have been better to approach the material as a project instead of a release expecting the same respect that her other stuff has gotten, even the weird stuff, but as a show, even at worst it could be performance art that gets appreciation from what she’s given us for so long and how much we love her.  So, in total, a score for experimenting with the familiar (even trotting out that familiar alt-mid-’90s quasi-hit), but a failure in trying to make something moving from these experiments.

PJ Harvey’s set-list:
“Chain of Keys“
“The Ministry of Defence“
“The Community of Hope“
“The Orange Monkey“
"A Line in the Sand“
“Let England Shake“
“The Words That Maketh Murder“
“The Glorious Land“
“Medicinals“
“When Under Ether“
“Dollar, Dollar“
“The Wheel“
“The Ministry of Social Affairs“
“50ft Queenie“
“Down by the Water“
“To Bring You My Love“
“River Anacostia“

“Near the Memorials to Vietnam and Lincoln“
“A Perfect Day Elise“

L7, July 17, 2015 at the Fonda

L7 were yet another band I missed back in the day.  (Judging just from how times I’ve started entries with that line, especially lately, it might seem like there were a lot of bands I missed, which is approximately the case, except that there are a lot of bands I’ve been into in different periods so proportionately it doesn’t come to so many, but more the case that a lot of shows we go to anymore are to see bands I didn’t catch originally, with the trend of reunions by ‘90s bands, some of which I missed at the time and won’t make the same mistake again.)  They were on my radar from Bricks are Heavy, though at the time Nirvana was as much grunge as I could get into (if not sludge, as could be more appropriate), but I got attached to Triple Platinum: The Beauty Process, but too late, though I remember an ad for an L.A. show they did on that tour that I might have been able to swing (if I could have convinced myself that I might survive an L7 show.  When my brothers and I used to play a game in picking who on MTV would win in a fight against each other, L7 was always the trump card that ended it).  I might have even seen them for Slap-Happy, had they done an L.A. show for it, if they weren't already disregarded by then.  When they became yet another ‘90s band to reunite (and the third, in under a year, comprised of mostly women and that I loved but missed the first time), I was already in.  I would have taken the Echo show, of course, but the Fonda was just as good, and even better for being on a Friday night.  So I finally got to see “Shitlist” by its originators, which easily made the show a victory, even if they also didn’t go near The Beauty Process, which would have been disappointing if the show hadn’t been so representative of them at their snarling best, years be damned.  If they had or hadn’t aged well -- looking rough was always part of their visual aesthetic -- the music still stood up.  (Who ever thought they were really ever going to go major-label, mass-market big?  As if a band could make it big just on their music, especially something that heavy and pissy and, above all, female.  Their music was abrasive enough to stop their rise before they started, but it’s a testament to how badass and awesome they ever were that they went as far as they did.)  Which is more than I could say for myself, since I drank enough before and during to be only barely able to remember being at the show.  (The goal, as I learned, is not to go straight for the beer with the highest APV just to get your value in drunkenness.  Also, limit drinking while taking antibiotics (my next-day self exclaimed).)  Skating Polly opened, and maybe we could have checked them out -- and maybe we did -- but I could have been saving my coherence for the main act (or using the time to drink more).

L7's set-list:
"Deathwish"
"Andres"
"Everglade"
"Monster"
"Scrap"
"Fuel My Fire"
"Diet Pill"
"(Right On) Thru"
"Freak Magnet"
"One More Thing"
"I Need"
"Slide"
"Shove"
"Mr. Integrity"
"Shitlist"

"American Society" (Eddie & The Subtitles cover)
"Pretend We're Dead"

"Fast and Frightening"

Afghan Whigs/Joseph Arthur, October 25, 2014 at the Fonda

We would be loathe to miss an Afghan Whigs show, as a reward after their being gone for so long, but after seeing them twice on the previous tour less than two years before, this seemed only like a companion show. Of course we had to hear the new material, from Do to the Beast, in a set more full than the Coachella one, with the highlights from the best-of set (that we'd already heard) -- all of it boiled down into just a one-night stand. It was the same band, still lacking the intensity (and drugs) of the old days, so Carla wouldn’t be able to experience that, but even if they were more stately these days, it was still a good run-through (even with "Gentlemen" but no "Debonair."  Surely the people there were true enough fans to be over their one radio hit). Dulli hasn’t been as chatty since even the early days of the Twilight Singers, but he can let the music speak for him, and that’s good enough. A highlight of the evening was the opening set by Joseph Arthur, who I’d caught years before (from KCRW, notThe O.C.), though I stopped before he started putting out too many albums to keep up with, and I'd never seen him even though he played L.A. regularly. His show that night wasn’t so much about the music, which was fine, since at the same time as he played he was painting on a canvas. This is a gimmick only if you’re expecting it to be all music, like most any other concert and with any other expectations for such, but in a context of the whole performance being art, even if the music wasn’t so avant-garde, it worked, and was at least a swerve from the norm.  Maybe he’s a better musician than painter (though the painting wasn't bad), and maybe he got as big as he’ll ever get years ago, but it was at least a display that made for a stand-out in an otherwise satisfying but not explosive evening.

Afghan Whigs' set-list:
"Parked Outside"
"Matamoros"
"Fountain and Fairfax"
"The Lottery"
"Step Into the Light"
"Now You Know"
"Algiers"
"Royal Cream"
"I Am Fire" (with Fleetwood Mac's "Tusk" snippet)
"Gentlemen"
"Turn On the Water"
"It Kills"
"Can Rova"
"John the Baptist"
"My Enemy"
"Son of the South"
"Lost in the Woods"

"Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" (The Police cover)
"Heaven on Their Minds" (Andrew Lloyd Webber cover)
"Somethin' Hot"
"Going to Town"
"Across 110th Street"/"Faded"

Joseph Arthur's set-list:
"Devil's Broom"
"I Used to Know How to Walk on Water"
"The Ballad of Boogie Christ"
"Honey and the Moon"/"Travel As Equals"
"Gypsy Faded"
"Heroin" (The Velvet Underground cover)
"I Miss the Zoo"
"Blue Lights in the Rear View"

TV on the Radio/Natasha Kmeto, October 22, 2014 at the Fonda

It’s not such a rare thing to see TV on the Radio, and it isn’t like we haven’t seen them numerous times before, and it’s not like we were all over their new album (Seeds, which we didn’t have; Carla nor I had just not gone out of our way for it), but we like them enough that we might as well go when they did a show (originally booked at the Regent, which would have been the first time we'd have gone there; the Fonda worked better for us anyway). As great as their recorded stuff was (never hurt by top-notch production), they were consistently inconsistent in concert -- a dull show or two for every few pretty good ones -- but we knew that they could pull out at least a few good tunes if nothing else, and we could check out the new stuff. It turned out to be one of the pretty good shows -- a little heavy on the atmospherics, and maybe not the barn-burner that made their name in the days before we ever heard of them, and not enough of their top tunes to mark it in our memories, but they made enough of an effort to pull off a performance that wasn't one of the dull ones. Natasha Klemto (if I got that name right) went on first, either a DJ or someone just playing music to warm up the crowd, but her stuff sounded great in either capacity, the infrequent opener we were at a show early enough to see, and apparently Google-proof. Or we were there at that time for a standard band playing the place, but TVOTR went on late enough that their opener was playing when they should have. They played well enough but the show itself was hamstrung by feeling shortened, being over just when they could have started to kick it in. They went on way too close to midnight, for whatever reason (as not a lot of other bands outside of a festival headliner or Guns n’ Roses get play that late), enough that the set-list looks like they played mid-day at a fest, and without "Staring at the Sun" (which apparently was planned for the very last but they ran out of time). We didn’t know that we would go ahead and see them twice more on this tour, so maybe we could have skipped this show, but with Andrew, Heather, Max, and Linda, it wasn’t a wasted evening (if over very late).

TV on the Radio's set-list:
"Province"
"Could You"
"Careful You"
"Blues From Down Here"
"The Wrong Way"
"Dancing Choose"
"Wolf Like Me"
"Repetition"
"Trouble"

"Ride"
"Lazerray"

Lissie, December 9 at the Fonda

On a Saturday afternoon we were driving to Carla's parents house listening to KCRW and they had a giveaway for Lissie tickets. I don't use my membership perks enough and I happened to be a member at that time, so I called called up and there were the tickets. Not really so much a contest, just a call-in. But we got the tickets and it was as good as buying them. We had considered going when they went on sale but we'd seen her relatively recently so we skipped it. But if the tickets were free, why not? The show was similar to the one at the Masonic Lodge, except that her songs felt a little more lived-in. Plus she played more new ones, which didn't seem as personal as the older stuff, though the production on the album (Back to Forever) was better and it translated well enough to a live setting. She herself might be making a point of not selling out and going pop, but her music made an effort to be more accessible. She may not have moved much further up in the world after breaking out with her first album and since the past shows, but at least she got to the Fonda, which is still pretty good. Lissie's set-list: "Bully" "Record Collector" "Sleepwalking" "Love in the City" "The Habit" "When I'm Alone" "They All Want You" "I Don't Wanna Go to Work" "Little Lovin'" "Everywhere I Go" "Shameless" "Shroud" "Further Away (Romance Police)" "In Sleep" "Oh Mississippi" "Hold On, We're Going Home" (Drake cover) "Pursuit of Happiness (Nightmare)" (Kid Cudi cover)

Stereophonics, October 10 at the Fonda

I admit I am a slave to the Stereophonics. It's based mostly off their earliest stuff, but I got in too late for them while they were maybe cool and now they're a dad-rock band at best in Europe and almost completely obscure in America. But as long as they're doing shows means I'll probably go and I'll still get albums even though it's been years since I've really connected to a new one. There's not much reason to see their shows now since they're going to play progressively less off my beloved You Gotta Go There To Come Back, if any at all, but I'm still a fan. At least they're consistent with their newer material barely registering a memorable single, much less to offer anything for anywhere but England, but they still keep trying to crack the U.S. Their shows here might be some kind of obligation but probably more hubris to think they maybe this time they'll really do it. Yet they keep playing smaller venues, bottoming out at the Fonda, which isn't a tiny place, but there must be some kind of contractual thing to play there and nowhere smaller, since they didn't even sell it out; they could sell out stadiums overseas. I can be thankful that they always play an L.A. date, for as much good as it does them, and I usually seem to go. This was the tour for Graffiti on the Train but it might as well have been for Keep Calm and Carry On (which they didn't tour the States for), as if a more popular title was needed, for as much as I remembered the new songs or even cared. I wanted to say that I was there for the early stuff but I've already heard most of that a few times already by now. I thought maybe the new stuff would register, and it did fine but nothing that stuck out anywhere near to the old material. But it was a good enough show. Carla got to see them, and that's probably enough for her for as long as I'm a fan. It's a shame that the Stereophonics will probably never play a bigger place in American than the Fonda since they're a good band when they want to be, better live than most of their recorded stuff, and Kelly is a capable and charming frontman, but it's just as well since they're just churning out new stuff to hang on, and they and their fans keep getting older. The English music scene can be fickle so maybe they could turn it around with a good single, like another "Dakota," and that could translate to some cache in America, but until then their cycle will probably keep grinding away like it has for the last few years. And I'll probably still go to their L.A. date. The Wind and The Wave opened this show but we missed them.

The Afghan Whigs, November 10 at the Fonda

Carla and I were in Hollywood casually celebrating our anniversary on a Saturday night and we ended up doing in one of the best ways possible.  We were trying to get lottery tickets for The Book of Mormon but we didn't get in.  We wandered over for a nice dinner and happened to stroll by the Fonda, where the Afghan Whigs were having their second night.  We saw the show the night before and it was great, why do the second night?  Because they were playing an altered set between nights. And "Miles Iz Dead", or so I read.  Those few different songs were enough for me, at least, and Carla went along.  Besides, seeing them a second time, even if it was the night after the first, would start to help her make up for never seeing them back in the day.  We usually don't rely on scalpers but we were going to make the attempt and see what we come up with, and if we couldn't find anything then we would head back home and be none the worse off.  As it turns out, there was one sole scalper left since it was so late.  With only a few minutes before the show was set to start (as we knew from the night before), he asked us our price.  I knew he was desperate and trying to get anything for the tickets or get nothing, so I offered $40 for both and he couldn't jump on it fast enough.  He even let us have the tickets before we paid for them while I went back to put more money in the meter.  So in we went for the second night of the Whigs, every bit as thrilling as the first.  Very similar, though in my mind I'd like to think that Dulli & co. pushed it just a bit more since it was the last night on the entire tour (save for what he said was a planned New Year's show in Cleveland -- of course we were tempted -- and whatever they were going to do as a band after that).  Absolutely the different songs were worth it.  The show would have been worth a full-price ticket, if we'd planned on it.  (We would usually shy away from making plans for Saturday night.)  I'd even say I preferred the alternate-night's set, just because the first few songs leaned more toward 1969's cuts (not to the inclusion of anything from Gentlemen, the superior work, just that 1969 sounds better live).  And there it was, in the encore (sometimes being aware of their usual set-lists pays off): "Miles Iz Dead," which I had never heard live (along with anything from Congregation or before -- a shame almost as bad as never seeing them before Black Love).  And there I was, a screaming maniac.  And another great show.  Those guys are just made to play live.  This reunion tour seemed like a return, but also taking care of past business, like letting the old-school fans or new fans they've gotten since they broke up see the old stuff, as well as going deeper into their catalog than they had in a while, tying that off so they could either go away permanently again without owing anything, or trudging onward as a band if they chose to stay together or even produce new work.  Dulli still has the Twilight Singers, though from what I could tell he merged both bands for Afghan Whigs 2.0, so the difference is negligible.  And even though I'm always excited for new material from Dulli, in whatever form that may be, it's always the Afghan Whigs that do it for me.  Van Hunt opened but we missed him (again), though he performed with the band.

The Afghan Whigs' set-list:
"Heaven on Their Minds" (from Jesus Christ Superstar)/"Somethin' Hot"
"Blame, etc."
"What Jail Is Like"
"Kiss the Floor"
"When We Two Parted"/"Over My Dead Body"
"Gentlemen"
"Crazy"
"Turn On the Water"/"Helter Skelter" (Beatles cover)
"John the Baptist"
"Step Into the Light"
"See and Don't See" (Marie "Queenie" Lyons cover)
"Lovecrimes" (Frank Ocean cover)
"Going to Town"
"Who Do You Love?"/"Fountain and Fairfax"
"Omerta"/"She Loves You"
"The Vampire Lanois"

"My Curse"
"Miles Iz Ded" (with snippet of Kiss's "I Was Made for Lovin' You")
"Into the Floor"

The Afghan Whigs, November 9 at the Fonda

Carla had never seen the Afghan Whigs.  For as much I saw them in the '90s before they broke up, she only became a fan -- and a pretty big one -- when Dulli had already moved on to the Twilight Singers.  It took his newer band a while to get up to the same intensity that the Whigs had, and even then it was sporadic, and certainly the first Twilight Singers album was a departure from the Whigs last days, but that was probably the point.  To make a connection between the two bands was an iffy proposition at best.  I've dug the Twilight Singers, and seen them on most of their tours, but it's always been about the Whigs for me.  And I was actually fine that they broke up.  They had taken a great shot and they got close to the big time with Gentlemen, but as hard as they tried after that, once the alt-rock tide left, they just couldn't get back or beyond it again.  Even 1969, a stupendous effort that approached Gentlemen, got no traction and they were left to tour like dogs to diminishing returns.  Couple that with Dulli's drug problems and the members growing apart (though there were technically only three of them), it was an easy guess that the band's days were numbered.  Dulli was on to the Twilight Singers, the other two guys easily dropped under the radar, and the Whigs could go out with dignity.  Time went on and they got farther away from their intense, angst-ridden days.  As everyone got older, there was less of a point for them to get back together.  But with nearly every other band that hasn't had an essential member die, they got back together (even after Dulli told me personally that a reunion "ain't gonna happen, dude").  But they chose to tour instead of release new material right away, so even though I knew they weren't what they used to be, we had to go see them.  And that way Carla could finally see them as well.  Indeed, the intensity was mostly missing, but those songs had been worn hard, even at this date, nearly the last on their reunion tour.  Even Dulli played them harder in the encore of the Twilight Singers' second tour (at least for the show at the Troubadour).  They had traded guilt-ridden rage for well-dressed experience, but the songs have stood the time they were away so it still worked.  And Dulli has never been less than a consummate showman, and this, the reunion and the show, was giving the crowd, all maybe older than me, what they wanted.   No small amount can be said about a sober Dulli, which has definitely contributed to the mellowness of the Twilight Singers; the shows back in the day led by a drug-addled Dulli were sloppy but electric, and he plays now more assuredly, if also more reservedly.  Also missing are the spontaneous covers and the rambling, love-him-or-hate-him banter, but he left that behind after the band stopped anyway.  So it was the old songs played by an older, more thoughtful band, less fun but more controlled and stately.  And the songs still sounded great, no matter who Dulli has in the band, and they even played a few they stopped playing back in the day, like "Gentlemen," since Dulli said it was way too personal back, but that only goes to show that they have such a distance from the songs that they've become just songs to them, not experiences.  Also playing that song came after the slow, dour songs section of the night, and the transition was wrenching and hard to get into the crunch of the later song after being brought low by the ones before it.  There were some sequencing issues there but they had to bring it somehow, I suppose.  They played some gems and it seems that they played one song every night that they hadn't played in the other shows.  I would have preferred the old band, but I've seen them a few times over.  Carla didn't get to see one of those shows but at least she could hear the songs.  Cid and Jon also went to the show and we made the effort to be together but they had balcony seats and we had floor tickets, and the Fonda still keeps the two separate.  Except for a few minor switches here and there, they were doing two different shows in places where they played two nights, each with similar middles, but different openings and different encores.  This was the show where they didn't play "Miles Iz Ded".  Van Hunt opened the show and we missed him, except for the parts, of course, where he played with the band.


The Afghan Whigs' set-list:
"Crime Scene, Part One"
"I'm Her Slave"
"Uptown Again"
"What Jail Is Like"
"Conjure Me"
"When We Two Parted"/"Dead Body"
"Gentlemen"
"Debonair"
"Magazine"
"My Enemy"
"Son of the South"
"See and Don't See" (Marie "Queenie" Lyons cover)
"Lovecrimes" (Frank Ocean cover)
"Wicked Games" (The Weeknd cover)
"Mean Sleep" (Van Hunt cover; with Van Hunt)
"Let's Stay Together"/"66"/"Little Red Corvette" (Prince cover)
"Fountain and Fairfax"
"Bulletproof"
"Summer's Kiss"
"Faded"/"Purple Rain" (Prince cover)

Bombay Bicycle Club, October 17 at the Fonda

Bombay Bicycle Club are another of Carla's bands, though it's odd that I didn't come around to them sooner.  Somehow they just fell through the cracks.  Probably because they're newer than the Britpop bands I gravitate toward and somehow I just missed the train.  They were one of the earliest bands on Pandora we kept in the heavy rotation at home so I started getting into them but I still didn't really click with them as much.  We missed their show at the El Rey then they moved up to a bigger place later in the tour.  Getting tickets for this show was an easy feat and Carla was into it.  It was her intention to make the show part of our anniversary celebration though I got home late that night and we got to the show late (as the times that Thescenestar.com were wrong or changed and we thought we had more time to get there.  Usually the times he posts are correct but it's not his fault).  But it was a good show.  A younger crowd than I'm used to but it's good to see that able, younger bands are still capable of gaining a new audience and building a crowd over time through long tours and solid songs.  We missed Vacationer, who opened.

Bombay Bicycle Club's set-list:
"Beg"
"Your Eyes"
"Dust on the Ground"
"How Can You Swallow So Much Sleep"
"Leave It"
"Evening/Morning"
"Bad Timing"
"Rinse Me Down"
"Ivy & Gold" (with drum solo & "Shuffle" snippet)
"Lights Out, Words Gone"
"What You Want"
"Cancel on Me"
"Always Like This"

"Shuffle"
"Carry Me"
"What If"