WHAT A RIDE, WHAT A TRIP...

i took last friday off so i'd have plenty of time to make the drive to southern california for a visit with the crew from orange.

friday: i made it out at around 9:40 am and everything was great until i got exactly an hour away and realized i had forgotten the concert tickets for the skinny puppy shows i was to attend; in my defense, i remembered everything else i was supposed to bring including a dvd player, an xbox, several dvds, my computer, and a firewire hdd. so with another two hours added to my trip, i didn't make it to pasadena until around 5:30, but luckily shane was in town to receive me. we spent the evening hanging out, dining, and drinking beer with his friend midori. we ate okonomiyaki which is like a giant pancake-shaped omelette filled with a seemingly unlimited number of savory fillings. mine had noodles, bacon, and seafood inside, if i remember correctly. it was quite delicious. midori -- the girl, not the melon liqueur -- is cute, friendly and an excellent source of information about japanese music and cinema. very cool... and silly me, i forgot to swap e-mail addresses.

saturday: the night of my first skinny puppy live experience. alex had been the evening prior and had had a less than stellar time; the venue basically sucked, he was with a bunch of non-puppy-fan haters, and the crowd was lame. he had also been disappointed that the show was less-theatrical than those in previous puppy tours had been.

we ended up arriving at around 9:30, hoping to miss some of opener tweeker's performance. we succeeded there. it turned out that puppy went on at 8:45 that evening and we had missed half their performance in addition to all of tweeker's. after finally getting situated, the show was nearly over and we were pretty far back. i was bummed by the crowd who appeared to be only mildly entertained -- damned unenergetic goths. and the sound at that venue really isn't all that great. i left somewhat disappointed.

sunday: after the previous evening's experience, i was determined to see skinny puppy the right way. we arrived at the venue -- the grove in anaheim -- early and after a thoroughly invasive search we took our place at the gate in front of the stage. tweeker sucked. chris vrenna wants badly to be mr. reznor... and the song structures are so boring. alex decided that he should have learned much more after ten years with trent. oh well...

when the real band finally took the stage, i was finally excited about their performance for the first time. we were so close, and the sound was os wonderful at the venue. ogre took the stage during the band's second song wearing some strange suit that looked a bit like voldo's white costume from soul calibur 2. it was ragged and the top looked like some weird girdle/straight jacket combo. he also had two triangular white cotton prisms... one was worn as a hat and the other upsidedown as a mask. he looked evil... the way he hobbled made him appear like a weird bird. after the first song he removed the mask and hat and his costume began to bleed. then at any point in the set, if he felt too clean he could wander behind a piece of set and grab more fake blood, fake shit, or white powder to cover himself or the audience with. at one point he was given a modified paintball gun capable of firing fake blood which he pointed at video footage of bush... he proceeded to fire the blood into his mouth and onto alex, who looked positively evil following the show.

i was totally into the band's older tracks: "inquisition," "tin omen," "convulsion," "smothered hope," "the choke"... it was wonderful. ogre sang the chorus of worlock right to alex and i from a distance of about three feet... this would have been the best experience ever if i was still seventeen years-old; at my current age i would merely deem it totally awesome. many of the younger, and cuter, memebers of the audience seemed to have little knowledge of the older songs, and yet were thrilled to hear tracks from the latest album... though i still think the record is weak, i'm glad it has an audience. a few of the security guards at the event looked positively puzzled. twenty years will pass and they'll still have no idea what happened that night, chris (who also joined us in the front) and i decided. at one point, i glanced at one of the guards who was grinning and wearing an expression that said, "only white kids, man..." it was lovely.

so, it was a great show... it was the last night of the US tour and as is standard practice, the band was hazed by their road crew... watching ogre scream the lyrics to "smothered hope" while wearing sparkly, star-shaped sunglasses is a strange experience. but it was memorable and fun... what more can one ask for? well, simply... more, i suppose. skinny puppy may be touring with ministry in the fall... wouldn't that be wild. if only i was seventeen again. Posted by ryan at July 6, 2004 10:58 AM