It's all about the front man...

Gorgeous sunny fall day today. If only my house were already clean, it would be a perfect day. As it is, I am avoiding cleaning by blogging, but I can't avoid for long.

Two gigs to report on: Weezer and Hayden - experiences as similar as apples and tacos.

Weezer at GM Place:
Since this night, I have been thinking about whether my affection for Weezer is really just affection for Rivers Cuomo. I think it probably is. No disrespect to the rest of the band, but Rivers could front a pile of tree stumps and it would still be worth watching. If you were looking for a guy to front your band, I'm guessing you wouldn't set out "small framed, bespeckled, just-balding, porn-stache sporting" as your criteria. But man does he wear it well.

The night opened with Angels & Airwaves, Tom DeLonge's new band. And I will follow the rule of "if you don't have anything nice to say..." and leave it at that.

Weezer came on in Devo-like white jumpsuits (later to be taken off to show some mighty fine red Weezer old school track suits), with Rivers adding to the effect with some weird medical-looking balaclava covering his face, and owned the place from note one. Seriously one of the most purely entertaining things I've seen in a while. Let it be said though, as much as I like seeing fans enjoy themselves, there are some that I would like to be able to BAN. Forever. From attending ANYTHING. We sat behind one such guy ... he heckled Angels & Airwaves, I think to impress his (girl you could do so much better) girlfriend, and was pretty obnoxious during the first few Weezer songs. Until, that is, he lit up a joint and was promptly turfed from the building. Ahhh sweet justice. You can hear his grating 'buenos noches' at the beginning of this video. I think he ceased to exist by the end of it.



The night ended off with the Weezer Hootenany of local fans, which I managed to film:



There are about a half dozen more songs here as usual.

Hayden, Vogue Theatre:
First - this wasn't sold out. FOR SHAME! (Not that it was badly attended, but it should have sold out).

Ahh Hayden. How great. His between song stories are almost worth the price of admission on their own. Unfortunately I didn't manage to tape the stories, or the moment when the audience reaction to a song cracked him up to the point he had to stop and collect himself. But I did manage to tape a few songs, albeit broken up by the bodies of people walking up and down the aisle I happened to be sitting beside, leaving my poor camera losing its mechanical mind trying to focus/refocus. The videos are a bit dark - I have "lightened" them as much as I dare, which has left them a bit grey and weird looking, but oh well. Here are a couple - Woody, a song about Hayden's cat which I also used as the soundtrack for Thom's Bellyrub



And I should say that I think Woody must now be a bit of a thorn in Hayden's side. It's a very short song about his cat, likely put together without nearly as much effort as most of his other stuff, but THIS is the song the audience is calling for (which could be due to some of the very funny stories he has told about the song, and his cat, when introducing it in the past). I'm guessing there is an untapped market for songs about cats....I'm just saying. And here is Hollywood Ending, which includes Cuff the Duke, who were backing him up this tour. Excuse the gimpy framing at the start - I had my stealth camera viewfinder cover on, and couldn't see a damn thing I was filming at first. If you really feel like watching the videos it is worth going to the YouTube site and watching them in High Quality mode - they appear kind of blurry otherwise. I will be posting a few more for those who care.



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