L7, October 28, 2022 at Regent

Josh had become my concert buddy, and it was good to have someone to drag me out of the house. WIth anyone, it could just be another night out, but with Josh it was another companion, for shows I might not have bothered with (even if I knew the group), and with someone who knew what he was talking about with music. He had mentioned the L7 shows earlier in the year when we were working together, and I had it on my calendar, then on the day of the show he had offered the ticket to someone else but they couldn’t go, so I was back in, though I could have been fine whether I had gone or not (as there would be other shows). Even though I had seen L7 twice already post-reunion, it was always good to see them and drink some beer (though only one for me). They might have crested their wave with Bricks Are Heavy, so that should have been the prize for seeing them on this tour when they played the whole thing, but that album didn’t get me so much besides for some angry riot chicks, and they were generally going to play “Shitlist” any night anyway. I was much bigger on The Beauty Process, when they finally went beyond pissy babes and into hard-charging forces of nature, and finally after seeing them as much as I had they got to it (even if the two weren’t my favorite tracks from the album). They sounded fine, going over riffs they had established long before they had to roll them out again after they got back together, plenty loud if that’s a matter beyond turning up amps, but making up for the same snarling from their (and our) youth, refining their sound if they had sacrificed as much in intensity. And those songs had aged well, barely fitting in the grunge scene for being the rare girls but standing out for it, and only using the mainstream as an oddity by slipping in for bigger crowds than they would have pulled at any other time (including now). They always stood on their own -- because they had to, if they were going to do it -- but they survived it all, enough to get back together, to throw it down yet again, no matter what their (or our) age.

L7’s set-list:
“Wargasm"
"Scrap"
"Pretend We're Dead"
"Diet Pill"
"Everglade"
"Slide"
"One More Thing"
"Mr. Integrity"
"Monster"
"Shitlist"
"This Ain’t Pleasure"
"Andres"
"Fuel My Fire"
"Shove"
"Stadium West"
"Non-Existent Patricia"
"Fighting the Crave"
"War With You"
"Drama"
"American Society" (Eddie and the Subtitles cover)
"Suffragette City" (David Bowie cover)

"Fast and Frightening"

Adam Ant/L7, September 30, 2017 at the Greek Theater

Corey is still the type who only buys a pair of tickets for concerts, assuming a chick will be available to go, then when that doesn’t work out (because chicks can be stupid) then I’m down to go to a show. (And I learned that lesson years ago and stopped buying an extra ticket unless I knew for sure I was getting someone to go with me (and even still risk them flaking out on me).) I didn’t know Adam Ant save for a few of the hits (not always my favorites) but a show’s a show. Even better for me, even though I would have gone anyway, was L7 opening, an odd combination -- the British flashback fighting for relevancy after ‘80s nostalgia was on the wane, with one of the few female grunge acts that survived with their integrity intact before ‘90s nostalgia was going to wax -- but Ant could use the legitimacy and L7 could use the crowd. It helped to present as a rock show, though it still didn’t guarantee a crowd -- this was a show where the C section was closed off (a third of the place), showing how smaller acts can play a venue larger than they should be able to pull, when it turns out they can shrink down a place if there's not the demand. That may have helped us get better seats, though as it was we were in the middle section in the center, a fine view especially since we didn’t need to mix with anyone  (though the excitable lady next to us seemed to have held on to her very intense crush for an impressive amount of time (though only one of many, her companion, who was likely her mom, interjected)). We missed L7’s first song (which didn’t seem like a big deal at the time but ended up being “Deathwish,” which became a favorite later on, a track incendiary enough for them to play as a promise in front-loading shows), but they did a new one, and this time I was sober enough to appreciate it. (Also noting that someone bothered to record & post L7’s setlist, while no one did for Ant’s. Maybe they had just flipped for who was going to headline and L7 missed out that night.) Still four hard-rockin’ ladies who got the chance to go back on the road and play shows, even if Finch looked like she had just come from a backyard barbecue. Ant puts on a show, and I recognized every few songs. “Goody Two Shoes” turned me off from the very start years before and I never much recovered, but I always forgot “Desperate But Not Serious” was one of his, and I can get a transplanted thrill when he does the original “Physical (You’re So)” that NIN covered. The rest of the show could have been forgettable to someone not a particular fan, except for the spectacle of the drummer. There were two drummers, which is usually a turn-off since it guarantees a vacuum on any spontaneity in a rock show, the blood of a great performance, since they both have to be in near-perfect sync with each other and that takes enough planning to kill any surprises. (Not to be confused with a drummer and a percussionist, which is a different thing, but still probably too many people on stage.) This was a lady drummer (also a rarity) who played masked and done-up like she was supposed to be at some place far more interesting.. She wore a monochrome, striped top and had a silver beehive, all visually stunning on their own, and the mask looked like she was going to a masquerade party for rich colonists from the ‘70s -- the 1770s. She never wavered from the appearance, just as she kept the beat, though I honestly wasn’t paying so much attention to the music. I was enraptured by the look, sexy but not gratuitous or purposeful with it, searching for an indication that she was a human and not a well-coifed machine from the time of my ancestors. The visual might have fit with Ant and his band’s uniform of some colonial ruffian with a dash of rough-edges futurism -- an evolution from the early videos, maybe, and maybe something that fits better after all these years -- but it was all a performance upstaged by the presentation of just one element, but that lady was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen, at a tagalong show where I figured I could sleep through some songs. It worked that she was a background player, though distracting, a great detail among others that couldn’t keep up, and she didn’t need to be the center of attention, but she could have done it on aesthetic alone. Elsewhere there was music, which was probably good enough.

L7’s setlist:
"Deathwish"
"Andres"
"Everglade"
"Monster"
"Fuel My Fire"
"One More Thing"
"Shove"
"Pretend We're Dead"
"Shitlist"

"Dispatch From Mar-a-Lago"
"Fast and Frightening"

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"