I was getting ready for my classes on the morning of September 11th when someone stopped by my office and told me that one of the Twin Towers had been hit by an airplane. And when I tried to dial up CNN and the page wouldn't load, I knew that something was up. But I can't say that I had even the slightest inkling that some monumental social and cultural changes were afoot, although my examination of terror management theory in grad school sure provided a sadly applicable framework for the subsequent American responses to such a fundamental challenge of worldview. And to this day, I'm still wrestling with questions w/r/t the immediate and subsequent aftermath of such a tragedy.
Should the immediate investigation have been a local law enforcement action, with help from the FBI and CIA, instead of what followed in the days and weeks and months?
Should the rebuilding process have begun almost instantly, to send the appropriate "fuck you" message to terrorists, the new Twin Towers as middle fingers of steel and concrete thrust in the direction of extremists and fearmongers?
Should more people have pointed out the not-insignificant problems of declaring a war on "terror" as if a governmental assault on a transient emotion would ever be "successful" by any metric, as wars on "poverty" and "drugs" have been?
And should those people who sacrificed their time and energy -- and in some cases, their lives -- not be showered with the best health care that this country can provide, by both bipartisan and national unanimity?
Hard to see those things now, let alone back then. In 2001, I saw shows:
Placebo / Idlewild [St. Andrew’s Hall 4.30.2001]
Air / Sebastian Tellier [Clutch Cargo’s 6.28.2001]
Rammstein [Clutch Cargo’s 7.22.2001]
Area One Festival (Moby, etc.) [DTE Energy Music Theatre 7.24.2001]
Area One Festival (Moby, New Order, etc.) [The Gorge, George, WA 8.3.2001]
Midnight Oil [Clutch Cargo’s 10.26.2001]
The Strokes [St. Andrew’s Hall 11.17.2001]
Not a lot of shows, to be sure, but all shows of high quality. Random memories:
-- Often, people ask me about the best show I've ever seen, and it's a question that's a lot like the one about your favorite song or movie, with the answer depending on your feelings and memories at the moment of the question's asking. Having said that, one of my most fondly remembered shows was the Placebo / Idlewild gig at the end of April, especially the Idlewild portion.
It's rare to encounter a band as they are just beginning to gel as a live unit playing an especially strong album (100 Broken Windows in this case), but HOLY SHIT did Idlewild rip that venue up. When people talk about "barely contained energy" and "coruscating guitars" and "stalking the stage" and all those other cliches, they were describing Idlewild's set. And they gave Placebo a goose in that Placebo -- no live slouch themselves -- charged through their set with just a bit extra. Proof that on any given night, you might see magic in a live performance, even in a dessicated joint in downtown Detroit.
-- When one hears that Billy Corgan (Smashing Pumpkins) will be touring with New Order, and that they will only play some West Coast dates of Moby's Area One festival, one can't get a flight to Seattle fast enough. I'd seen the Area One festival's stop in Michigan -- a couple of members of OutKast's entourage had a strong interest in my then-girlfriend -- but I had to see the show at the Gorge as well.
Of course, with that much buildup there had to be a letdown: Corgan was content to be a sideman, and NO member Gillian Gilbert wasn't there on the keyboards, so their set was somewhat perfunctory despite some rare-at-the-time run-throughs of Joy Division songs. But I enjoyed the experience in sum total, as the Gorge remains the most scenic and gorgeous of outdoor venues. And I got to see prostitutes and a moose on the round-trip drive from and to Seattle, so that has to count for something.
-- Rammstein had fire. Lots and lots of fire.
2002 saw a ramp-up in concert attendance, mostly due to my expanding music contacts due to my time at Record World in Petoskey. But even though there weren't gobs and gobs of shows in 2001, it's still a memorable time for all the right reasons, even though I have to go through a Rapiscan contraption every time I fly in and out of big cities.
Should the immediate investigation have been a local law enforcement action, with help from the FBI and CIA, instead of what followed in the days and weeks and months?
Should the rebuilding process have begun almost instantly, to send the appropriate "fuck you" message to terrorists, the new Twin Towers as middle fingers of steel and concrete thrust in the direction of extremists and fearmongers?
Should more people have pointed out the not-insignificant problems of declaring a war on "terror" as if a governmental assault on a transient emotion would ever be "successful" by any metric, as wars on "poverty" and "drugs" have been?
And should those people who sacrificed their time and energy -- and in some cases, their lives -- not be showered with the best health care that this country can provide, by both bipartisan and national unanimity?
Hard to see those things now, let alone back then. In 2001, I saw shows:
Placebo / Idlewild [St. Andrew’s Hall 4.30.2001]
Air / Sebastian Tellier [Clutch Cargo’s 6.28.2001]
Rammstein [Clutch Cargo’s 7.22.2001]
Area One Festival (Moby, etc.) [DTE Energy Music Theatre 7.24.2001]
Area One Festival (Moby, New Order, etc.) [The Gorge, George, WA 8.3.2001]
Midnight Oil [Clutch Cargo’s 10.26.2001]
The Strokes [St. Andrew’s Hall 11.17.2001]
Not a lot of shows, to be sure, but all shows of high quality. Random memories:
-- Often, people ask me about the best show I've ever seen, and it's a question that's a lot like the one about your favorite song or movie, with the answer depending on your feelings and memories at the moment of the question's asking. Having said that, one of my most fondly remembered shows was the Placebo / Idlewild gig at the end of April, especially the Idlewild portion.
It's rare to encounter a band as they are just beginning to gel as a live unit playing an especially strong album (100 Broken Windows in this case), but HOLY SHIT did Idlewild rip that venue up. When people talk about "barely contained energy" and "coruscating guitars" and "stalking the stage" and all those other cliches, they were describing Idlewild's set. And they gave Placebo a goose in that Placebo -- no live slouch themselves -- charged through their set with just a bit extra. Proof that on any given night, you might see magic in a live performance, even in a dessicated joint in downtown Detroit.
-- When one hears that Billy Corgan (Smashing Pumpkins) will be touring with New Order, and that they will only play some West Coast dates of Moby's Area One festival, one can't get a flight to Seattle fast enough. I'd seen the Area One festival's stop in Michigan -- a couple of members of OutKast's entourage had a strong interest in my then-girlfriend -- but I had to see the show at the Gorge as well.
Of course, with that much buildup there had to be a letdown: Corgan was content to be a sideman, and NO member Gillian Gilbert wasn't there on the keyboards, so their set was somewhat perfunctory despite some rare-at-the-time run-throughs of Joy Division songs. But I enjoyed the experience in sum total, as the Gorge remains the most scenic and gorgeous of outdoor venues. And I got to see prostitutes and a moose on the round-trip drive from and to Seattle, so that has to count for something.
-- Rammstein had fire. Lots and lots of fire.
2002 saw a ramp-up in concert attendance, mostly due to my expanding music contacts due to my time at Record World in Petoskey. But even though there weren't gobs and gobs of shows in 2001, it's still a memorable time for all the right reasons, even though I have to go through a Rapiscan contraption every time I fly in and out of big cities.
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