Matte Black Cat with a Rat Kings Tat

This week we went to the previously teased Gaslight Anthem and Counting Crows concert. It was a venue I'd never been to before, the YouTube Theater.

The YouTube Theater is in Inglewood, on the same property as our recently added NFL stadium (which I've also never been to before). I had seen a few shows near there at what used to be the Great Western Forum. The first show I ever drove myself to was there, Quiet Riot, with Whitesnake (before most people had heard of them). My friend Sean and I went together. Later we also saw Ratt there, with Bon Jovi opening, back when Bon Jovi had just come out with 7800° Fahrenheit album, so also before most people had heard of them. Much later, my wife and I, along with her brother in law and his wife saw The Scorpions there, around the time their Crazy World album was out. Anyway, the thing I recall from going there was that it seemed like you have to drive quite a ways from the freeway to get there.

But I digress. We got there and parked not too far from the entrance and made our way in. Security is better there in the sense that you don't have to empty your pockets, go through a metal detector, then get wanded down anyway for your belt buckle. I think it was a body scan instead, a guy just ahead of us got pulled out for a more thorough search. Since the place is fairly new, it's real nice, and it was easy to get in and find our seats, which were pretty good. We were on the front row of the first balcony, a bit off to the left. The younger was wondering if there would be an opening act or acts like last time, and I noticed that the setup had a Gaslight Anthem banner, and figured there wouldn't be.

The guys from The Gaslight Anthem start heading out, and Brian Fallon gets on the mic and says his daughter would like to say something. She gets on the mic, and says, “Ladies and gentlemen, The Gaslight Anthem!” From there they go into a song I wasn't familiar with, Have Mercy. Right after that they go into Positive Charge.

They did two cover songs in the set, and another I'd not heard before and haven't been able to positively identify. Since I'd mentioned Tom Petty in the teaser post, it was interesting that one of the covers was a Tom Petty song, Honeybee from the Full Moon Fever album. I recognized the song from the riff!!! The set list was as follows:

1. Have Mercy

2. Positive Charge

3. Handwritten

4. The Weatherman

5. Dark Places

6. Time Spent Playing By Her Side?

7. Howl

8. Honeybee (Tom Petty cover)

9. Mae

10. Here's Looking at You, Kid

11. Lovesong (The Cure cover)

12. Mulholland Drive

13. The 59 Sound

14. 45

Brian was wearing a hat for most of the show, so he wasn't especially photogenic. Once again, I wasn't able to identify who the picture on the drum was supposed to be, but I tried to get a good shot of it. She looks so familiar, I sent a picture and asked my wife, and she wasn't able to tell, either.

Also noticed that they had action figures on several of their amps!!!

Seven of the songs they did in their set they had also done at the previous show. It was cool to finally hear Howl live, and in the teaser post I'd mentioned Tom Petty, so it was cool they covered him!!!

They did the change over with the lights up, and the partition curtain behind the stage up. It goes back a ways, and they have a roll up door for a loading dock at the back, looks like a good design!!!

While we were driving there, I played Spaceman in Tulsa, and told the younger that I bet Counting Crows will play it tonight. It just seemed too perfect for them not to play it!!! They took the stage, and it was the first song they did!!!

The set list was as follows:

1. Spaceman in Tulsa

2. Hard Candy

3. Mr. Jones

4. Virginia Through the Rain

5. Omaha

6. Cover Up the Sun

7. With Love, From A to Z

8. Miami

9. Colorblind

10. God of Ocean Tides

11. Blues Run the Game

12. Round Here + Raining in Baltimore

13. Boxcars

14. A Long December

15. Rain King (intro with something with the lyric, “It would have been fine if you would have been the one”, another song I wasn't familiar with)

16. Under the Aurora

17. Hanginaround

18. Holiday in Spain

I'd never heard Colorblind live before (to be fair, not a song I'd been clamoring to hear live, anyway) but it was another I recognized from the into riff. They did a cool effect where they did a rectangle cone of light over Adam, with brighter chaser lights going around the perimeter. Also did white spots over the rest of the band.

Before he went into Cover Up the Sun, he spoke of how some songs are fables, but rooted in reality and featuring real people. He said the song features Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez, and his grandson Clifton Collins, Jr.

Before he went into With Love, From A to Z he told the story of how his dad had to go into the military during the Vietnam war. They'd been in Boston, and ended up moving to Texas, and traveled in their Oldsmobile Cutlass station wagon. After he mentioned the station wagon, the crowd cheered, and Adam said that the mention of the car always gets a cheer!!! Adam said he had a stack of books, and read them and watched the scenery of the Appalachian Mountains and the open plains. And how now he travels the country and sees a lot of it. I always had thought that the storytelling of Cover Up the Sun sounded like a tale of touring the country in a tour bus. The line near the end, “Let that diesel fly”, as well as the traveling descriptions from the first verse always made me think that.

They left the stage after Rain King, and I had a feeling they'd be back for an encore. Sure enough, they did!!! I was thinking that the perfect song to end the show with would have been Bobby and the Rat Kings, but I guess they didn't want to play all night!!! Upon reflection later, I noticed that they didn't play any of the 4 songs from the original Butter Miracle Suite One, all of which I've become a fan of. They did play five of the songs off the most recently released Butter Miracle: The Complete Sweets, which I guess makes sense, since Suite One was a few years ago. They did play Boxcars, which has the mention of the matte black cat with a Rat Kings tat that this post title is from (and made me take a look at Kangol hats, to see if any of them appealed to me!!!). After the show, I was looking to see if anyone had posted clips from the show (there are a few), I came across the cinematic official video for Suite One, and it's pretty good!!! Also, it features the aforementioned Clifton Collins Jr.!!! Also where I got the image at the top of the post of the Rat Kings CD.

Oh yeah, I didn't have any trouble identifying the picture of the girl on the Counting Crows drum head, it's the Butter Face girl from the Butter Miracle cover artwork!!!

As we headed out, we swung by the merch booth, to see if there was anything that appealed. As we had headed out of the venue, I saw one guy with a shirt from the hook line from Spaceman in Tulsa, “I'm a Motherfucken' Rock and Roll Star”, that I thought was pretty amusing but probably something I wouldn't wear much. The Gaslight Anthem had one with the lyric from Positive Charge, “It's Good to be Alive” (which, IT IS!!!, and a great sentiment, I thought) with band images underneath that I picked up.

The younger liked the Butter Miracle: The Complete Sweets tour shirt, with the dates in a circular pattern on the back. On the front of his, it has Counting Crows, and the sleeve of mine has The Gaslight Anthem. A couple more overpriced shirts to add to the collection!!!