GREAT DAY IN THE MORNIN'. THEY WERE MINDBOGGLING.
Should I start a spoiler thread....? Hmmmm.....
The downside: Pretty good venue, small, good sight lines...but the sound is usually terrible. It was so muddy tonight I couldn't make out anything Homme was saying, and we were more or less right next to the stage. I could see, for the most part, but the guy in front of me was doing the block and weave so I could usually only see one of the players at a time.
Upside: The songs. Were fantastic. I dunno what I expected, but I really, really dug 'em. Wish I could have made out what any of the titles were
but I'm sure I can get my hands on a bootleg later. I have listened to a couple boots, but don't have 'em memorized.
The sound reminded me of Fugazi shaken up in a bag with Mission of Burma; trust me when I tell you the praise doesn't get much higher in my world.
SO good to see Dave back on the kit. Man. Talk about your raw power. He's no Stewart, but still....DAMN. I half-expected to see a black smoking crater onstage where his kit had been.
JPJ has some really cool toys, including what appeared to be a 12-string bass. Mr. Dive commented 'it looked like something Sauron would play.'
Ya know, there's a reason that guy was the rhythm section for one of the best rock bands of our time. Yow, he's good. This was our third time seeing him, but both the previous gigs were on mando - is there anything the man can't play?
The fun part: I have an old Foo Fighters shirt from their first tour, before the debut record came out [saw 'em at the Black Cat in D.C. in April or so, 1995, thanks mostly to my old roommate, who kept telling me how great Grohl had been in legendary D.C. band Scream - bug Meg for more details]. I had it on, Dave saw it, and I got a couple of BIG OLE GRINS. No points - I guess that's not his style - but it felt like a cool little mutual admiration society for a couple minutes there.