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Provided by the compucert Garbage at Hammerstein Ballroom, NYC April 19th 2005
After a long, brutal, painful tax season a diversion like a concert is very welcome. My wife is a huge fan of Garbage so I got her tickets for the show for our 14th anniversary in March. This was the fourth time we've seen them.
The Line
This was the plan. My wife took a half day from work to get into the city early. Afterall the show sold out and she wanted a good spot on the floor, so she'd need to be on line early. The Hammerstein Ballroom is on 34th Street just west of 8th Avenue, easy access. So she got there at 4:00. There was already a good sized line.
I arrived about 5:15. I stayed a little later than expected at the office because Booker was interviewing Garbage on 92.3 at 4:40.
On the inside
The tickets say doors open at 6:30 and that was about right. The front filled up fast, but Stacey was still able to get in the "second row" and I was directly behind her. It's a very very nice place. It looks like a regular Broadway theater. Ornately painted high ceiling. Nice mezzanines. Even decent airflow, something sorely missing in most venues. Let's say that we took our spots at about 6:45. We had a long wait from then, so we had a chance to listen to the discussions around us. I caught the names of these two sluts who wouldn't shut up next to us. Jaime and Angela. Angela, with short wavy honey blond hair, was from Hawaii, the other was from California, I think. Jaime, a very pale girl with very long extra straight blond hair, was a real chatterbox, talking about all the times she's seen Garbage, even on this tour already. How they do this and that and the other thing. I tuned out quickly. Obsessed groupie. I spent my time trying to figure out if these two were strippers or Hooters waitresses. They filled the criteria for either, but since their faces were a little busted, they were truly made for the darkness of a gentleman's club.
The Dead 60s
The opening act, The Dead 60s hit the stage at 8:05. I never heard of them before, and will likely forget them very soon. A good description of their style would be Jet meets ska, with Ashton Kutcher's twin on drums.
Their breakdown:
singer / guitars
bassist / backup vox
guitarist / keys
drums
The drummer reminded me so much of Ashton Kutcher that I was expecting him to get up and say that we were all punked, that Garbage was never coming out and we'd have to listen to their unispired music all night. Well, that didn't happen, thank god. They played their 30 minute set. Their levels were actually pretty okay. You can hear every instrument very clearly over the sound system. Too bad they never played anything I found interesting. However, all through the set, that slut Angela kept checking my wife and me out. Even kinda squeezing in between us a little during the performance. I was expecting her to ask if we swing and if we'd be interested in bringing her home, but alas nothing of the sort occurred.
Band break. The tech crews moved Dead 60s equipment off pretty quickly as there wasn't a whole lot of it. The place was packed. It was sold out, afterall.
Interesting things about the show:
About 9:15 the hall gets dark as "HURT" covered by Johnny Cash begins to play. The main act was about to take the stage. Near the end of that song the band walks out, and prepares their instruments and plays the best version of "Queer" I've ever heard them play. The band is tighter then ever, and Shirley's voice is sexier than ever. She was moving around that big thick lucite mic stand like a stripper pole wriggling and writhing about, as she would for the rest of the night. The band looked good. Steve didn't move much from his side. Duke seemed chipper as ever. Butch Vig must've taken drum lessons finally because he added drum fills like he's never played before into places he never did before. They have a new bassist. I dunno what happened to the old guy who was with them since the beginning, but he was never a full member and probably moved onto something that will actually have his name on it. This guy was really into it. Shirley looked better than she has in years. Her one-piece mini-dress, fish nets, coupled with long luscious red locks of hair, she looked pretty sexy.
The band's sound was pretty good. I don't think the drums were mic'd off right, as the metals had little to no presence at all. Other than that the levels were really fine.
Their set consisted of about four songs from each of the first two albums, one from Beautiful Garbage (Cherry Lips, during which Shirley forgot a whole verse and was busy laughing about it) and about 3 from the new record. Lemme see if I can actually remember what they played:
From G:
From Bleed Like Me:
Bad Boyfriend
* Shocker: they did NOT play #1 Crush (You know, from the Romeo & Juliet Soundtrack? It was really the hit that brought them to all the top 40 radio stations across the US.)
* Shocker: They didn't play any of their slowest ballads. USually they get one in. The slowest one was Bleed Like Me which isn't even that slow.
The crowd was very well behaved. No crowd surfing. No moshing. No crap. Just a bunch of fans wathcing a show and having a good time, and a good time it certainly was. They were done by 10:30, almost it was geared towards the older people who had to be up for work the next morning. Thanks for a great show.
The Line
This was the plan. My wife took a half day from work to get into the city early. Afterall the show sold out and she wanted a good spot on the floor, so she'd need to be on line early. The Hammerstein Ballroom is on 34th Street just west of 8th Avenue, easy access. So she got there at 4:00. There was already a good sized line.
I arrived about 5:15. I stayed a little later than expected at the office because Booker was interviewing Garbage on 92.3 at 4:40.
On the inside
The tickets say doors open at 6:30 and that was about right. The front filled up fast, but Stacey was still able to get in the "second row" and I was directly behind her. It's a very very nice place. It looks like a regular Broadway theater. Ornately painted high ceiling. Nice mezzanines. Even decent airflow, something sorely missing in most venues. Let's say that we took our spots at about 6:45. We had a long wait from then, so we had a chance to listen to the discussions around us. I caught the names of these two sluts who wouldn't shut up next to us. Jaime and Angela. Angela, with short wavy honey blond hair, was from Hawaii, the other was from California, I think. Jaime, a very pale girl with very long extra straight blond hair, was a real chatterbox, talking about all the times she's seen Garbage, even on this tour already. How they do this and that and the other thing. I tuned out quickly. Obsessed groupie. I spent my time trying to figure out if these two were strippers or Hooters waitresses. They filled the criteria for either, but since their faces were a little busted, they were truly made for the darkness of a gentleman's club.
The Dead 60s
The opening act, The Dead 60s hit the stage at 8:05. I never heard of them before, and will likely forget them very soon. A good description of their style would be Jet meets ska, with Ashton Kutcher's twin on drums.
Their breakdown:
singer / guitars
bassist / backup vox
guitarist / keys
drums
The drummer reminded me so much of Ashton Kutcher that I was expecting him to get up and say that we were all punked, that Garbage was never coming out and we'd have to listen to their unispired music all night. Well, that didn't happen, thank god. They played their 30 minute set. Their levels were actually pretty okay. You can hear every instrument very clearly over the sound system. Too bad they never played anything I found interesting. However, all through the set, that slut Angela kept checking my wife and me out. Even kinda squeezing in between us a little during the performance. I was expecting her to ask if we swing and if we'd be interested in bringing her home, but alas nothing of the sort occurred.
Band break. The tech crews moved Dead 60s equipment off pretty quickly as there wasn't a whole lot of it. The place was packed. It was sold out, afterall.
Interesting things about the show:
- There weren't as many kids as I expected. In the past there were large numbers of teenie boppers, not so for this show.
- Shirley Manson must be the new Madonna. There were many many gays and lesbians at the show basking in Shirley's empowering light. I'm not sure why, but apparently she's an icon. I had no idea.
About 9:15 the hall gets dark as "HURT" covered by Johnny Cash begins to play. The main act was about to take the stage. Near the end of that song the band walks out, and prepares their instruments and plays the best version of "Queer" I've ever heard them play. The band is tighter then ever, and Shirley's voice is sexier than ever. She was moving around that big thick lucite mic stand like a stripper pole wriggling and writhing about, as she would for the rest of the night. The band looked good. Steve didn't move much from his side. Duke seemed chipper as ever. Butch Vig must've taken drum lessons finally because he added drum fills like he's never played before into places he never did before. They have a new bassist. I dunno what happened to the old guy who was with them since the beginning, but he was never a full member and probably moved onto something that will actually have his name on it. This guy was really into it. Shirley looked better than she has in years. Her one-piece mini-dress, fish nets, coupled with long luscious red locks of hair, she looked pretty sexy.
The band's sound was pretty good. I don't think the drums were mic'd off right, as the metals had little to no presence at all. Other than that the levels were really fine.
Their set consisted of about four songs from each of the first two albums, one from Beautiful Garbage (Cherry Lips, during which Shirley forgot a whole verse and was busy laughing about it) and about 3 from the new record. Lemme see if I can actually remember what they played:
From G:
- Queer
- Supervixen
- Stupid Girl
- Vow
- Only Happy When It Rains
- When I Grow Up
- I think I'm Paranoid
- Push It
- Special
- Cherry Lips (Go Baby Go!) during which Shirley forgot a whole verse and was busy laughing about it for the rest of the song.
From Bleed Like Me:
Bad Boyfriend
- Metal Heart
- Bleed Like Me
- Why Do You Love Me
* Shocker: they did NOT play #1 Crush (You know, from the Romeo & Juliet Soundtrack? It was really the hit that brought them to all the top 40 radio stations across the US.)
* Shocker: They didn't play any of their slowest ballads. USually they get one in. The slowest one was Bleed Like Me which isn't even that slow.
The crowd was very well behaved. No crowd surfing. No moshing. No crap. Just a bunch of fans wathcing a show and having a good time, and a good time it certainly was. They were done by 10:30, almost it was geared towards the older people who had to be up for work the next morning. Thanks for a great show.
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