They Taught A Dog To Smoke

I'm not sure this even counts but the stub is in the box so it's going on the blog.

Growing up outside of Detroit my brothers and I had the pleasure of stumbling upon The Kids In The Hall in the early days, while they were on the CBC. It was a lovely run until they got snatched up by HBO, an evil pay channel that we didn't get/couldn't afford. Thank you for being so close, Canada. They broke up anyway but after a five year hiatus they did this reunion tour, which I couldn't have been more excited about.

We were so annoyingly late to this. I drove, which was a pain in the ass because there was a big snow storm and everything was slow and Maureen's friend was running late for whatever dumb reason and I wasn't even a fan of this friend and am not sure how I was roped into taking her (because I love Maureen). I think we had an extra ticket or something. Regardless, we were late. The show had started by the time we got to our seats.

Can you really beat the Kids In The Hall? The answer is no. They're just funny. They did all of their classic characters. There was this website about the reunion tour. The. Best. Check out some videos in you need some reminders.

There's also this article from the Tribune.  It's also pretty awesome. 

You'll Always Be Mine

These tickets were difficult to get and so worth it.

I don't remember how I found out about this show, a Cure fan site or mailing list or something. They were playing random small club dates, not announcing the shows much in advance. I called the Vic daily to see if tickets were going on sale for weeks (or it felt like weeks at least). Every day when the box office opened I would call, check the reader, check sites. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. So frustrating.

The tickets ended up going on sale maybe two days before the show. It was announced when I had a class so my very awesome roommate waited in line all day (the only way to buy these was to actually go to the venue or a ticketmaster outlet. Oh the humanity). The line stretched around the building and by the time I got to her she had already purchased her limit of two. My brother and Maureen ran over to Tower Records (remember that place) and were able to get two more. This is pretty lucky considering the Cure plays arenas and the like and this was a two ticket limit, 1400 people max capacity venue.

The night of the show (Maureen's birthday) we got there relatively early and were able to get up pretty close, much closer than I could ever hope to be to the Cure again. Maureen snuck a camera in (I couldn't, I was wearing my "Cure Dress") and we took some pretty terrible disposable camera pictures.

The set was shorter than the usual two plus hour Cure set and they played almost all of Bloodflowers, which had been released mere days before this show and was unfamiliar to me. It definitely made me long for some of the older songs but I did like the new material and would come to really like most of that album. My favorites were the Disintegration tracks, they always are.

Out of This World

Watching Me Fall

Want

Fascination Street

The Last Day of Summer

Maybe Someday

From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea

In Between Days

If Only Tonight We Could Sleep

39

Prayers For Rain

A Hundred Years

Bloodflowers

- - -

A Strange Day

A Forest

- - -

Just Like Heaven

Boys Don't Cry

- - -

The Figurehead

Disintegration

As good as it gets with a disposable camera

Of course someone brought flowers

One of someone other than Robert Smith. 

This is a good depiction of how close we were. 

You Must Be Such A Fool To Pass Me By

And then Morrissey broke my heart...on Valentine's Day!

Morrissey being my Valentine. What could be better? 

My brother and I drove to Akron from Detroit for the show. It was a long/horrible drive filled with my brother getting ill every so often. The cops don't really like it when you pull over on a toll road but was I supposed to just let him puke in the car? We eventually made it to the lovely Akron Civic Theatre, where my brother continued to be miserable and I continued to be super excited about seeing Morrissey for a second night in a row. I never used to buy merch but I couldn't not purchase this gem:

Anyway, somewhat creepy pillow cases aside, our seats were not so bad. Row M is pretty good, but there were those pesky orchestra pit seats standing between our seats and the stage. I was having a great time when a girl who was standing near me and I decided to run down to the stage, or at least the rail that was behind the orchestra pit. We were sorta reaching toward the stage while singing when Morrissey held his hand towards us and said "I can't reach you. We weren't meant to touch." And with those words my heart was broken. 

Sure, I know that in reality Morrissey and I are not meant to touch but I didn't need him to tell me. I could have happily gone my whole life without him laying it out there like that.  Thanks a lot, Morrissey. Way to break a girl's heart on Valentine's day.

The Setlist (very similar to the previous night's):

A Swallow On My Neck
I Am Hated For Loving
Ouija Board, Ouija Board
Billy Budd
November Spawned A Monster
Half A Person
Hairdresser On Fire
Boxers
Now My Heart Is Full
Meat Is Murder
Tomorrow
The Teachers Are Afraid Of The Pupils
Is It Really So Strange?
I Can Have Both
Alma Matters
Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me

Encore:
Shoplifters Of The World Unite

I'd Love To See Him

My first time with Steven Patrick Morrissey

My brother and I had purchased tickets to the show in Ohio for the next night but I decided to go to this one too since it was my first time seeing Morrissey and Detroit is so close to Chicago. This is possibly the only show with seats at the State Theatre that I ever went to and it was completely bizzarre. The seats were at little round tables with three or four chairs at each, so I was sitting very close to complete strangers while being unable to see much of anything. They would have done better just setting up rows of chairs in my opinion.

I was super excited to see Morrissey and decided, since I was alone, that I would be one of those crazy people who waits outside after the show in the freezing cold for a chance to see/meet/whatever Morrissey. So, a group of us waiting by the back door of the State got to see a flash of a green hat wearing man, face down, body guards all around him running from the door to the bus. I had a hat on that looked just like it that I've referred to, from that moment on, as my Morrissey hat. 

The set list:

A Swallow On My Neck 
I Am Hated For Loving 
Ouija Board, Ouija Board 
Billy Budd
Is It Really So Strange? 
Lost 
Now My Heart Is Full 
The Teachers Are Afraid Of The Pupils 
Half A Person
Boxers 
Tomorrow 
I Can Have Both 
Meat Is Murder
Hairdresser On Fire 
Alma Matters 
Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me

Encore: 
Shoplifters Of The World Unite 

I Used To Know

This is another one of those bands that belongs to me and my brother.

There's just something about their catchy lyrics that just makes me love the Smithereens. My brother and I would see them whenever possible. Once, we sat behind the Metro listening to them because we both decided that the tickets were too expensive to logically justify paying for them but sitting out back listening was totally fine. 

I don't remember too much about this particular show, although I'm sure we were at the front. We always stood near the stage. Once, the guitar player gave me his pic and I got to play his guitar. That was at Joe's On Weed St, but we can pretend it was this one. 

He's A Fine Figure Of A Man

Finally! A show that I remember.

Somehow, after wearing out My Aim Is True on cassette and listening to Armed Forces until everyone in my dorm hated me, I never managed to see Elvis Costello before this date and I was so incredibly excited to finally get the chance. This may be the most I had paid for a show up to this date (I've paid much more after.  Ahem, Morrissey) and it was worth every single penny.

We had excellent seats and would have been in the second row if it wasn't for that darned orchestra pit. How do people get those orchestra pit seats? I've been buying concert tickets for a long time and I have never gotten one. Not in presale. Not in regular sale. Not when winning tickets. Not when other people get the tickets. Are these people just the luckiest people on earth? Are they friends with someone important? I just don't get it.

Anyway, "second row" was pretty spectacular. The sound was amazing and we could see Elvis and Steve Nieve perfectly. I danced to the hits, which annoyed some people who preferred to sit like old logs. He played some new songs that none of us knew. They would end up on When I was Cruel a couple years later, an album which, in my opinion, was just mediocre and turned out to be the last one of his that I ever purchased. I've always thought that Elvis Costello had an editing problem. All of his albums were half good, with a lot of songs that could have just been cut. The enormous setlist could be a reflection of this or the magnitude of his career. Regardless, he played all the songs I wanted to hear and I left a very happy girl.

For the last song, which was Couldn't Call It Unexpected #4, he stepped away from the mic and stood at the edge of the stage and just sang out to the audience. Being in the pseudo second row we could hear it clearly and beautifully and I was glad that I wasn't stuck in the cheap seats. It was such a perfect way to end the show and still gives me chills when I think about it.

The show lasted so much longer than we expected (who could have guessed that there would have been five encores?!!?)  that I was really late getting home to meet my friend and her boyfriend, who had driven in from Detroit to hang out. They completely understood.

The gigantic setlist (we got our money's worth):

1. The Loved Ones
2. King Horse
3. Blue Chair
4. Rocking Horse Road
5. Party Girl
6. New Lace Sleeves
7. This House Is Empty Now
8. Lesson In Cruelty
9. Shabby Doll
10. Girls Talk
11. Baby Plays Around
12. Couldn't You Keep It To Yourself
13. The Long Honeymoon
14. 45
15. Toledo
16. New Amsterdam/You've Got To Hide Your Love Away
17. When I Was Cruel
18. Radio Sweetheart/Jackie Wilson Said
19. Mystery Dance
20. Alison
21. In The Darkest Place
22. Alibi Factory

Encore 1:
23. Green Shirt
24. Watching The Detectives
25. Inch By Inch/Fever

Encore 2:
26. Suit Of Lights
27. Brilliant Mistake
28. Shipbuilding

Encore 3:
29. Accidents Will Happen
30. I Want You

Encore 4:
31. Everyday I Write The Book
32. God's Comic
33. Red Shoes
34. Radio Radio

Encore 5:
35. O Mistress Mine
36. Couldn't Call It Unexpected #4

Last Week It Was Funny

Yeah, the amount I remember is just not funny anymore.

The internet just told me that Train opened for this show. I sure hope that I got there late so I didn't subject myself to that. 

Another blog, another show I remember very little of.  I'm going to pretend, and you should too, that  I just wrote some awesome blog about this show so I can just move on to the next one (which happened the day after this one and I remember it vividly).