Lovage

Last night’s show was great! Around 6:30, Adam and I met up with Frances, Rory, Karen, and Noah, and we went to dinner (Chinese Food, eew… vile). Anyway, after dinner we started waiting in line, which had already achieved some length. We spent about 30-45 minutes waiting outside in the cold (which was rendered extra-cold by the fact that I was travelling light so I had less to lose in the club) and the line finally started to move in slowly. We got up on the raised part of the floor at the Middle East, so we had a great view of the stage.

The first opening act, Slick Pig was entertaining, but not exactly great. The act was a 14 year old kid that wrote and performed all the music on the album, backed up by a few friends when playing live. That was his first show, so hopefully he will get his shit together over time. The second act, dalek was really not my cup of tea. Generic electronic grind music with rap vocals… I could have done without it, but it wasn’t horrid to the point of disgust.

Lovage hit the stage about 15 minutes late, but that was no big deal.. The show was very entertaining, there was a mini bar on stage and the band were pouring themselves various drinks all night. The guys were decked out in smoking jackets, and Jennifer Charles was in a sexy long black dress. Both Jennifer and Mike Patton’s vocals were dead on most of the night, hitting both the highs and lows dead on. In fact, there was only a few times when things didn’t sound quite right. The live renditions of the songs were much like the album, but there were some additions and subtractions. Kid Koala kicked ass on the turntables, he really impressed me (which is a rare event for a DJ).

Probably the best parts of the show were the audience interactions. During one instrumental break, Mike Patton and Dan “The Automator” started walking around the crowd, Mike holding a riding crop and Dan a bottle of Hershey’s Syrup. They were asking to squirt a bunch of syrup into the mouths of various attendees, and when one agreed, they were treated to a tongue bath from Patton cleaning up all the syrup that dribbled out of the mouth… I can’t say I would have been interested in participating in that event, but it was totally fun to watch (especially since I was two people away from the “lucky” girl who volunteered first. :P). On the way back from this trip, they walked back the ramp (that we were standing in front of) back to the stage. Mike Patton started staring at Frances because she was kinda cowering away from him. Once he noticed this he really started giving her a hard time, giving her evil stares and smacking the riding crop… Frances freaked out, it was awesome. :)

Later on in the show there was a slow-dance competition where audience members were selected at random to slow dance with Jennifer, which was funny (but man, none of those 3 could dance; not that I could do any better). The absolute highlight of the show was when the band covered the song “I’m Real” by Ja-Rule and Jennifer Lopez. The song sucks, but with Mike Patton on J-Lo’s vocals and Jennifer Charles doing Ja-Rule’s vocals, the song was wonderful…. Mike Patton did a great J-Lo impression, hitting some serious high notes, and hearing Ms. Charles singing lyrics like “What’s my motherfuckin’ name?” and “To bring pain to pussy niggaz and pussy hoes it’s one in the same” was priceless…

I have a bit of temporary hearing fuzziness, but it has been getting better this morning… I tried to put in earplugs, but I apparently have a zit or something in my left ear, which caused some serious pain when I put the plug in… Oh well… :)