Outside Lands, August 9 - 11 at Golden Gate Park

We had skipped Coachella for the year (the first year ever missing for me) so we decided to replace it with another festival.  It was a reason for Carla & me to take a vacation, giving us an activity to ground us when we went out of town.  The rest of the year was a lot of work so we both weren't thinking much of vacations but a long weekend away seemed like it could get us away.  The girls (Vanessa, Noa, Rachel, Ghazaleh) were talking about doing Outside Lands and that sounded good to us.  We weren't completely so into in the line-up, but only because we'd already seen so many of the bands there before.  And we knew we could party together or do our own thing on our own if we wanted.  Being in San Francisco, and together, was active enough.  We decided to drive up there, along the 1, which always promises to be a high point of a trip up north, and it was.  We got to stretch out our short vacation a bit more, though we didn't need my truck to get around in.  The festival itself turned out to be just part of our activities, as we ended up seeing more of the city; there were a few acts we went in to see, though we didn't leave much to get out of it beyond that.  Most of the bands we saw we thought we'd see some other time, whether we eventually did or not, but seeing a few of them there in that environment made for some unique experiences.  We wandered for a while after getting in the first day, and mostly strolled the grounds when we weren't looking right at a band.  We got together and watched Band of Horses, which left no impression on me but we had a good time with the girls; Nile Rodgers of Chic had a great year after the Daft Punk thing and I rather wish I had listened in more than just passing by on the way to the potty, since he/they sounded great.  There should be more disco in the world; we stopped by to see what Wavves are about but we didn't get much from them; for Friday it was our plan to see The National.  By now you should know that that band means something deeper to Carla & me and they were up to our expectations, as always.  It was a harder set, like they were trying to rock a little heavier to keep up with the rest of the bands there, and Matt was a lot looser, perhaps, I would guess, because he had been a touch inebriated.  But in those circumstances, and since it made for a more unanchored, funner performance, he could be forgiven.  He's a professional.  The set, with the Kronos Quartet playing with them, leaned toward the newer songs, which, I had realized too late, I was mostly unfamiliar with since I hadn't gotten the new album (though I remedied that shortly after we got home).  My enjoyment of the set didn't suffer in the least for it.  A predictably great set, and one that made getting in and out of the festival for the day worth it; both of us had seen Paul McCartney before so, as monumental a deal as that would be for anyone, for us it wasn't as much as seeing him the first time.  We were more concerned elsewhere.  But it was still great to see him.  And it's not like he's not going to play plenty of songs.  He even switches it up every tour so there's a variety, among his own solo songs with the Beatles and Wings songs.  It's not like he's going to play a bad Beatles song, and there are surely enough post-Beatles songs he plays for the hardcores.  There's no reason he has to keep going back to songs from over 45 years ago since he should have the freedom to play a few new ones, which he does, though he never overdoes it.  As he usually does, he played for three hours, right up to the curfew, and there was never a lack for material.  We watched most of the set, coming in and out of it as we wandered, stuck around for the best bits, including the encore, which was mostly the same as the last time each of us saw him.  But a sterling performance all around, and one fitting for the legend he is.  He wasn't the main attraction there for us but he would be at the top of the list for other things we never mind to see.  Then we went out with the girls and drank, partying for as much as we'd planned for the weekend.

We made it in on Saturday with no great expectations save for the one band we were there for.  It seems like someone recommended the Growlers so we checked them out for a minute; Jurassic 5 were the other big deal for the festival us.  We'd missed them at Coachella -- one of the few acts that would have drawn us there if we'd decided we would go -- and we had no guarantee they would come through L.A. with another show (though ridiculous to think now).  I usually had a casual relationship to their music, often just listening to what Rick was playing frequently when we were hanging out, and the only album I had was Strength in Numbers (apparently not even their best one).  Carla was a serious fan and it was important to her to see them there. A friend told me once that they're the rap group that people who don't like rap could listen to and I wouldn't disagree with that.  They have a broad appeal, rooted in hip-hop but an accessibility that makes them close to the rock music they're surrounded by and which becomes their base from their DJs' picks. They certainly rock out like a rock group, and put on a party even when it's the middle of the afternoon and thousands of cantankerous North Californians aren't sure if they're drunk yet or not. Lots of white people jumping up and down and plenty of a party.  A good time for all, and certainly paying off their draw, especially for us.  Though strange seeing a band from my own town for the first time in San Francisco.  But they're not so localized that they would seem alien, and there's something about them that has a world-wide appeal, if by way of the American west coast; we were expecting to see the Yeah Yeah Yeahs at FYF later in the month so we weren't so dedicated to seeing them but the girls wanted to go so we did that.  It very quickly become a mid-field dance party to beat out the gloomy San Fran weekend afternoon and we had a blast.  They were touring for Mosquito but they mixed in plenty of It's Blitz! so it was some dance-y material and we got down.  (A good thing, too, since we weren't able to see them later on.)  Even when they're phoning in a performance, the songs are good enough to carry them through.  And you can't beat anything you can dance to when you're with those girls; we looked at Grizzly Bear for the moment as we were leaving.  That subdued, rustic sub-genre has never done much for me but Carla digs them, and it was a good way to bring us down and get us out.

Saturday night as we were leaving we made the decision to skip Sunday.  Of course we wanted to hang out with the girls but we were often so separated from everyone that it might not have happened that we would have all been able to get together in the first place.  We had planned for our trip to be filled by the festival but once we got there we wanted to give more time to seeing the city and being in the metropolitan part rather getting more of the park.  We missed Hall & Oates (the main attraction for the day, having seen them before and hoping for a better set, but not enough to have us go in for the day), Vampire Weekend (which we could live without), Matt & Kim (always a great show but short), and the Red Hot Chili Peppers (Carla isn't a fan, and I'm not a big one), so we didn't feel we missed so much.  And we ended up having a great day in the city, as was the weekend, and as was the festival, once again, for however much we gave to it.

Missed, on the days we were there: Smith Westerns (probably because they went on too early), Yeasayer (I would have seen any other band instead); Phoenix (not keeping us around for the rest of the day); Nine Inch Nails (I'd just seen them at Lollapalooza and didn't feel a need to see them again).

Paul McCartney's set-list:

"Eight Days a Week" (Beatles)

"Junior's Farm" (Wings)

"Magical Mystery Tour" (Beatles)

"Listen to What the Man Said" (Wings)

"Let Me Roll It" (Wings)

"Paperback Writer" (Beatles)

"My Valentine"

"Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five"

"The Long and Winding Road" (Beatles)

"Maybe I'm Amazed"

"I've Just Seen a Face" (Beatles)

"San Francisco Bay Blues"

"We Can Work It Out" (Beatles)

"Another Day"

"And I Love Her" (Beatles)

"Blackbird" (Beatles)

"Here Today"

"Your Mother Should Know" (Beatles)

"Lady Madonna" (Beatles)

"All Together Now" (Beatles)

"Lovely Rita" (Beatles)

"Mrs. Vandebilt" (Wings)

"Eleanor Rigby" (Beatles)

"Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!" (Beatles)

"Something" (Beatles)

"Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" (Beatles)

"Band on the Run" (Wings)

"Back in the U.S.S.R." (Beatles)

"Let It Be" (Beatles)

"Live and Let Die" (Wings)

"Hey Jude" (Beatles)

"Day Tripper" (Beatles)

"Hi, Hi, Hi" (Wings)

"Get Back" (Beatles)

"Yesterday" (Beatles)

"Helter Skelter" (Beatles)

"Golden Slumbers" (Beatles)

"Carry That Weight" (Beatles)

"The End" (Beatles)

Yeah Yeah Yeahs' set-list:

"Sacrilege"

"Gold Lion"

"Mosquito"

"Art Star"

"Under the Earth"

"Heads Will Roll"

"Soft Shock"

"Despair"

"Maps"

"Cheated Hearts"

"Pin"

"Zero"

"Date With the Night"

The National's set-list:

"Fake Empire"

"I Should Live in Salt"

"Don't Swallow the Cap"

"Bloodbuzz Ohio"

"Sea of Love"

"Demons"

"Afraid of Everyone"

"Conversation 16"

"Squalor Victoria"

"This Is the Last Time"

"I Need My Girl"

"Graceless"

"England"

"Mr. November"

"Terrible Love"

Jurassic 5's set-list (incomplete):

"Back 4 U"

"I Am Somebody"

"Jayou"

"Improvise"

"Harlem Shake" (Baauer cover; part of Cut Chemist's mix break)

"Quality Controlv

"Concrete Schoolyard"

"Jurass Finish First"

"In the House"

"Freedom"

"Red Hot"

"A Day at the Races"

"Verbal Gunfight"

"What's Golden"

Lollapalooza, August 2 & 4 at Grant Park

Jones, Bart, and I were on the fence about doing another Lollapalooza but we all knew that if it were the right line-up, and for one band in particular, then we'd probably do it. They announced the bands and there they were, and we said we'd do it, so we were in. We made arrangements, which then, after doing a few of those trips, we knew what we needed to do and were only booking flights there, and Jones took care of the hotel(s, as we switched halfway through) and we were set. We all got there Thursday night, Jones there on business, and we settled in, with drinks, getting our spirits and livers ready for the rest of the weekend.  As for the festival, as it was a dudes' weekend, there was no end to drinking.  Figure probably 1.5 Miller Lites for each of us for every band noted here, including, and often especially, and probably another one for each use of the word "wander".  We might have gotten a (relatively) early start but our earliest act was The Neighbourhood and we got there in time and they were a good way to start the day.  I'm not particularly a fan but the other two were, and I didn't find much beyond that song about the sweater, which is fairly atypical of the rest of their material.  Also another time that I've gone to another city to see a band from L.A.; between acts was wandering to peek at some other bands: Emeil Sande was one but I don't remember a thing about them. Atlas Genius was another wander, and I recall seeing them on a line-up for a KROQ show but the only thing notable about them at that show is that there was an unreasonably large crowd for them in relation to the fairly small stage they were playing. And hard to find Jones and Bart among so many people. Brick + Mortar were okay, another two-piece though I can't see why anyone could get signed on the backs of DFA1979 10 years later; Ghost B.C. should have been in the line-up of every festival that summer (and nearly were).  They had it all: old-fashioned, Satan-worshiping heavy metal, with a great flair for theatrics -- they have something even for festivals that don't have music.  They play the kind of stuff that hasn't been around for a while, or at least stuff that isn't usually worth much paying attention to.  We can look at it ironically now, especially with an aging alt-rock crowd, but that's some great head-banger stuff.  Even better that they have a show for the stage, with the band dressed in priestly robes and the singer, all in full make-up, blessing the audience at some point.  That he got around in a Pope hat is notable enough, though it made it easier that he could be immobile and sing preacher-chanting-like and not have to move very much.  The visuals were enough, he didn't have to be active.  It was a great show to see.  I don't remember much of the music but that was almost beside the point; I wouldn't have thought Jones and Bart would be fans of Crystal Castles so it was probably me who wanted to check them out, even though they hadn't blown me away when I'd seen them before.  There wasn't any reason to think they were extraordinary when they started, until Alice appeared and, looking like the biggest, highest/most-drunken mess I've ever seen, fairly literally dragged herself across the stage, up the microphone, arriving just an instant before she started singing/screaming.  From there she was swept up by her own fury, shrieking and bounding about the stage with the blips and boops around her from the backing track (no telling if anyone was playing anything live) and eventually re-igniting something resembling a human being, if more a whirlwind than a person.  One of the most frenzied performances of the weekend, if not the year.  If I wasn't particularly a fan before I was then, if not for the music but for the performance, even though it couldn't be the same show they put on every time (at least not in that state, since she couldn't possibly survive long); Imagine Dragons were another band we had no interest in but we probably brushed by them.  They probably played that "Radioactive" song that I always thought was "Ready to rock you"; then the main event: Queens of he Stone Age.  The band we said would get us to go to the festival if they played.  And they did not let us down.  They tore into the set with a cool ferocity, just detached enough that they weren't seeking approval from the crowd but were glad to set them on fire.  They could have played Like Clockwork... and that would have been fine, one of the rare albums that breeds more anticipation for new stuff than old stuff (which we'd seen numerous times already anyway), but they trotted out some old songs, even starting with one of their bigger songs, to ignite the crowd right off and to make the most of an unfairly abbreviated set time.  At this point in their touring cycle they had played enough shows that they had worked out any rust but they weren't exhausted, so we got them at just the right time.  They really burned it down, and made any effort from that weekend worth it, even for that one performance.  Smashing, as always. As if they would ever let us down; all of us are Nine Inch Nails fan but they weren't the main attraction for us that time.  We've already lived with them for so long and we just wanted them to continue the momentum that QOTSA had ignited.  Trent started off with an empty stage and some new songs, building up to a set that was sparse but visually innovative and songs that we knew, but at that point it was rote.  Not bad but we kept waiting for something explosive.  The abbreviated time meant a condensed set, which was understandable, but a soggy middle of slower, atmospheric material that just made us bored and sleepy.  It kept going, one dirge after another, and we kept waiting for the next song to pick it up, but it dragged on.  He even did some stuff off The Fragile, so it wasn't like he was under an obligation to do all the slow songs off the new album.  After a full day of great acts and the fury of QOTSA, we were let down.  We kept edging toward the exit with each slow ramble until, just as we were almost gone, he broke out "Wish" and raced with rage toward a more fitting end.  He almost redeemed himself but those songs mid-way were really a drag.  We wouldn't expect the entire set to be like the last few songs but he could have paced it better.  Trent might not have been phoning in but he could have used more advisement about the material to include (though he liked the performance enough to include some of the songs on a live EP).  We officially moved on once he started in on "Hurt" and it was satisfying enough.  But for the day, it really was about QOTSA and most anything but NIN.  Then, in the evening, it was back to the hotel and, of course, more drinking.

We had planned in advance to skip Saturday. As far as the acts went it was the weakest day, and we wanted to give ourselves a day to do other stuff around the city. That included a Cubs game (or trying to get in, since we did not, as we were victims of fake tickets) and the most substantial drinking we'd done for the weekend (and that's saying something, compared to how much we drank at the festival) and the deep-dish pizza I get every time I'm in the city. At the show we didn't see Matt & Kim, Local Natives, the National, Haim (though I wasn't familiar with them at the time), the Postal Service (thank goodness), and Mumford & Sons, but those are all bands we already know, and I don't think we missed much.

I took my time getting in on Sunday (he hotel being across the street gave me the ability to move freely) but Jones and Bart headed in to see Jake Bugg, who they said was boring; we heard a bit of Alex Clare while we were waiting but there was no reason to pursue his stuff beyond that day; for us the big act of the day was Baroness.  I admit I didn't have much interest, after not getting much out of them a few years before, but Jones and Bart were excited to see them, probably because they were the heaviest act on the bill for the day, maybe the only heavy act, and they seemed like a good aftermath to QOTSA from the other night, though in the middle of the blazing Sunday afternoon sun.  And they were heavy, and loud, and more heavy.  With a good, early buzz on, we banged our heads and rocked out.  We might have been roasting in the sun and on the verge of sloppily drunk but they were the best act of the day, up there with what we saw on Friday.  It was a shame that anyone had to follow them, and that was pretty much all of the acts for that day; after Baroness it was a come-down and a bit of a let-down, a lot of wandering, but more drinking and good times hanging out.  Two Door Cinema probably had something to do with something, and Alt-J didn't sound as great as I'd been led to believe they were (though could be an acquired taste), but Vampire Weekend picked it up again.  I can't say I ever got into their sound (a little too poppy for me, and their claim to African rhythms by critics always kind of perplexed me) but it was a breezy, sunny set that had a lot of people -- a lot of people, maybe more than there should have been -- on their feet, including us.  Though we might have spent a lot of that time playing frisbee; I forgot that Beach House were there and that apparently we or I watched them for some amount of time.  That probably sums up their set up; Jones and Bart are not Cure fans.  I can understand that, though I can't relate, in probably the same way some can't relate to their music.  They're not for everybody, especially for those two.  But I always look forward to seeing Robert Smith & co., even if I forgot it at the time.  I'm a fan, of course, but I'd seen them a good deal by that point.  I felt like I'd already experienced their range of songs on CDs and live, as they play a whole lot of songs in their shows, which are usually upwards of three hours, and they're one of the better live bands around, if you're a fan.  But even though I discovered them relatively late in their lifespan, I’d been to a number of their shows, with a lot of songs packed into each, and I figured I’d seen pretty much all there would be to see.  This wasn’t planned to be a special show for obsessive fans, just another festival slot, and not even for new material (as if anyone would want any of that).  I was just going along with the momentum because I was a fan and I was there.  For them to impress me, they would have to take it a bit farther and it didn’t even occur to me what that could be.  Little did I realize but the year was somewhere around the 20th anniversary of Wish, probably their most underrated album, if not one of the most underrated albums by anyone ever, and one that means a lot to me personally.  That album was the start of me as a Cure fan.  I pretty much knew only their radio singles by the end of high school but I needed CDs to fill out my first big stereo, my graduation gift, and I jumped in with that album, assuming it would be the thing to have since it was new, and since Rolling Stone gave it 4 stars.  “From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea” was the first song played by a stereo that got a whole lot of use throughout a lot of years.  And from there I've always been close to that album, and from there I went forward to the crappy new stuff and backward to the stuff that is probably better but Wish always will have a place in my heart.  It would be too much to ask that they would play the whole album at a festival but they did the next best thing, leaning toward tracks from it throughout their set.  The casual fans might not realize they were favoring that album and the obsessive fans might have been poo-pooing it, but they still played surely enough singles and less-popular numbers from their catalog to satisfy the people in the crowd.  Considering they only had a set-time of two hours, they had a lot of songs to pack in and every one would count.  Maybe I’m making a lot out of a half-dozen songs played from Wish out of 26 total, but I’d like to think they were doing it on purpose.  (They also played about as many as from Disintegration but that's expected.)  Most of the main set was mid-career, the encore mostly early hits, and they eschewed anything from the last 20 years but for a few of the best tracks.  That was fine with me.  I was expecting just another Cure show and it turned out to be probably the best I’ve seen, based on the set-list but also just overall.  It’s a shame Jones and Bart aren’t fans because they missed out.  But the rest of the weekend made up for it.  And they were probably drinking during the last set, for which I shortly joined them after I crossed the street from the park, back to the hotel, and down for another beer.

missed: On Friday it was Smith Westerns (conflict with Ghost), New Order (conflict with Queens -- easy choice, and they didn't play anything I haven't seen them do before), Frightened Rabbit (barely overlapped with Queens, and we were just waiting for NIN and they were just across the field but we still didn't bother), the Killers (because they're the Killers, so it would have been about any other act instead), and Lana Del Rey (who I didn't really know but she was hot stuff at the time.  I would have been curious to see how hot); on Sunday it was Tegan and Sara (conflict with the end of Baroness), the Vaccines (conflict with us wandering around), Grizzly Bear (conflict with us half-watching Vampire Weekend), Phoenix (conflict with the Cure), Cat Power (ditto).

Queens of the Stone Age set-list:
"You Think I Ain't Worth a Dollar, but I Feel Like a Millionaire"
"No One Knows"
"My God Is the Sun"
"Burn the Witch" (with drum solo)
"Sick, Sick, Sick"
"First It Giveth"
"The Vampyre of Time and Memory"
"If I Had a Tail"
"Little Sister"
"Make It Wit Chu"
"Smooth Sailing"
"I Sat by the Ocean"
"I Think I Lost My Headache"
"Go With the Flow"
"A Song for the Dead"

Nine Inch Nails set-list:
"Copy of A"
"Sanctified" (reworked version)
"Came Back Haunted"
"1,000,000"
"March of the Pigs"
"Piggy"
"The Frail"
"The Wretched"
"Terrible Lie"
"Closer" (w/ "The Only Time" breakdown)
"Gave Up"
"Help Me I Am in Hell"
"Me, I'm Not"
"Find My Way"
"What If We Could?"
"The Way Out Is Through"
"Wish"
"Survivalism"
"Only"
"The Hand That Feeds"
"Head Like a Hole"
"Hurt"

The Cure set-list:
"Plainsong"
"Pictures of You"
"Lullaby"
"High"
"The End of the World"
"Lovesong"
"In Between Days"
"Just Like Heaven"
"From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea"
"The Walk"
"Mint Car"
"Friday I'm in Love"
"Doing the Unstuck"
"Trust"
"Want"
"Fascination Street"
"The Hungry Ghost"
"Wrong Number"
"One Hundred Years"
"Disintegration"

"The Lovecats"
"The Caterpillar"
"Close to Me"
"Let's Go to Bed"
"Why Can't I Be You?"
"Boys Don't Cry"

Vampire Weekend set-list:
"Cousins"
"White Sky"
"Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa"
"Diane Young"
"Step"
"Holiday"
"Unbelievers"
"Horchata"
"Everlasting Arms"
"A-Punk"
"Boston (Ladies of Cambridge)"
"Ya Hey"
"Campus"
"Oxford Comma"
"Giving Up the Gun"
"Hannah Hunt"
"One (Blake's Got a New Face)"
"Walcott"

Crystal Castles set-list:
"Love And Caring"/"Plague"
"Baptism"
"Suffocation"
"Wrath of God"
"Crimewave"
"Telepath"
"Alice Practice"
"Black Panther"
"Celestica"
"Vanished"/"Transgender"/"Untrust Us"/"Cryptocracy"
"Reckless"
"Not in Love" (Platinum Blonde cover)

Ghost B.C. set-list:
intro: "Masked Ball" (Jocelyn Pook song)
"Infestissumam"
"Per Aspera ad Inferi"
"Con Clavi Con Dio"
"Prime Mover"
"Secular Haze"
"Stand by Him"
"Satan Prayer"
"Year Zero"
"Ritual"

"Ghuleh"/"Zombie Queen"
"Monstrance Clock"

Baroness set-list:
"Take My Bones Away"
"March to the Sea"
"A Horse Called Golgotha"
"Green Theme"
"Swollen and Halo"
"Board Up the House"
"The Line Between"

The Neighborhood set-list:
"How"
"Female Robbery"
"Everybody's Watching Me (Uh Oh)"
"Wires"
"Flawless"
"Let It Go"
"W.D.Y.W.F.M.?"
"Alleyways"
"A Little Death"
"Afraid"
"Sweater Weather"
"Float"

Rodrigo y Gabriella/Devotchka/Lord Huron, July 14 at the Hollywood Bowl

Noa loves Rodrigo y Gabriela.  Or she just loves going to shows at the Bowl.  Maybe both.  But she invited us to go with her people for the show there and it's hard to turn down a Sunday night show at the Bowl.  Rodrigo y Gabriela don't have any hit songs but then, it's only the two of them with guitars, no vocals, and they're still utterly amazing.  Amazing enough to sell that many tickets as well as to captivate the crowd every time.  They apparently don't play mostly covers anymore, but they make up for the unfamiliarity with power, intensity, endurance, musicianship, and all-around fun.  One of the best live shows around, confounding expectations when you can't sing along.  Devotchka opened.  I often equate them to Gogol Bordello, but without the intensity of the stage show, just by the music, which I've never investigated, just what I've heard tangentially at festivals.  Lord Huron opened before them and they were pleasant enough but honestly I was riding a heavy buzz at that point just after we went in.  More than the music we saw it was an evening with friends, peaking early with a grand picnic at the tables outside across the parking lots.  Noa's friends can bring some great food.  We brought fried chicken (since it was a picnic).  It's a time that reminds anyone what a wonderful night you can have at the Bowl, with cherished friends and food and wine, no matter who's on stage -- but even better when there's someone amazing there.

Josh Groban/L.A. Philharmonic, July 4 at the Hollywood Bowl

The night before, Carla said that Dayna had tickets for the July 4th show at the Hollywood Bowl.  We didn't have plans for the holiday and I didn't see why we couldn't do it.  Dayna & Carlos are always a good time to hang out with, and there would be the fireworks and the L.A. Philharmonic and we could take a picnic.  Though we knew there was more to it than that: We know that the July 4th celebration has someone performing a concert at the Bowl that night, along with everything else involved, and the fact that Dayna didn't tell us who it was and that it didn't show up in our memory as someone notable to see, we were suspicious   But again, it could be a good time for a night out on the holiday, so why not?  Turns out it was Josh Groban.  I'd barely ever heard of the guy, much less heard his music.  We really had no idea what to even expect.  It could have been better but it easily could have been a lot worse.  The dude is a singer, singing stuff that was inspirational bordering on religious (or fully in it but they don't usually want to blatantly express that for the market).  Not really pop since it didn't have a sugary, catchy sensibility, but inoffensive and light.  There were older house-wives and maybe a few teens in the audience, so maybe his heyday was moving away from him, but the dude can sing (repeated here because it was so much about his singing), even if it was nothing I would choose to hear.  He's actually quite charismatic, to the point that I wished he would keep telling stories between songs rather than singing the songs themselves.  And while I didn't care for the Philharmonic horning in on the Hall & Oates concert we saw there on July 4th two years before, I wished they'd kept playing instead of Groban singing, though that wouldn't have been a real, full show by him, and it wouldn't be fair to judge on a truncated performance just because of the holiday effects.  And we had a wonderful picnic dinner: Dinah's fried chicken, wine, and the company of good friends.  We could have done anything that night but any event at the Bowl can be an enjoyable evening (especially if you have fried chicken and alcohol).  (And thanks for sharing your tickets, Dayna!)

Josh Groban's set-list:
"Brave"
"False Alarms"
"February Song"
"The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress" (Joe Cocker cover)
"Un Alma Mas"
"Mai"
"Broken Vow"
"Hollow Talk"
"Vincent" (Starry, Starry Night) (Don McLean cover)
"Dream On" (Aerosmith cover; instrumental version by band violinist)
"Você Existe em Mim"
"You Raise Me Up"

"I Believe" (When I Fall in Love It Will Be Forever) (Stevie Wonder cover)
"Smile" (Nat King Cole cover)

Lissie, May 28 at the Masonic Lodge at Hollywood Forever Cemetery

Lissie was yet another act I didn't know before Carla. Clearly I'm a pushover for stuff she introduces me to but she has a great track-record with me.  Even better are the bands she's been into for a while that I've missed for whatever reason, but the great thing about music is that you can always catch up later.  We got tickets for her show at the Masonic Lodge at the Hollywood Cemetery, a venue we'd never been to for a concert (though we'd gone to a different section of the cemetery for movies in the summer).  I got Lissie's first album, Catching a Tiger, to catch up, and I really got into it. Carla's introduction to her was the Kid Cudi cover but I went with "When I'm Alone."  It's been easy to connect to female singer-songwriters since the early '90s, especially ones too spunky for easy pop stardom, and I've been as big a fan as anyone. Lissie falls into that archetype, though on her own terms, and it works, for as many people who know about her.  She has the talent and looks to be a starlet without difficulty but there's no reason for it, with the pop world clogged with too much junk in the first place, and bless her for not bothering with that direction. She's a pretty lady who could go places on her looks if she wanted, though not wanting to also gives her a cool edge. But it can go too far, in this case, when wearing a tank top like that night, and revealing her habit of not shaving her arm-pits.  Call me a sexist or old if you like, I just always enjoyed the days when girls had a minimum of hair on the bodies.  (And to be fair: it's gross on dudes too, including, and especially, myself.) So it's a trade-off. There can never be enough talent doing things their own way in music, even if massive success on their own terms eludes them (though I always hope the deserving ones can at least make a living off it). It's a fine line between selling out a little (offering your music for a price) and a lot (letting your songs go in a direction they weren't meant to; dressing up and doing what they say) so it's hard to say if she's shooting herself in the foot by not going along with what could easily come to her or if it's a fool's dream to try to make it exactly like she wants it even if she sacrifices her own financial, and maybe eventually creative, success, but that she put out this music presumably on her own terms and it's terrific, means that we are rewarded for discovering her.  She stands her ground with "Shameless," her only new material for this pre-new-album show, which sounded great in the set. So while she's around and can do this, we get another set of great music.  But, girl, you gotta shave those pits.  The venue was great, by the way, literally an intimate, relatively little room, a wine & beer bar (better than overpriced mixed drinks), with ample, free parking.  She got a bigger place after that but for that show it was just right. Vance Joy opened the show but we weren't there for that.

Lissie's set-list:
"The Habit"
"When I'm Alone"
"Sleepwalking"
"They All Want You"
"Little Lovin'"
"Shameless"
"Shroud"
"Romance Police"
"Everywhere I Go"
"In Sleep"

"Oh Mississippi"
"Pursuit of Happiness (Nightmare)" (Kid Cudi cover)

Japandroids/Cloud Nothings, April 22 at the Glass House

It's not often anymore that I discover a band from hearing them around me.  I don't usually get new music from the radio and most print music magazines are dead, so I depend on bands I already know or recommendations from friends.  I heard Cloud Nothings at a party, playing on an iPod.  I immediately dug them and hurried to get Attack on Memory, which is every bit as good as it was that day.  We also saw a bit of them at FYF but it wasn't the full experience.  They were one of the highlights of that year's Coachella but we didn't go, so they were a band to seek out for a local show, and with Japandroids (yet another band I would have missed if not for Carla) that was an easy sell.  I don't know why everyone complains about going out to Pomona, it's not that far.  And there are at least two really great venues there, within a block of each other, with plenty of parking, and one, the Glass House, is one of the best places for punk shows ever.  Just because the place is a bit of a drive is no reason to hate, and it's because of its location that bands can play just outside of L.A. enough that it doesn't violate some kind of proximity clause in their touring contracts, so they can do an L.A. festival, which somehow includes Coachella, then a show here on the way or between weekends.  Both bands came from a place of some minimal but very noisy rock so they fit well with each other, though in different places.  Cloud Nothings might have gotten signed being similar to Nirvana (a grungy, shoe-gaze three-piece; the shaggy, long-haired singer who seems like he'd rather disappear) -- if bands get signed for being similar to Nirvana anymore -- but without easy pop sensibilities and just a heavy, dense barrier of sound that is a lot more welcoming than most bands make it.  Japandroids are more energetic and fun, maybe with some songs that are more accessible, but at its base it's still just two guys making as much noise as possible.  They've been around along that they might have gotten signed for being more similar to the White Stripes than the Black Keys and they might have been fashioned after DFA1979, but that's all only superficial and it's worked well enough that these guys can get in front of bigger crowds.  Both bands said they were at or near the end of their touring cycles, and it was easy to tell that they were exhausted, though their punching through their set, at a quick pace so they could get it over but the speed adding acceleration and not suffering for it.  We were with Andrew, which was appropriate since it was his iPod I originally heard Cloud Nothings on, as well as Heather and Tana, all of them not often venturing to Pomona, especially not on a Monday night, but doing it for a great show, which it was.

Japandroids' set-list:
"Adrenaline Nightshift"
"Fire's Highway"
"Rockers East Vancouver"
"The Nights of Wine and Roses"
"Wet Hair"
"Evil's Sway"
"Younger Us"
"Continuous Thunder"
"Young Hearts Spark Fire"
"The House That Heaven Built" 
"For the Love of Ivy" (The Gun Club cover)

The Evens, April 17 at the Vex

I didn't know Fugazi back in the day. But Carla did, and not only was she a fan but she was an avid one. When a group of us would play the game of trying to out-impress each other with concerts we've seen, Carla plays the Fugazi card and usually wins. Shortly after we met she got to working on me to get into them (including one New Year's car trip to San Diego when she put on an album or two and my mind was blown). Now I realize what a grave mistake it was to have overlooked them. I had heard their name but back in the '90s I was into the mainstream alternative scene (yes, that existed) and real punk rock was still fairly beyond me. But I corrected that mistake by gobbling as many of their albums as I could from Amoeba. Now they always appear on my concert festival wish-list, as much as Carla says they would never do that. So we only have the ghost of what is left of Fugazi, namely Ian McKaye's projects. The Evens were playing the Coachella '14 we didn't go to but they played a local show on the other side of L.A., in a non-conventional warehouse space that usually hosts art shows. It was a big, empty space, large enough to hold shows, and the sound was good, so it's a shame they don't do more there (or at least anything that we would get out to see). The Evens are just McKaye on guitar and his wife on drums, which was enough for a fine performance. I didn't know any of the songs but there was that formidable punk spirit, not raging and angry so much but rough and forward enough to dispel the notion of a quiet and complacent floor-gazing singer-songwriter you might expect from such a minimal set-up. Though it all only makes me want to seek out more Fugazi stuff. Then the kid in the back who kept heckling the band, who turned out to be their son. And it was a fairly special show, as apparently they don't tour much (there were less than a half-dozen shows they played before the end of the year). Also a great value, with tickets being $8, though I'm told that was a Fugazi thing too, to make their shows as accessible as possible. I've been to cheap shows before but I'd never been to one, and not too many for any price, that was done before 10, as that one was. We were back home in the time before we have dinner on some weeknights. Though it was welcome in our age and lifestyle of needing to be in so we could make it to work the next day, it was fairly un-rock n' roll. But Fugazi never followed rules anyway. So I'm learning.

How To Destroy Angels, April 10 at the Fox Theater

When the line-up for Coachella '13 was released we made the momentous decision to not go.  We had been on the fence about it anyway, maybe a little worn-out after doing the festival for so long (every single year up to that point in my case) and we were maybe looking for an excuse to skip one year and break our streak.  The line-up for that year was that excuse.  I actually didn't think it was a horrible line-up, and it probably would have been great out there, but even I'll admit that it wasn't nearly up to the standard of years before.  We probably could have made a go of it but we decided to sit it out.  Our usual crew might have been an easier sell, just to have the weekend out in the desert, but we decided to do another festival, which ended up being Outside Lands in August anyway.  In the years before, around the Coachella festival we had toyed with the idea of seeing the bands in the much smaller local shows they would often play, so we put that into effect.  That way we could get a more concentrated show, cheaper (overall), and usually a fuller set, even if it wasn't all in one place.  We did three shows and How to Destroy Angels was the first.  I hadn't planned to see them but Carla scored tickets the day of and we were off.  As much of a fan as I've been of Reznor and NIN all along, I was a little cold on HTDA.  I always loved NIN for the anger and the angst, which was perfect for me in college.  Without having to do it purposely, that rage cooled as I got older, and it probably did with Reznor as well.  HTDA is still moody but it's more atmospheric and like a sound-scape, which is what Reznor was trying to pull NIN toward but it didn't seem to take well (I never did bother with the Ghosts I-IV album(s)).  That there's a female singer didn't bother me.  I remember hearing years ago that Reznor had always wanted to put together a band with a female singer but clearly that couldn't happen until he met and married who is, presumably, who he had in mind. So it's a fulfillment of a project he had on a burner for a long time, and I wouldn't fault him for stretching out and pursuing other forms of art and music, but the new band just didn't stick much with me.  Reznor also put himself in the background of it as much as he could, but his wife didn't really step up to be the front of the band, probably knowing that she couldn't shake the fact that he was still back there.  It's a band that might have tried to exist without a front-person but it created a vacuum and everyone was looking for Reznor anyway.  Live, he came out a bit more but never to a NIN level.  Really, it was just a little thing.  Thinking it was going to be a copy of NIN, even one with a lady singer, is going about it the wrong way, and it's unfair.  But the music on its own, comparatively, was flat.  I was hoping for something else, something with some more angst and fuel behind it, not something that could be out-takes from a soundtrack with some words tacked on.  But the live performance, their first as a band, they did as much with as they could: a gloomy but electric, rather spectacular light-show with rich visuals behind them (Reznor can afford it) and music that could deeply envelope even a casual listener.  But they didn't move much and generally they were obscured by sheets or screens in front of them, which didn't reveal much of an individual identity for the performers or the band as a whole, though it might have helped.  I don't know if the other big NIN fans found a different thing in HTDA but they at least gave it a chance, as I did.  And if a person was into it, being a NIN fan or not (we'd be on to the next generation now anyway), then they probably found just what they wanted in the performance. It wasn't for lack of Reznor trying, even if it was harder to sell to anyone who already knew him.  I don't know how well the show stood up in the desert but there in that relatively intimate setting, it did well enough, for what it was, which wasn't NIN but at least it was Reznor (who went back out again as NIN just the following summer, though we ended up skipping it at Outside Lands).  DIIV opened but we missed him/them.

How To Destory Angels' set-list:
"The Wake-Up"
"Keep It Together"
"Parasite"
"And the Sky Began to Scream"
"Ice Age"
"The Believers"
"How Long?"
"Welcome Oblivion"
"BBB"
"The Space in Between"  ("Between the Spaces" rework by SONOIO)
"Fur-Lined"
"The Loop Closes"
"A Drowning"

"On the Wing"
"Strings and Attractors"
"We Fade Away"

Electric Six, March 2 at the Troubadour

It's no surprise that with all the shows we go to, it's often that we're seeing a band that we just make a habit of seeing every time they tour.  Of course this counts for most of our favorite bands, just going to see them when they're in town, and most bands tour so infrequently that it's at least a few years between dates anyway.  Electric Six are a band that bucks that trend, that they tour and put out albums with a frequency that puts all other bands to lazy shame.  And as much new material as they put out I'll get and as many shows as they play locally I'll try to get out to see them.  Of course this volume of material is necessarily inconsistent, especially with a band past their commercial prime, but they're still doing it.  A band can pull off a good show on a band album (though I still didn't regret not being able to get out to see the show they did for Heartbeats and Brainwaves).  And a band could still play a great show no matter how many they play on a tour, though there can be all manner of other factors when they can't bring a great performance or one as good as others have been.  It's also unfair to compare a show to a past one, since it's a different place they're coming from now, but it's not unfair to hope that a show can be at least as good as past ones -- that's why you go to the show.  So call it what you will, this E6 show was not the best they'd played.  They didn't have a new album out to tour for, which might have been good for a best-of set, but they were also playing the Troubadour, a step smaller from the Key Club up the street, where they would usually play but recently went away.  Could they have sold the Key Club if it was still around?  The Troubadour actually might have been a better fit for them, like it was when they played there when they were coming up (Carla was there for that, I wasn't), but the place contained their sound way too much. They might have even known as much since they didn't seem to put as much fire into it as they often do.  All of Dick's banter and acts on stage might have been recycled from show to show, and we didn't know since we usually only saw them once, but what there was seemed worn, like he wasn't putting much into it, and the rest was just the music, which the band was just pushing through.  I don't know what might have contributed to a lackluster show but it didn't compare, for whatever reason. Though to be fair: even a poor show from the Electric Six destroys most shows from any other band, and I've seen them enough times that I can't help but be critical.  But they're still one of the best and funnest live bands around, and they'll probably -- hopefully -- keep grinding through it, year after year.

Electric Six's set-list:
"Crazy Horses" (The Osmonds cover)
"It Ain't Punk Rock"
"Devil Nights"
"Jam It in the Hole"
"Gay Bar"
"Gay Bar Part Two"
"She's White"
"I Wish This Song Was Louder"
"Hello! I See You"
"Future Is in the Future"
"Danger! High Voltage"
"I Invented the Night"
"Gridlock!"
"Formula 409"
"Down at McDonnelzzz"
"I Buy the Drugs"
"We Were Witchy Witchy White Women"

"Dance Commander"

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"