Sunday, July 02, 2006

We Love Our Audience

It's Sunday and I'm working. Today is usually my day off but I took off on Friday to go see Bauhaus, and they put me on the schedule today.

Playing right now: I think it's the blues satellite radio station.

I was talked in to going to the PG Pavilion by the wife because she really wanted to see Bauhaus. They were opening for Nine Inch Nails, who I don't care for either. But she offered to pay for the ticket if I would drive out to that vast wasteland of authoritarian money grubbing (no lawn chairs, no umbrellas, you can bring in your own water but we have to pour it in a cup at the security gate and you can only bring in one water, buy our overpriced lame-ass food, but enjoy the show!).

But all told it wasn't so bad. We were on the lawn and while the jumbotron wasn't working at least we could see the stage from a distance. Peaches played first and she exceeded all our expectations too. The first song, which we heard from the foodcourt area, sounded like a Kim Gordon shriekfest, but by the time we got our, um, seats, she sounded pretty good. She had a live band with her, included a dame drummer who had double-bass drums (badass!).

For a true, detailed account of Bauhaus' set, it'd be better to check out Jennie or her pal Sheryl's blogs (don't know the urls at the moment). I don't know their material really really well, although I have heard a lot of it at home, when Jennie has put it on. But I know enough to say that they rocked. And Peter Murphy is quite the consumate professional. Shimmy in place, sashaying across the stage, standing on a riser and bending to the waist so that, from a distance, he looks like he's going to fly away and then he has you believing that he will. I was impressed.

To make sure a good night wasn't spoiled, we decided that, yes, we wanted to leave before Trent and the gang came on. So we did.

Oh by the way: no Bauhaus encore. No "Bela Lugosi's Dead." I was disappointed but I got over it.

I want to write about Henry Grimes but I feel like I should go get a coffee and get ready to start my shift. I'll write about Henry later. It's a long story -- a good one, though -- anyway.

PS It's not the blues station, it's the montage of blues, lame folky acoustic stuff and Cat Power.

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