August 17, 2006

  • I saw the Australian punk rock band "The Living End" at the House of Blues in Anaheim California. It was awesome! I've already seen them not too long ago at the Warped Tour in Pomona, but they only had a 30 minute set, while this time around they had over an hour. Before they played, they had two bands open for them, "I hate kate" and "the lashes." The first band; "I hate kate" was actually not bad at all for a local band. I would have bought their album but it was an EP and I'd rather wait for an LP of theirs.... Unless that was just a short LP. Oh well. The second band "the Lashes," I thought was just okay, as I thought they were rather generic.

    I hardly visit this House of Blues in Anaheim, but I actually am acquainted with the bartenders there. They always ask me when the hell I'm going to go to a concert there again, and now that I have, one of them offered me booze. I got myself a Samuel Adams, and when I was done with that, he gave me another without me even asking. I ended up drinking more alcoholic beverages; including a Long Island Ice Tea, and even ordered a Catfish nugget plate. For all that, he only charged me $5!!! I gave him $10 with the other half being his tip. Maybe I should have just gone and gave him a bigger tip, but oh well. For the longest time that I can remember, I always had a rather great tolerance to alcohol. Now, maybe not so much. I wasn't completely drunk or anything, but I sure was super buzzed to the point that I think I was drunk and a little bit tipsy. At least I was no where near in danger of passing out or anything embarassing like that.

    The Living End started their set at about 10:10PM and ending at roughly 11:20PM. It was a great setlist encompassing several tracks from all their albums, but with a huge emphasis on their self-titled first record and the latest album; "State of Emergency." They did some improvisation with several of their songs by extending the solo or adding more variations to some portions, and they were all good. Guitarist and lead singer Chris Cheney even played a country music solo; with a cowboy hat and all, and then morphed it into a punk sound. Bass player Scott Owen is once again a monster with his huge bass, twirling it around his body and even playing it while standing or sitting on it. This band always delivers a great live show, and they pretty much played a majority of the key songs I wanted to hear live.

    Usually when I'm in a concert, I am totally into the music. You'll see me bouncing around, head banging, fist shaking, fist pumping, air guitar-ing, not to mention singing loudly along... This concert was no different, although I was a bit disappointed with the crowd around my area of the floor. The crowd around me seemed to be enjoying the show, but they were just standing there.... just listening!!! C'mon people, get into the music or something, that's what the bands want to see. A visible action indicating that the audience likes their music. If you want to just stand around and listen to a concert, go to a friggin philharmonic orchestra or something! I got to say, the majority of the people sure stayed a few steps away from me, because they must have been thinking I was going to start a mosh pit or something to that nature.

    In case you guys wanted to see some pics. Sorry, but the House of Blues does not allow video/audio recording. I didn't really feel like taking the risk of getting kicked out, so I didn't attempt to do any recording. Besides, my cellphone camera doesn't do a great job with pictures in a low lighting environment anyway.

    The Living End, they rock!