"These Guys are Amaze-Balls"

Amaze-Balls = When the use of "ing" does not aptly express the level of supreme awesome once wishes to convey.

So was the term used to describe The Black Keys by new friends we made on Thursday night at Madison Square Garden.

And the term shall be used henceforth when needed.

Personally, I would not call them "amaze-balls" myself because while my ticket said I had purchased pit tickets for The Black Keys, in my heart (and as obvious to every unmoving body in that place except for The HOchieS') I was there for Arctic Monkeys.

That's not a discredit to The Black Keys though because they were pretty damned good themselves.

The Low-Lamps:

1.  Again with the crowd.  I was surprised that so few people were there for Arctic Monkeys.  And of the ones that were who just wanted to get to the front of the stage, they were hella' crap.  I suppose they were not there for Arctic Monkeys and couldn't care less to dance or sing along but that was some disappointing and shocking crud, if I do say so.  Oh, hipsters.  You're so fickle, self-righteous and self-indulgent, aren't you? Yeah? Yeah.

Second-Rate Celebrities: A Penchant For Ruining Things

Whether it be a movie or a concert, 'celebrities' are just out to make things sucky when things shouldn't be.

Thursday night was going great - H1 got to leave work early, I left early and went to dinner at Sapporo (The 2008 HOchie HOtspot, 2006 was Pongsri) with Chrissy Lee. Good eats were enjoyed including tonkatsu and karubi yummies and then I took Chrissy down to Penn Station, all the while threatening him with the notion that he was going to go off on the LIRR to someplace he didn't want to be, namely on a plane back to Trinidad.

Instead, the surprise didn't quite go as I planned because I guess the MSG entrance I was at didn't have a large flashing sign indicating that R.E.M. was performing and that Chrissy Lee was actually going to a great concert. Still, I suppose a merch. stand will never let you down. It was not as grandiose as planned but he was still reaaaally excited when he found out. I was bombarded with about 22 or so "R.E.M.?!" questions with awe and disbelief bunched together with many "lies!".

I was excited too, and why wouldn't I be? That was the first concert for the year, surprisingly enough and not only would I get to see the guys of R.E.M. but The National and Modest Mouse were the openers.

So yeah, things were going well. We got there early but that's okay, we relaxed and Chrissy got to take all that is MSG from our fantastic-at-the-time seats Section 7, Row B, Seats 9 and 10 which is on the floor right behind the 'pit'.

With that said, let us just move right along to The Low-Lamps and the Highlights.

The Low-Lamps:

1. Julia Stiles and her 'friends'. She effed up movies and now she can add my R.E.M. concert to her list. Her presence there, right in front of me was distracting. Did concert security have any real reason to come check on her for every minute of the 16 minutes she was there? No! The only real celebs that night was R.E.M., so please! Ugh, and her friends were even worse. That short skirt one whose face was hideous, yeah...you really needed that short skirt to distract from the rest of you.

2. Our seats. Now, Section 7, Row B, Seats 9 and 10 are fantastic seats...in theory. There's a clear shot of the stage, it's fairly close and details need not be shown on a big screen to viewers in that section. So enjoy those seats while you can ie enjoy them during the opening acts because as SOOOOON as the headliner takes it, everyone and their effin' eff decides they need to walk back and forth behind the pit. Aren't you people supposed to be watching the show?! Trust me, you really didn't need the beer and why didn't you think to get it sooner?! Ugh. UGH! So instead of watching R.E.M., I got to watch a bunch of people walking in front of R.E.M. and my line of vision.

3. The National's performance of "Mistaken For Strangers". That is my favourite song by them (oh I've decided I like them well enough. They're cool and an easy listening experience) and they fuck it up. If I didn't hear anything else by them that night I'd be okay but I waited for 2 weeks to hear that shart and I got the lead singer singing without his trademark baritone. Really...I want to scream at them for being asses, or him rather. Thinking about it now, I probably should have because he may have heard me, I would have been kicked out and I would not have had to experience the assness that was Julia Stiles. I did myself an unkindness.

Also worth mentioning, the lead singer's stage persona sucks an ass. I swear the man was drunk and brain challenged, not that there's anyting wrong with being brain challenged but if you're putting the act on then yes, it's very wrong.



4. The crowd. O.M.G. As expected, of the thousands at MSG, I found a total of 7 people who were not white. Alright, okay, whatever. That's fine. I guess but the fact that they were not... aging well, and I had to wonder what rhythm they were hearing to put down the 'dances' they did. Yes, I can say that that was not a good look. At all.

5. The Pit. What pit? Not that I expected a pit, kind of understanding what crowd may have been in attendance (and were, much to my dismay) but it was still sad to see seats in a pit. SEATS. A seated pit! Lame. Just...lame.

6. My failed camera. Again. You'd swear from the pictures I was a million miles away but no, thanks to x3 Optical zoom, I got shart!!!!! I was much closer than it appears, honest.

7. My inability to get good shots of bassists. Sorry, Peter!

8. No H1. Yeah, this was the saddest part and should be first on this list. She couldn't come with and not that Chrissy Lee was not good company but it's always sad when H1 is not with.

The Highlights:

1. R.E.M. of course. They performed an excellent show as expected. The sound was great, the songs were great (even the ones I shamefully admit I did not know) and the stage set up was great. The guys rocked!!!



2. Michael Stipe. I've always loved that man and if ever there was a doubt as to why, all that has been erased. From Bush bashing to banter, to stage antics to the dancing! M.Stipe was amazing. And boy can he dance. He was great fun, the jokes were funny and he was fabulous.



3. Mike Mills. He performed a song, vocals and guitar work which was quite awesome and cute. Aww, love that little M.Mills. So cute!



4. Modest Mouse was awesome. I went in with no kind of expectations from them considering a DJ once described them in concert as "putting up a poster of the band on your wall, putting in their cd and listening to it while staring at the poster". Turns out, their latest album did not do them dirty, nor me. 2 drummers (you how I love not 1 but 2 drummers!) and The Smith's guitarist Johnny Marr will do that for you and will certainly assist in not sucking.



Note-worthy mention to Johnny Marr who rocked with Modest Mouse and then later on with R.E.M on their final 3 songs. Ooo, I love him now.



5. For all the 2 shits they pulled, The National were good. I was happy I saw them and their setlist was awesome save that damned Mr. November song I dislike but kind of have a better liking for now since they dedicated it to "Barack", as if Barack pitched marbles with them in school.



6. Did I mention a megaphone? Ah yes, Michael brought it out during Orange Crush and you know how I love me a megaphone especially a tossed one, though I'm not quite sure what happened to it after that song was done...



7. R.E.M.'s performance of "Let Me In" was very much awesome, even if all that mainly stood out other than the song was Michaels head. Har Har.



8. Surprising Chrissy Lee. He was happy. That counts for a lot.

The R.E.M. "Accelerate 2008 Tour" @ Madison Square Garden on 06/19/2008:

1. Living Well Is the Best Revenge
2. These Days
3. What's the Frequency, Kenneth?
4. Bad Day
5. Drive
6. Hollow Man
7. Ignoreland
8. Man-Sized Wreath
9. Leaving New York
10. Disturbance At The Heron House
11. Houston
12. Electrolite
13. (Don't Go Back To) Rockville
14. Driver 8
15. Harborcoat
16. The One I Love
17. Until The Day Is Done
18. Let Me In
19. Horse To Water
20. Pretty Persuasion
21. Orange Crush
22. I'm Gonna DJ

Encore:

23. Supernatural Superserious
24. Losing My Religion
25. Begin The Begin
26. Fall On Me
27. Man On The Moon

The Modest Mouse 06/19/2008 @ Madison Square Garden Setlist:

Invisible
Dance Hall
Satin In A Coffin
Custom Concern
Fire It Up
Truckers Atlas
King Rat
Dashboard
Education (Jam ending)
The Good Times Are Killing Me

The National 06/19/2008 @ Madison Square Garden Setlist:

Start A War
Brainy
Baby We'll Be Fine
Slow Show
Mistaken For Strangers
Squalor Victoria
Secret Meeting
Apartment Story
Fake Empire
Mr. November

Memorable Conversation of Today 6/23/2008:

A convo. had in the kitchen at work this morning

Or 2: I like these marble cutting boards. Yeah, we need one of those.
H1: Yeah, they're cool. We should get one.
Or 2: You know, I have space in my bag...

Currently listening to: "Stay Don't Go" by Spoon. I wonder if H1 would object if I got tickets to see them...

"Declare This An Emergency, Come On and Spread A Sense of Urgency and Pull Us Through. And This Is The End Of The World"

Words escape me.

I cannot even begin to properly wrap my little mind around what happened last night.

I've seen them four times now.

I know every word, and I know almost every variation of each song including all the tiny falsetto additions made by that beautiful voice.

I know almost all the edgy guitar riffs, and the goddamned moments when the finger is in the air.

I know the grandiose poses and the exact moments when they're going to come, even down to the sliding across the stage floor.

I know whatever song will be played next based on the spoken often vague introductions given by my joker Dom.

And still, I stumbled out of Madison Square Garden last night, stealing the pressure and the pain on my legs for standing for hours, muttering in disbelief the words "oh my god".

That's the most I could muster from my dry throat and spinning head.

"Oh. My. God."

And still there's not much more I can add to that, honestly.

MUSE at Madison Square Garden were nothing short of fuckin' amazing!!!!!!

WTF Moments of the Night (in no particular order because they're all pretty damned hellish) - The Lowlamps:

1. To think I actually debated not attending this concert. WTF is wrong with me?

2. The bass during Cold War Kids' performance almost killed us. H1 and I felt severely nauseous, in the words of Bughie J. "aww, nothing like getting your equilibrium thrown off by mega bass...". That is the trauma I made us endure just so I could be front and left.

3. Cold War Kids did not play "Passing The Hat", nor did they play "Electioneering". I would have tossed chicken bones had the guitarist not been so goddamned hilarious. Also, a few days ago CWK gave a shout out to my boys.

Seriously though, I'm really peeved they didn't play "Passing the Hat". That is some serious WTF'ckness.

4. Fourth Time's The Charm? I think not. MUSE, once again, did not play "Muscle Museum". They seriously hate on me sometimes. Alas, I tossed no chicken bones. How could I when I was mesmerized by the money shot? You know I'd never toss bones at my man Matt, anyway.

5. I didn't get to meet my boys (Matt, Dom and Chris) but assholes who hung out at Krock did. I hate those assholes! =,( When will my day come?
And why did that kid who got a free signed poster of MUSE's fold it up into tiny, tiny pieces? WTF was his problem?! Yeah, I understand it's not AS cool unless you get it signed yourself but for bullshart's sake, no need to massacre it!!!!

6. Hearing Klaxons' "Magick" made me super cranky because it just reminded me of how those stupids turned down WS leaving me to miss out the good times that never were. I can't let that go.

7. Matt sounded a little off to me at times. Just a little but it wasn't horrid. He never is. Paul Banks, he is not. Ahhaha, sorry Paul. Also, Matt was probably trying to deal with the bad karma on stage from the night before when that goddamned Beyonce played and bad mojo'd the place.

8. The sour-faced girl who gave H1 a hard time, as well as the drunk that pushed her while she was dancing. No worries, they were asking to get cut and did.

9. The poorly dressed "super" friends. They were horrid and not even really worth talking about. For good measure, I will also toss in that stupid, rich Asian kid who we saw at Arctic Monkeys. Yep, sure enough, that spoilt bitch was there last night as well.

10. Okay, WTF. Matt was nice to the megaphone and didn't toss it. He did toss confetti though in that classy way he does sometimes. But no tossed megaphone leaves a sad me.

11. H1 pointed it out and she's right - Dominic didn't seem too happy last night and that made me sad. He didn't seem as chipper as he usually is. Maybe Matt pissed him off at Krock? I keed. They were having some good banter! =(

I guess he still smiled some though... what a cutie.

12. Matt. WTF. Why the hell would you wear almost the same damned outfit you wore at WS to this show? You disappoint me. I mean, you were still hot but geez. I've seen it before! Curses...

The Goo'd Times of the Evening - The Highlights:

1. A free MUSE shirt? Yeah. Totally. Special thanks to S. for that.

2. All the rejected Sum 41 stickers littering 33rd Street.

3. Being one of the hated kids in the pit. And THEN, being one of the really hated kids in the pit that made it to the front (and left!).

4. Cold War Kids.

While this band was not an ideal opener for MUSE, they were still really good in their own right. They're not going be opening acts for very long at the rate they're going.
I didn't catch all the songs they played (due to the fact they played a bunch of songs I did not know), so their set list will be incomplete but here's what I could remember in a very rough order -

The Cold War Kids at Madison Square Garden Set List (08/06/2007):

Robbers (great, great, great song!)
*new song (?)
We Used To Vacation
*new song (?)
Hang Me Up To Dry (curse you H1, you got it as number 5. Curse you)
Hospital Beds (and curse on me for getting this damned song as number 6. Still, it's good live)
Saint John
*new song (?)
Quiet, Please! (this song was not the greatest thing to end with but it was still a good song. I liked it)

As a side note, I'm happy to say I was the only nerd who knew anything by this band. That really doesn't make ME a nerd though. Those peeps at the Garden didn't know what they were missing.

5. "Knights of Cydonia" was played first. It's good they got it out of the way so I didn't have to hear that bs in my head as I was leaving one of the greatest concerts.

6. Dominic Howard owns. I've never seen him hit the drums that hard (up close) and the version of "Apocalypse Please" played at Madison Square Garden last night was so fuckin' fantastic that it makes me cry. It makes me cry because I recorded the entire thing only to discover after that the bass totally distorted my recording and I cannot find a version close to this one anywhere. I want that motherfuckin' song and I want it now. I want it now. (wow, two MUSE cookies in one blog post - I'm on a roll, this time. I feel my luck will change - ahaha, and one Radiohead. Nice.)

7. Being front and left was even better for me the second time around. I had H1 ( who actually has now proclaimed and I quote, "I love Muse") with me and we were right in front of Matt (even though she was worried that she couldn't handle his hideous face. She likes to keed and rile me up, is what). It was better this time than at Hammerstein because MUSE could put on the show the way they wanted to on a bigger stage. And Matt was beautiful...

8.

...isn't he, though? Ah, "the money shot" as H1 says. Hahaha. Note though that this confirms for me finally, that Matt has an ass not an assback like MC.
It is a known fact that I do not like looking at asses and I really hate it when various animals insist on showing theirs to me but Matt, he can do that anytime.

Man, I feel like I sullied myself and the blog.

Sorry, H1.

9. We got GREAT shots of MUSE being that we were so damned close. (You know, as good as my camera would allow it. ::sigh:: I might have to give him up sometimes but I'll never diss the good times little LO has given me.) I even did the nice thing this time and took a really good picture of Chris.

10. The crowd. I was quite pleased by the crowd reaction. It was so much better than at Wembley Stadium, we felt. They didn't even NEED to be told to light up their mobiles for "Soldier's Poem". Maybe that's what made Dom miffed...we messed up his usual duties of telling us to get them out! Dom, we're just making your job easier because we love you guys.

11. The new jamming sessions the band brought out. They were all cool and funky. I almost screamed at them to play "Man of Mystery" like an ass though.

12. MUSE

They're just on here because they need to be. I cannot stress just how absolutely stellar their performance was. The entire show was a goddamned highlight and one of the best concerts we've ever been to.

Y&M&M@MSG = GT!!!!

The MUSE at Madison Square Garden Set List (08/06/2007):

Knights of Cydonia
Map of the Problematique + Maggie's Farm Riff (RATM)
Hysteria
Supermassive Black Hole
City of Delusion
Butterflies and Hurricanes + new riff (jamming session)
Hoodoo
piano interlude + Apocalypse Please
Feeling Good
Sunburn
riff (but not "Man of Mystery") + Time is Running Out + Ashamed outro
Starlight
Invincible
New Born
Plug In Baby

Encore:

Soldier's Poem
Unintended (stating they had never played this in the US before. Ooo, we're special. Too bad I already got it at WS)
riff + Stockholm Syndrome
Take a Bow

I think I have to add some WTF moments to this...

...13. I just remembered I really wanted H1 to hear "Assassins (Grand Omega Bosses Edit)" and they didn't play it. Damn it! That shit is awesome live.

14. Why is it we seemed to have gotten the same set list as Wembley Stadium on 06/17/2007? I don't want to be associated with that because it was the day that that stupid ass mcr debacle went down! Ha, ah well. I didn't miss anything really then. Nice. Feels like I was at WS twice then, yeah? That's right bitches! I got your set list including "Apocalypse Please", with a better crowd AND a good opening act! In your faces, assholes!

Oh boys, this might be it for a while. I doubt I'll make it to Vegoose. Come back soon with the fantastic new material I know you will create and I'll be there to support at the concerts in the front to the left.

To my beloved MUSE,







Thanks for making my 2006-2007 concert year from August to August fantastic.

And helping destroy the ill memories that was Matisyahu.

Much Love and cooddles in the kitchen,

Or 2

Quotes of the evening:

"Hey, you guys like Sum 41?" - girl from Sum 41 street team
"No, but I AM a fan of Avril Lavigne!" - Or 2 sarcastically, to our concert buddies for the evening.

As an Indian couple walk by,

H1- "Why Indian people like to think they are the bomb?"
Or 2, shaking head in disgust - "I don't know"
Pause
H1 - "Well, sometimes they are... an actual bomb."
Or 2, quietly - "Yeah, yeah"

"Matt's... really skinny. You can smoke them girly arms." - H1

Currently listening to: "Take a Bow", then "Host" and finally "Agitated" by MUSE.

What. The. Fuck.

...

Can someone explain to me why MUSE just announced a show at Madison Square Garden on August 6th?

1 week after I bought my blasted tickets to London?!

I am so unimpressed right now...

SO unimpressed.

Matt better watch it because I'm so going to be "A (Alex) S (Stacy) Hoell (Ho+Bell), the 'e' is silent" very soon...

Anyway. You know my birthday's coming up in October. Who wants to buy me an early birthday present and come with me to the show? Well, I see how it went down when I wanted a Christmas present of a WS ticket, so let me re-phrase... who wants to come with me for my birthday?

Talk to me by tomorrow! I have the opportunity to do the pre-sale!

(see how fast I got over that?)

Alright, I await your remarks riddled with assholery (if I may use a Beetchie term)