I see in the Best Rock song thread there are some other fans here. I just saw them last night, pretty fantastic show, they rocked pretty hard. Show could have been a little longer but they played a ton of songs. I was also pretty happy in that they played at least 80% old classic stuff and didn’t just come out and play the new album. Some highlights were Kennedy, Crawl (really awesome live), Dalliance. Was hoping for Brassneck but still was really satisfied with the set.
I really, really, really, REALLY love early Wedding Present - basically Georgie Best, Tommy and Bizarro - when they were the self-proclaimed fastest pop band on the planet. After they started slowing things down with Seamonsters I sort of lost interest, although that cover of “Falling” is pure awesome.
Pointless fact: I got into Pavement because somebody told me “Box Elder” off of Bizarro was a cover.
Awesome. I’ll be seeing them at the Bowery Ballroom in NYC tomorrow night and even though EL REY is pretty damn strong (Gedge should never record again without Albini in the booth) I’d still prefer to hear the brilliant early work.
I’m psyched!
The first time I saw them live was Irving Plaza circa 1994 and it was amazing. When I think back on the best, sweaty rock show I’ve ever seen, that was the night. And Kennedy was the encore. So great. Before the show, I remember working up the nerve to chat with Gedge who was wandering the room and selling t-shirts. I’m pretty sure I made a Chris-Farley-show type ass of myself but at least I went for it.
Me: “So, uh, what made you decide to cover Falling, the theme from Twin Peaks? Uh-heh.”
Gedge: “I liked it.”
I really like early Wedding Present, Seamonsters is one of those records that hit me at just the right time in my life.
Their more recent stuff though? I dunno, Gedge isn’t changing his themes, and there’s something vaguely lecherous about him singing about the same innocent crushes and girlfriends as a nearly 50 year old dude. It doesn’t sound like honest heartbreak to me, it sounds like someone not dealing well with a mid life crisis.
This thought occurred to me as I was cycling through my iTunes playlist and got some Wedding Present songs from El Rey playing right before some songs from The Wrens “Meadowlands”. Maybe The Wrens are just more what I look for in my aging indie rockers, maybe it’s just my own baggage, but I don’t “get” the Wedding Present anymore.
Sorry for the ramble.
They are, without reservation, my favorite band ever. I first bought George Best in high school and never looked back.
Their new album though…pretty damn disappointing. This tour is the first time in 20-odd years that a Gedge band has come to the Bay Area and I just didn’t bother. (Also, I threw out my back that week, and being up front for a Weddoes show didn’t seem that exciting).
Now, if it had been the George Best tour like they did in England last year…I’d have followed the tour.
Their more recent stuff though? I dunno, Gedge isn’t changing his themes, and there’s something vaguely lecherous about him singing about the same innocent crushes and girlfriends as a nearly 50 year old dude. It doesn’t sound like honest heartbreak to me, it sounds like someone not dealing well with a mid life crisis.
I dunno…that seems like it could be pretty interesting terrain for rock songs. Most of his songs are about dysfunctional relationships as it is. This sounds like a natural transition.
Every once in a while if you’re a lucky human, heaven arrives before you’re dead.
Flash back to 1996, Kentucky Derby weekend. Traditionally this weekend a bunch of us old college buddies descend on Louisville for the races, as well as taking in local stuff beforehand–bourbon distillery tours, visits to horsefarms to see docile former champions standing at stud, rock and roll shows extraordinaire, etc.
This particular Derby weekend, my buddy Tim and I were roadtripping together to Luhvuhl in Tim’s VW Golf; I’d arranged for us to crash at Peter Searcy’s house to save some cash on the overpriced Derby Weekend Hotel room scam. Our primary goal as we drove down on Thursday though was a Kentucky Oaks-eve show in Lexington featuring Scarce opening up for The Grifters. That show was one of the greatest rock shows I’d ever seen…and then after the show I tried to get ahold of Peter to let him know we’d be there in about an hour.
No answer.
We drank. I called every fifteen minutes from a payphone using my phone card (ah, the pre-cell days.) No answer. Peter had, as I’d been warned, flaked out on us.
Shit. We’re in Kentucky, and we have no place, nada, nowhere to stay. The last stragglers from our group leave, and tell us that their room is already packed full, but if worse comes to worse we can at least sleep in Tim’s car and then queue up for using their shower/bathroom in the morning. That sounds rough. Someone mentions, or Tim remembers (forget which) that some folks from our old college radio station who we were hanging with at the concert are staying at a local motel 6 that evening, and then have a reservation at another motel 6 in Louisville up the road for the rest of the weekend.
It’s worth a shot. We drive over to the motel, and everyone’s asleep. Beth is the person who put the room on her credit card, and although she’s just been roused from deep sleep, she won’t brook any thought of us crashing in Tim’s car. They’ve got floor space. We sleep under a roof. Pillows are rustled up. I’m drunk as hell and sleep like a lord.
Meanwhile, Tim & Beth hookup, apparently while I’m asleep. Tim knew her kind of from before when he was a senior at Mizzou, and always kind of liked her. Morning dawns, and I have an awesome shower, get to brush my teeth, get to change into clean clothes. I feel fucking great, other than not knowing where the hell we’re going to sleep the next two nights in Louisville. Tim pulls me aside though as we’re cleaning up to check out of the room and tells me that we’re golden–Beth wants us staying with them at their room in Louisville as well. Problem solved. Weight on shoulders vanishes.
We get into Tim’s car for the 45-minute zip up I-64 from Lex to Louisville. The day is 70 degrees and sunny with an amazingly blue sky dotted with fluffy cottonball clouds. There’s a wonderful cool breeze blowing. Tim opens his sunroof. Tim puts on “Mini” by The Wedding Present. We go zooming up the interstate, and I swear to everything that a guy can believe in that no record I have ever heard in my life before or since ever sounded quite as amazingly fucking perfect as that one did. I’ll always love “Mini”, and every time I play it I get this stupid, ear-to-ear smile on my face and get all nostalgic again for it being the soundtrack to heaven on earth.
(Pointless story coda: Tim & Beth have been married for 9 years now and have two beautiful kids and are as happy and perfect a couple as you’d ever want to meet.)
Here’s the set from the Cambridge MA show. Felt like more old stuff when they were playing it, but looking at it written down it’s a good split.
Kennedy
It’s For You
Gone
Don’t Take Me Home Until I’m Drunk
You Should Always Keep In Touch With Your Friends
Lovenest
Blue Eyes
Palisades
Snake Eyes
Sports Car
Spider Man on Hollywood
Crawl
You Turn Me On
Interstate 5
My Favourite Dress
Model, Actress, Whatever
Real Thing
Dalliance
Dare
Boo Boo
Well, at least they got Kennedy out of the way early (don’t get me wrong, it’s a great song and I know they have to play it for the rowdy pub crowd, but I’m getting a little tired of it).
“You Should Always Keep In Touch With Your Friends” woulda been cool to see…a little underwhelming other than that. TWO whole songs from Saturnalia and zero from Watusi?! Terrible idea… :-)
I’m still foggy and hungover from last night (warrior needs coffee badly) so I’d like to extend a huge thank you to forgeforsaken for saving me the trouble of trying to remember what songs they played. Near as I can tell, that was the set list from last night, except they played The Thing I Like Best About Him is His Boyfriend in place of Real Thing.
The crowd wasn’t huge but everyone was really enthusiastic. Gedge was his typical stand-offish self. The thing that struck me most throughout the show was how deep their discography is by now. They were spanning the decades in little four-song bursts (one song leading into the next without interruption) and each track would bring me back to a totally different place in my life. And they barely scratched the surface of great songs they could have revisited. The crowd was shouting out tons of different song requests until finally one guy shouted, “Play them all!” Damn right, dude.
Really, really fun night with plenty of highlights including Lovenest, Dalliance, Dare, You Should Always Keep in Touch with Your Friends, and especially My Favourite Dress. I had never heard them play anything from Tommy or George Best so that was fucking awesome. Just a wall of noise and a guy on stage with a guitar and a furious blur where his hand and wrist were supposed to be.
It was really cool to hear Dalliance and Dare back-to-back in album order. That made me wish they’d do a Seamonsters tour where they play the whole album in sequence.
I snapped a quick pic with my phone during a boring song from the new album but it didn’t come out very well…
This is almost a problem with a Weddoes show. So many great songs I wish they had played. 20 or so just isn’t enough.
It’s been nice though…on the last few tours they’ve been tossing in a few songs here and there from the (really) old days. George Best and Tommy old days I’m talking here. Anyone Can Make a Mistake, Something and Nothing, Nobody’s Twisting Your Arm…As a fan who sadly didn’t grow up around Leeds in the mid-80’s getting to hear those songs live has been awesome.
All I can say is “yes, please”!
They are on tour again and this time they are playing all of Bizarro.
Yes, indeed! Got my ticket for the 24th in SF. Even if they weren’t playing all of Bizarro (which is, I think, their 2nd best album), David is over 50 now. Who knows how many more Weddoes tours he’s got left in him.
I’ve been meaning to bump this thread! Got my tickets in the mail today for the Bowery Ballroom show this Sunday night.
I’m a big fan of this trend where bands go on tour playing full albums and BIZARRO would be way up near the top of my all-time most-wanted list for this kind of tour. Pretty goddamned psyched.
Plus it gets us one step closer to that SEAMONSTERS tour.
I’ll report back with pics.
I’ll be going with my college friend Matt who, back when my wife and I got married in '98, gave us probably the best wedding present we got: a framed, B&W autographed photo of The Wedding Present on which Gedge scrawled, “A little wedding present from The Wedding Present.” It might be the greatest thing ever.
Yeah it is a good trend for some of these older bands. I was pretty happy when Killing Joke did their dual night show where they played Killing Joke/What’s this For one night and Pandemonium and some singles the 2nd night.
I’m going to the Monday show at the Middle East, though I should caveat that with I’m going to try and get tickets at the door. The last time they played there they didn’t sell out, so I should hopefully have no issues. They have to play Brassneck at this one right?
The one I’m kicking myself about missing is the Bunnymen Ocean Rain tour. According to people who were there, it was quite something…
EDIT: oooo, and I didn’t even know about the Killing Joke ones. Damn.
I saw Gary Numan perform all of The Pleasure Principle last year. That was rad.
make certain you get there early enough to check out Girl in a Coma, they’re pretty great. I was contemplating going to that show just for them
Thanks, I’ll check them out. I wasn’t sure who the opening act would be.
Brassneck, from yesterday, at an in-store somewhere: