In doing a little 2017 cleaning, I found my pile of concert ticket stubs and realized that I hadn't done anything with my concert documentation since the '09 post. So here we are. I'm going to count the ex-MST3K'ers at Cinematic Titanic as concerts, because it's my parameters of what means what, and so there. As always, 2010 had some real winners, especially towards the end of the year, so here goes:
Cinematic Titanic [Royal Oak Music Theatre 2.19]
Wild Beasts [Pike Room, Pontiac 2.10]
Janelle Monae [St. Andrews Hall, Detroit 4.2]
Julian Casablancas [St. Andrews Hall, Detroit 4.5]
Coachella Music & Arts Festival [Empire Polo Club, Indio 4.16-18]
Public Image Limited [The Crofoot Ballroom, Pontiac 4.28]
Sharon Jones and The Dap-Kings [Majestic Theater, Detroit 5.18]
Broken Bells [St. Andrews Hall, Detroit 6.1]
The New Pornographers [The Crofoot Ballroom, Pontiac 6.14]
Pitchfork Music Festival [Union Park, Chicago 7.16-18]
Ween [Royal Oak Music Theatre 7.30]
The National / The Antlers [Royal Oak Music Theatre 8.3]
Interpol [Clutch Cargo’s, Pontiac 8.11]
The Dukes Of September [The Chicago Theatre 9.11]
Of Montreal / Janelle Monae [Royal Oak Music Theatre 9.20]
Gary Numan [The Crofoot Ballroom, Pontiac 10.25]
The Books [The Crofoot Ballroom, Pontiac 10.26]
LCD Soundsystem / Hot Chip [The Fillmore Detroit 10.27]
Glasser / Twin Shadow [Pike Room, Pontiac 11.12]
Nitzer Ebb [Magic Stick, Detroit 11.18]
Wolf Parade [The Crofoot Ballroom, Pontiac 11.24]
Killing Joke [The Crofoot Ballroom, Pontiac 12.9]
Rammstein [Madison Square Garden, NYC 12.11]
Some impressions as I look at that list:
-- I saw a lot of shows over the years at Clutch Cargo's, and I saw Interpol a lot over their career, so it only makes sense that those two circles would collide eventually.
-- After wanting to see Ween for years, I was overjoyed to watch them run through nearly every track I ever wanted to see, and even some I didn't know I wanted to see (like their version of Bowie's "Let's Dance"). If there was tumult between the band members behind the scenes, none of it showed up on the stage.
-- Gary Numan doing 1979's The Pleasure Principle front-to-back was pretty swell, even if it's still hard for me to get over that jet-black hairpiece Numan's been rocking for years.
-- I'm sure Pitchfork and Coachella were great, but after so many years, can I remember any headliners off the top of my head? Nope.
-- A pre-retirement LCD Soundsystem with the perfect opening band in Hot Chip? Yes, please.
-- NITZER FUCKING EBB. Small club, big sound, great songs.
-- Seriously, those last four shows were all awesome. Nitzer Ebb doing the new out-of-nowhere record and their greatest hits, one of the last Wolf Parade shows before they went on hiatus, and all the original members of Killing Joke playing a high-energy set to a dumb-fuck crowd. But there are shows, and then there is Rammstein.
So here was my plan for seeing Rammstein, who hadn't played in the U.S. for years, at MSG in NYC: I would fly from Traverse City to Detroit to NYC in the early evening, go see Rammstein, go see some midnight movie, then walk around NYC until my 6am return flight the next morning, sleep on the planes, then drive home from TC later that morning. I would bring my phone (pre-iPhone days) and my charger and my coat, but nothing else. I mean, this would be a tactical concert strike, a real shocked-earth adventure.
Of course, what I didn't count on was a freak December snowstorm.
Getting to NYC proved to be perfectly organized. I hit the ground, found a taxi, went to MSG and found my seat about twenty minutes before Rammstein started up. And as usual, Rammstein put on a show, with staging for nearly every song. Baby dolls with laser eyes hanging from the rafters, lighting a "stage crasher" alight with a gasoline prop, and so so much fire. As I've said before, Rammstein is a German version of Kiss with better songs and a richer sense of Teutonic humor, and their live show never fails to entertain. So much fun.
But when I got out of the show, I found out that my flight from Detroit to TC had been cancelled due to weather, and that my flight from NYC to Detroit was not necessarily a go. After touching base at home and hearing Coco explode her "I TOLD YOU SO!" symphonies of disdain and worry, I decided to get home the next day at any cost. So after enjoying the best of after-hours NYC -- including what looked like a bad-trip come-down two booths over at an all-night diner -- I got the first leg of my flight from NYC to Detroit with little worry. And as my flight to TC was still cancelled, I decided to rent a car one-way and drive to TC to get my car, which was parked safely at the airport. I hit the winter storm in my new rental and started the worst road trip of my life.
My plan was to outflank the storm by driving west first, then heading north. And while any driving path that day was stupid, given the freezing rain that shifted to blizzard conditions mid-journey, my idea sadly put me into the teeth of each of the mini-storms that made that day's weather event. It was just over seven hours of white-knuckle driving in a rental car from Detroit to Traverse City, then nearly two hours from Traverse City back home to Petoskey. Thankfully, I was stuck on the road only once, and nearly killed by oncoming traffic only twice.
But it was Rammstein in NYC, dammit. They released a Blu-ray of that show just last year, and it was as awesome as I remembered it to be. The things some people will do for passion, I guess.
Cinematic Titanic [Royal Oak Music Theatre 2.19]
Wild Beasts [Pike Room, Pontiac 2.10]
Janelle Monae [St. Andrews Hall, Detroit 4.2]
Julian Casablancas [St. Andrews Hall, Detroit 4.5]
Coachella Music & Arts Festival [Empire Polo Club, Indio 4.16-18]
Public Image Limited [The Crofoot Ballroom, Pontiac 4.28]
Sharon Jones and The Dap-Kings [Majestic Theater, Detroit 5.18]
Broken Bells [St. Andrews Hall, Detroit 6.1]
The New Pornographers [The Crofoot Ballroom, Pontiac 6.14]
Pitchfork Music Festival [Union Park, Chicago 7.16-18]
Ween [Royal Oak Music Theatre 7.30]
The National / The Antlers [Royal Oak Music Theatre 8.3]
Interpol [Clutch Cargo’s, Pontiac 8.11]
The Dukes Of September [The Chicago Theatre 9.11]
Of Montreal / Janelle Monae [Royal Oak Music Theatre 9.20]
Gary Numan [The Crofoot Ballroom, Pontiac 10.25]
The Books [The Crofoot Ballroom, Pontiac 10.26]
LCD Soundsystem / Hot Chip [The Fillmore Detroit 10.27]
Glasser / Twin Shadow [Pike Room, Pontiac 11.12]
Nitzer Ebb [Magic Stick, Detroit 11.18]
Wolf Parade [The Crofoot Ballroom, Pontiac 11.24]
Killing Joke [The Crofoot Ballroom, Pontiac 12.9]
Rammstein [Madison Square Garden, NYC 12.11]
Some impressions as I look at that list:
-- I saw a lot of shows over the years at Clutch Cargo's, and I saw Interpol a lot over their career, so it only makes sense that those two circles would collide eventually.
-- After wanting to see Ween for years, I was overjoyed to watch them run through nearly every track I ever wanted to see, and even some I didn't know I wanted to see (like their version of Bowie's "Let's Dance"). If there was tumult between the band members behind the scenes, none of it showed up on the stage.
-- Gary Numan doing 1979's The Pleasure Principle front-to-back was pretty swell, even if it's still hard for me to get over that jet-black hairpiece Numan's been rocking for years.
-- I'm sure Pitchfork and Coachella were great, but after so many years, can I remember any headliners off the top of my head? Nope.
-- A pre-retirement LCD Soundsystem with the perfect opening band in Hot Chip? Yes, please.
-- NITZER FUCKING EBB. Small club, big sound, great songs.
-- Seriously, those last four shows were all awesome. Nitzer Ebb doing the new out-of-nowhere record and their greatest hits, one of the last Wolf Parade shows before they went on hiatus, and all the original members of Killing Joke playing a high-energy set to a dumb-fuck crowd. But there are shows, and then there is Rammstein.
So here was my plan for seeing Rammstein, who hadn't played in the U.S. for years, at MSG in NYC: I would fly from Traverse City to Detroit to NYC in the early evening, go see Rammstein, go see some midnight movie, then walk around NYC until my 6am return flight the next morning, sleep on the planes, then drive home from TC later that morning. I would bring my phone (pre-iPhone days) and my charger and my coat, but nothing else. I mean, this would be a tactical concert strike, a real shocked-earth adventure.
Of course, what I didn't count on was a freak December snowstorm.
Getting to NYC proved to be perfectly organized. I hit the ground, found a taxi, went to MSG and found my seat about twenty minutes before Rammstein started up. And as usual, Rammstein put on a show, with staging for nearly every song. Baby dolls with laser eyes hanging from the rafters, lighting a "stage crasher" alight with a gasoline prop, and so so much fire. As I've said before, Rammstein is a German version of Kiss with better songs and a richer sense of Teutonic humor, and their live show never fails to entertain. So much fun.
But when I got out of the show, I found out that my flight from Detroit to TC had been cancelled due to weather, and that my flight from NYC to Detroit was not necessarily a go. After touching base at home and hearing Coco explode her "I TOLD YOU SO!" symphonies of disdain and worry, I decided to get home the next day at any cost. So after enjoying the best of after-hours NYC -- including what looked like a bad-trip come-down two booths over at an all-night diner -- I got the first leg of my flight from NYC to Detroit with little worry. And as my flight to TC was still cancelled, I decided to rent a car one-way and drive to TC to get my car, which was parked safely at the airport. I hit the winter storm in my new rental and started the worst road trip of my life.
My plan was to outflank the storm by driving west first, then heading north. And while any driving path that day was stupid, given the freezing rain that shifted to blizzard conditions mid-journey, my idea sadly put me into the teeth of each of the mini-storms that made that day's weather event. It was just over seven hours of white-knuckle driving in a rental car from Detroit to Traverse City, then nearly two hours from Traverse City back home to Petoskey. Thankfully, I was stuck on the road only once, and nearly killed by oncoming traffic only twice.
But it was Rammstein in NYC, dammit. They released a Blu-ray of that show just last year, and it was as awesome as I remembered it to be. The things some people will do for passion, I guess.
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