les claypool, 7/15/06, nokia theater, nyc

hey'all, this review finds itself delayed by a few days as i suffered a nasty bout of food poisoning this week. pasta primavera? not necessarily so safe. it's been quite an ugly week. so, here we go!

les claypool, 7/15/06, nokia theater, nyc

so, this time around i didn't get tickets for everyone in advance cuz last time i kinda got fucked. good call. for this show i flew solo as all my friends who said they might go bailed- no surprise. i however, had been looking forward to this show for months, and i wasn't gonna miss it. another reason i felt like i had to see it was because my friend teresa haire who passed away a couple of months ago would have wanted to see it. she was going to come to the les nokia show with me last october but her med school exams got in the way and she missed it because she was being a good-responsible-student. fuck, johnny fishwick would have had a good time there too, cuz it was les. so yeah. i felt like i needed to be there to enjoy the show for my homies too. haire & johnny 4 eva, 4 realz, yo. mad respek.

anyways, i rolled into the city conveniently in time to miss the opening band and get street parking. bought my ticket at the door and chugged my water that the security guard found and i couldn't bring inside. and as i came down the escalators at the nokia, les had just hit the stage and i listened and watched him on the big screen (I REALLY FUCKING LOVE THIS SETUP), ran into the bathroom and didn't miss a second of the music cuz it's pumped right in there (ahh, just like wetlands... except... bigger... shiny... and lit without a blacklight.). i made my way into the theater on the right hand side and it was pretty packed. i didn't feel like powering all the way up to the front, so i found a nice little nook next to the tapers on the main floor.

this was a great spot until some kid started hitting on me nonstop for like 5-10 minutes. i tried to be nice, then i tried to ignore him. it actually got to the point where he spoke through about 3/4 of a song and the lines he was throwing out there were getting worse and worse. he was either on e or drunk as hell... or both... or maybe he was just THAT enamored with me, i mean, i am fucking awesome. regardless i was missing this entire fucking song cuz he was yammering away- never mind the fucking taper mics we're standing next to- now he's not only ruining my time, but everyone who should have a clean recording of this show. finally i'd had enough.
RETARDED CHILD: you really are gorgeous
ME: you HAVE to stop hitting on me NOW.
RC: buh---
ME: NO- STOP. NOW.
after a couple of minutes he got uncomfortable enough to finally leave, but not before apologizing.
RC: i'm really sorry if i was making you uncomfortable
ME: (watching stage) no worries
RC: thank you for having the balls to tell m---
ME: STOP. NOW.
and he left. goddamnit. seriously guys, get the fucking hint. and if it seems like the girl is remotely interested in the actual concert that is going on, talking nonstop in her ear isn't gonna help your cause.

anyways, back to the music. les had the same lineup as last time i believe. drums, sax, sitar, percussion... they sounded great. it was a good mixture of new/old stuff. some of the spacier jams seemed a bit loose to me. the main point is that les is such a solid fucking performer, i really enjoy listening to his shows and experiencing the showmanship. however, why in 2006 is it still necessary to have an obligatory drum solo for 10 minutes no matter how long the set is? i realize everyone likes to take a piss, but i'm really losing patience with the prolonged drumz.

also, at the merch table on the way out (merch whore that i am) i picked up one of the new dvd's and a copy of les' first novel- he had done a book reading earlier in the day at a b&n in the village but i didn't know about it! lame! the book is called south of the pumphouse, and i haven't started reading it yet.

i don't see the show up on etree yet, but they do have the october 2005 show, here is the link: http://bt.etree.org/index.php?search=les claypool&cat=0

all in all- drag your asses out to see les, he's fun for fucksake. oh yeah- i just got a bulletin post from the les claypool myspace page announcing that there is a brand new official primus myspace page up, and to stay tuned because there will be some primus news announced very soon - so go add them to your friends (and we'll all get the good news together- aww, precious). methinks it's tour time! but getting back to les/nokia--- 8.5 HUZZAHS! les RULEZ.

7/1/06, GRAB (and Phil Lesh), PNC (Garden State) Arts Center, Holmdel, NJ

you know what's great? i've noticed that less people read my concert reviews than read my inane ramblings. what's worse? what does that say about me? but more importantly, what does that say about YOU?

regardless. after picking up the affable lauren simms and forcing her to go to amish market with me, we headed down the parkway to exit 117- the (pnc) garden state arts center. once there, parked and baked in the hot hot sun. oh, and drank beers. some guys pulled into the spot across from us and proceeded to play God Street Wine's '$1.99 Romances'. it was a good spot. it was a really good spot.

we slowly made contact with the people we were meeting up with in various stages of travel. what made things a little difficult is that we just missed out on parking in the first lot- so i didn't get to park anywhere near: mattypie or 4dice. however, we were in the same lot as loughrey and we were able to snag the spot next to ours and reserve it for brett and his friend zeke. when they finally showed up (something about getting lost and ending up in camden- sounds fun, eh?) brett pulled a sandwich about the size of his forearm out of a cooler and ate the whole damn thing. for fun we put some meat on the pavement to see if it would frizzle. it started to sweat.

eventually loughrey lumbered over to us and... well, first we drank more... and then we motivated to walk over to the main lot, but by the time we got there everybody wanted to go in. unfortunately i didn't get to hear any of the benevento russo duo set, but i did see them at moe.down a few years ago and they were great. also, it doesn't hurt that both the guys are hot. joe russo actually kinda looks like mike ouweleen. dorks unite!

they were selling daquiris & margaritas for $8 and something called "the guitar" for $13. it looked like a twist of the two. i had a lemon italian ice for $4. we climbed up the stairs and found a nice spot on the lawn. phil lesh was playing. meh. joan osborne sang. that only made me angry. there were a *lot* of deadheads in the crowd. like, a **lot** of them.

but then, the set i went to see- GRAB. mike Gordon, joe Russo, trey Anastasio, & marco Benevento. i was really hoping to see a mixture of phish tunes, trey tunes, and sick jams. trey basically apologized upfront and said, "thanks for being patient with the new tunes". so, yeah, we got a nice tease for a little bit but i don't think he played any full phish tunes? i can't remember. mike sounded great. and the B&R were awesome too. they did some great harder jamming, they are definitely still learning to play together, but it was a fun set. some of the spacier trey tunes were a little lame- but altogether, way better than any of the trey solo shows i've seen in years. (the tsunami benefit doesn't count, that was a moe. show- trey was a special guest).

so, altogether- maybe 7 HUZZAHS? i dunno. i was somehow expecting more. to be blown away maybe.