Came on all you rambling boys of pleasure, and ladies of easy leisure
Wow. Got back from Chicago at 4 this morning. That was an awesome show.
We stopped at Three Floyds in Munster on the way up. Had some incredible beers, some okay food, and I got a Dark Lord t-shirt. Alpha Kong is spectacular, as is Rodenbach Grand Cru, and Dogfish Head Fort. They limit the Fort to 1 bottle per customer...it's 18%, but drinks like wine. Good stuff.
Got to the Riviera around 5:30, seating didn't start until 6, so we went to a Border's across the street. We were the 9th and 10th people in the door. It was general admission, so we got to the wide-open area pretty early. A security guy saw us and informed us that there was a balcony, with first-come-first-serve seating. Well, after how my back felt for standing through the Ween show, we decided to check it out.
Got some great seats on the balcony, two rows from the front. Show was supposed to come on at 7:30. 8 went by, and I started getting antsy. Finally, the opening act came on. Not impressed. They were called the Ike Reilly Assassination. Ike Reilly is like John Dylan, if John Dylan only had a fraction of his normal talent, and sold out to do pop songs. After they were done, it took 45 minutes to change the instruments out. By the time they were done, I was getting pretty pissed, and impatient.
When Shane stepped out on stage, though, all was forgiven. Let me say, I understand that Shane is no longer a capable, or even acceptable, singer. Back in the day, before he rotted away from boredom and booze, he was barely passable as a singer. His gift was in writing songs. Now that appears to be gone, too. He exists now purely as a personality. But what a personality. He came out on stage in a top hat, and the crowd went nuts. His vocals were better than I feared, but I can't imagine anyone not already familiar with them being able to make them out. When he spoke to the crowd, he was so slurred I didn't understand a word he said all night.
After the awe of seeing Shane passed, what really struck me were the other members of the band. James Fearnley is, in a word, phenomenal. He plays accordian like Angus Young plays guitar. He runs around, he jumps onto and off of things; he did a jump from the drum kit and landed on his knees that should have put him down. The man is simply amazing.
Spider Stacey was spot-on, but I feel bad for the man. He's the tin whistler for the band. About 2/3 of their catalog has a tin whistle, and even those only have chunks of it. The man has spent half his life whistling for 15 seconds at a time, then tapping his whistle against his thigh in time to the song.
Phil Chevron was great, and his vocals on Thousands are Sailing were spectacular. I'd only heard Shane's version, and it's a completely different (and better) song with Phil singing.
They did two 3-song encores, and the second one included Star of the County Down, one of my favorite songs, and one I'm relatively sure the Pogues have never recorded. It was a fantastic rendition. I'm pretty sure that if the band had been willing to do more encores, they'd probably still be playing. The crowd was nuts. There was a huge fight in front of us, where two drunk (middle-aged) women nearly came to blows, and their families started lining up for a tussle. Thankfully a security guy broke it up before it got ugly.
Overall, a real blast of a show. It was great to see Shane, but in all honesty, the real show was the rest of the band. There was a chemistry there that even I, totally musically stupid, could see. They're all immensely talented artists, and it was an honor to see them do their thing.
We stopped at Three Floyds in Munster on the way up. Had some incredible beers, some okay food, and I got a Dark Lord t-shirt. Alpha Kong is spectacular, as is Rodenbach Grand Cru, and Dogfish Head Fort. They limit the Fort to 1 bottle per customer...it's 18%, but drinks like wine. Good stuff.
Got to the Riviera around 5:30, seating didn't start until 6, so we went to a Border's across the street. We were the 9th and 10th people in the door. It was general admission, so we got to the wide-open area pretty early. A security guy saw us and informed us that there was a balcony, with first-come-first-serve seating. Well, after how my back felt for standing through the Ween show, we decided to check it out.
Got some great seats on the balcony, two rows from the front. Show was supposed to come on at 7:30. 8 went by, and I started getting antsy. Finally, the opening act came on. Not impressed. They were called the Ike Reilly Assassination. Ike Reilly is like John Dylan, if John Dylan only had a fraction of his normal talent, and sold out to do pop songs. After they were done, it took 45 minutes to change the instruments out. By the time they were done, I was getting pretty pissed, and impatient.
When Shane stepped out on stage, though, all was forgiven. Let me say, I understand that Shane is no longer a capable, or even acceptable, singer. Back in the day, before he rotted away from boredom and booze, he was barely passable as a singer. His gift was in writing songs. Now that appears to be gone, too. He exists now purely as a personality. But what a personality. He came out on stage in a top hat, and the crowd went nuts. His vocals were better than I feared, but I can't imagine anyone not already familiar with them being able to make them out. When he spoke to the crowd, he was so slurred I didn't understand a word he said all night.
After the awe of seeing Shane passed, what really struck me were the other members of the band. James Fearnley is, in a word, phenomenal. He plays accordian like Angus Young plays guitar. He runs around, he jumps onto and off of things; he did a jump from the drum kit and landed on his knees that should have put him down. The man is simply amazing.
Spider Stacey was spot-on, but I feel bad for the man. He's the tin whistler for the band. About 2/3 of their catalog has a tin whistle, and even those only have chunks of it. The man has spent half his life whistling for 15 seconds at a time, then tapping his whistle against his thigh in time to the song.
Phil Chevron was great, and his vocals on Thousands are Sailing were spectacular. I'd only heard Shane's version, and it's a completely different (and better) song with Phil singing.
They did two 3-song encores, and the second one included Star of the County Down, one of my favorite songs, and one I'm relatively sure the Pogues have never recorded. It was a fantastic rendition. I'm pretty sure that if the band had been willing to do more encores, they'd probably still be playing. The crowd was nuts. There was a huge fight in front of us, where two drunk (middle-aged) women nearly came to blows, and their families started lining up for a tussle. Thankfully a security guy broke it up before it got ugly.
Overall, a real blast of a show. It was great to see Shane, but in all honesty, the real show was the rest of the band. There was a chemistry there that even I, totally musically stupid, could see. They're all immensely talented artists, and it was an honor to see them do their thing.