Prince, 12/17/10, Izod Center, Meadowlands, NJ

Prince, 12/17/10, Something Corporate Arena, Meadowlands, NJ


Eric D. and I first met on 9/3/97^, at a moe. show at Club Toast in Burlington, VT. Last Friday, 12/17/10, we saw Prince together in New Jersey. Full circle. Did I just melt your face?

Prince is a Legend. I grew up listening to him, because everybody did: he's Prince. Friends have waxed poetic about his epic live shows for years, but I'd never had the pleasure. Neither had Eric. Until now! He scored the tickets and I happily tagged along. We were both pretty psyched for the show.

Can you say "Prince pregame"?

Cassandra Wilson and Maceo Parker each played short opening sets. The in-the-round "symbol"-shaped stage was only lit as a circle for the opening acts. You know what happens if the opener ventures beyond said circle? Prince mad.

Cassandra was good, Maceo was Maceo (good, slightly repetitive-- mad respek, though). Prince sang When We're Dancing Close And Slow with Cassandra & played guitar on We Gon' Make It Funky with Maceo. In both cameos, shrieks from the ladies in the room filled the gaps in between each lyric and every guitar rake. It was pretty amusing. Mostly because Prince is sort of like a tall dwarf in spandex and heels.



In between sets, there was some sort of weird movie playing above the stage with a complicated story line that surely Prince had spent a lot of (or maybe very little) money on. It was subtitled. It did not make sense (to me). And it was set to a soundtrack of (wait for it) --- Prince songs! Prince plays his own music in between sets.

Surrounding the stage were roped-off areas with tables, chairs, and palm trees- kind of a lounge vibe thing going on-- this must have been part of the $350-700/ticket Prince ATM VIP Package. These must be the same people buying the Prince Leggings.

really tempting…

The Purple One ascended with much smoke and lights. Let's Go Crazy -> Delirious -> Let's Go Crazy -> 1999, Little Red Corvette! Shit man, Prince rocks. This was solid! The set was great. I actually didn't realize I knew so many Prince songs, which was cool. He may have lost me a few times in the middle a bit, but I never strayed too far & he got me back with Guitar and Purple Freakin' Rain. Multiple wardrobe changes throughout the night as well, expected & delivered.




Kiss was an awesome encore, but he kept letting the audience sing the word "kiss" and for $60, I would really have liked to hear Prince sing the word "kiss" himself. Just sayin'. Prince disappeared underneath the stage, but then a snare drum and cymbals appeared and Sheila E. took over for a Glamorous Life. She stayed up for 4 more tunes.



I'm unclear if this was all part of the show, but Prince was talking about the curfew early on, starting like halfway through his set. After the first encore chunk of 5 songs, the band walked off and the house-lights went up, but the stage lights stayed on and house music did not play. It was 11pm-ish. Some of the crowd started to funnel out but many stayed at their seats and continued to cheer for more. In what felt like a total James Brown move, Prince and the whole crew came running back through the tunnel to underneath the stage. They re-appeared and proceeded to play 4 more songs with the house lights up. I don't know if they hit the curfew, came close to hitting the curfew, or just went way over and didn't care, but Prince was there to please the crowd-- and he definitely did.




It was super cool to finally see Prince. He didn't quite meet my possibly inflated expectations as The Shredding Live Guitar Player God^^, I had heard so much about. I really thought he'd be pulling out some crazy funk skillz and great loudness, but his solos felt kinda cliched and over-simplified. Weedilly-weedilly-RAKE-RAKE. Perhaps this just wasn't one of those shredding shows? Regardless, he absolutely met my expectations as The Great Showman I had heard so much about. It was a purely awesome musical experience, no doubt. Dude, Prince!

Mad points to Prince for single-handedly trying to bring back the gold sequined turtleneck. Some points deducted for not introducing his band. Sure, Prince is an eccentric egomaniac-- but not even introducing his band (he said Sheila E.'s name like 30 times)!? That's kinda dick.

Eric D., thanks for the fun!! Prince, 12/17/10, Jersey: 7.75-8ish HUZZAHS!!!


SETLIST
Let's Go Crazy ->
Delirious ->
Let's Go Crazy ->
1999
Little Red Corvette
Love... Thy Will Be Done
The Beautiful Ones
Controversy ->
Sexy Dancer / Le Freak ->
Eye Love U, But Eye Don't Trust U Anymore*
Take Me With U ->
Guitar
Purple Rain

ENCORE 1:
Kiss
Glamorous Life** ->
A Love Bizarre** ->
The Bird** ->
Jungle Love**

ENCORE 2:
If I Was Your Girlfriend
Insatiable
Scandalous
Adore

* w/ Maceo Parker
** w/ Sheila E.

SLIDESHOW & HI-RES GALLERY!



^ Eric looked this up for me, thanks for that!
^^ Not that I’m trying to start any beef between them, but it seems like Chuck could easily mop the floor with Prince. HAIL SATAN!

foo fighters, 7/29/08, east rutherford, nj

foo fighters, 7/29/08, brendan byrne arena (the izod center), rutherford, nj

erika and i blew off work early on a tuesday night in july and headed across the border to catch a rock show in jersey. i am retarded and couldn't find any info on the concert as far as what time the show started and if there were any opening acts. this resulted in a shortened pregame in the parking complex and us stumbling into the arena just in time for the first of 2 opening bands. who saw that coming?

year long disaster was pretty okay, it took me a few minutes to get in the mindset of a "rock show". for some reason this one just struck me in a different way than the rock shows i typically find myself at. this was straight up easy-to-digest mainstream arena rock n' roll. it was kinda cool. after a month i can't recall many details about year long disaster, but i have in my notes: great white / soundgarden / southern rock. also, i really wished their drummer would have worn a shirt.

we were good little consumers and bought some beer, water, and pretzels. tempting as it was, i decided against a bacardi silver raz malt liquor. it's one of my few regrets from the night.

supergrass- well, at least i'd heard of them. they were pretty good and put on a good show. my notes say: rush / elvis costello / crowded house / pink floyd / u2. oh, also we decided that supergrass was a cool name for a band ("dude... you know what a cool name for a band would be? ... supergrass.").

foo fighters. well, it's the foo fighters! the foo fighters are just awesome, aren't they? yes. they are bonafide rockstars now and dave grohl is a bonafide frontman- complete with spastic sprints and rockstar poses- good stuff. the stage design was cool, with 4 giant screens constantly shifting position and flashing images of the band and some album artwork/music video footage. i'm not a huge fan of the music video footage behind a band while they are playing live. i think it reinforces said music video into the live music experience where they should usually be kept separate. specifically- i don't need to see the video for 'the pretender' and animated riot police on the big screens- that song is such a balls out angry protest song- let it stand on it's own for fuck's sake! let's ROCK OUT to the performance! but big fat 'WHUT EVS', right?

the first half of the set was set up at the opposite end of the arena to rock shit out. then about halfway through, a small circular stage descended from the ceiling and they did a more acoustical chunk of the set before heading back to the opposite end of the arena. for a mainstream arena rock act, they played a long set, which i totally appreciate.


it was the last show of the tour so dave was a wild man, drunk as fuck, screaming the shit out of his voice, telling some great stories and using the word "fucking" even more than i fucking do, which is fucking saying something. there was a particularly funny story, but i don't remember it, so forget i fucking mentioned anything.

i DO remember that sometime during the foo fighters, i caught a whiff of two distinct smells but both at once, turned to erika and said, "i smell... ketchup... and weed." ? so she looked around, pointed at the guy in front of us eating french fries, "ketchup!" and looked around again, pointed across the aisle from us where a plume of smoke was rising, "weed!" gave myself a nice pat on the back for that one- nose like a hound dog!

as far as people watching goes, this place was top notch. the worst faux-hawk i've ever seen was worn by a 16 year old with a full head of hair but the long mohawk hair much longer and dyed blue- a modern day mullet. a 15 year old sneezed on the back of my arm while i was walking back to the car, it was an unfortunate event. i sped up my pace and doused my arm in baby-wipes to try and rid myself of the disease. oh and there was a 16 year old future stripper wearing a bra and micro mini with a face full of makeup yelling at people for looking at her- ahhhh, jersey.

again, kickass, but over a month ago, so you're not gonna get many more details from me other than i fucking loved the foo fighters live and would definitely see them again. foo fighters, & co., 7/29/08, brendan byrne arena, rutherford, nj: 8.5 HUZZAHS!

SLIDESHOW!

pearl jam, 6/1/06, brendan byrne (aka continental) arena, rutherford, nj

mmkay, so to keep my brain from becoming less mushy i am going to start reviewing the concerts that i've seen... just like the good old days when i'd post to various mailing lists and start fights for saying things like, "man, that show kinda sucked!". and of course i made this decision a couple of weeks ago and got way too busy at work to actually keep up with it- so i'm 3 concerts behind and will post these reviews belated but separately.

what's different these days (ahh, the yesteryears...) is that i now bring musician's filters to shows because the ringing in my ears does not stop anymore. the first time my ears rang for 3 days was after a nirvana concert in DC when i was 15 years old ('93). it's gotten considerably worse since then, but i am pretty sure that i lost the most hearing at the 2004 mtvn non-denominational-holiday-party, cuz the ringing from that night definitely did not stop, and it's louder than the previous ringing. anyways, so back to the filters- i got these awesome custom filters and highly recommend them. they filter out exactly 15db from every frequency of the sound spectrum and they are fitted to my ears (they took a mold). they are about $150 and worth every fucking penny.

now... pearl jam, 6/1/06, brendan byrne arena, rutherford, nj.

so, not holding the traffic or weather or parking against the band. i missed the opener, "my morning jacket", which isn't too horrible cuz i think i've seen them open for 3 bands in the past year. i walked in during pearl jam's fourth song and they were definitely rockin' out (i don't have a setlist). i walked directly into some friends from my hometown (pr REPRESENT) and they were lovely enough to buy me a beer right before we walked up to the nosebleeds and chilled for a while. then i wandered down to a section behind the stage to find lowell and keren and watched the rest of the show.

the old tunes rocked, the new tunes rocked... eddie was sporting a giant bottle of wine... the pearl jam crowd kind of scares me. there was a lot of singing along and waving of the arms, and i wonder if this is what people think of me and my friends when they go see moe.? like, "who the fuck are these moe.rons"? i think the big difference is that the pearl jam fans kinda treat vedder like some sort of god... and moe.rons... well, when al. fell flat on his face at snoe.down while trying to look like a metal-god--- everyone laughed their asses off... pearl jam's fans just kinda felt more cult-like. at one point eddie picked up his electric guitar (he can't just be a lead singer, he's gotta play guitar a little too) and held it up above his head. the light engineer then focused and bounced one of the lights off of the electric guitar--- so the light was reflected perpendicularly onto the crowd. eddie proceeded to angle the guitar and rotate around 360' to "paint" the crowd in the light. as he did people reached in the air and tried to "grab" the light. people were really getting off on this shit and i couldn't help it but my immediate reaction was laughter. in fact i was laughing so hard i think i might have snorted and put myself in ten-club danger!!! DAAANGER!!!

they did stick it to the man and play about 25-30 minutes past the curfew- a few cover songs including 'teenage wasteland'. drunk eddie flailed and fell on his ass... and then limped for the rest of the show ("i think he really hurt himself" -dr. lowell gurey). it was fun seeing pearl jam in action. the arena eventually turned the lights on, but they did not turn the sound off. i'm sure the extra time cost them a pretty penny (if not substantially more--- i tried looking up how much continental charges for every minute past curfew but had no luck- anyone out there know a website that supplies this info? it can be up to $10,000+ for every minute over). stone gossard: STILL FUCKING HOT... the short hair--- yummy.

yes, i know many of my friends are devoted ten club pearl jam fanatics and it was a great show that they lost their shit at. i would have been happy paying $40 to see it... i paid more, but still, always awesome to see a great rock band play a great rock show. so- conclusion... out of 10 HUZZAHS (10 being the most HUZZAH-WORTHY): 6.5 HUZZAHS!