| Garbage and No Doubt Long Beach Arena, Long Beach CA 11/22/02 Those of you familiar with this show for some reason may realize that the Distillers also played this show, But since I arrived late, they will not be discussed. The ticket price was $42.50, a nearly exorbitant sum for this venue, but rest assured, neither I nor my roomate, Spencer, paid anywhere near that for ours; we managed just $20 apiece. Now this was a bargain, especially since we are both fairly big fans of Garbage and tolerant of No Doubt. Following a $60 cab ride, with a stop off at In-n-Out Burger, we arrived in the Long Beach municipality, searching for the Arena, which was not clearly marked, but we got there. After being frisked by security (delightful young woman who demanded my phone number) and being forced to abandon my other companion, a barely opened bottle of Sierra Mist, Spencer and I entered the foyer of the arena into a midst of teenage girls and their mothers and slightly older couples. Quoth me: "Dude, I feel like a pedophile already." Luckily, this was not to be the case. Our tardy arrival found us halfway through Garbage's set, Just at the beginning of "Cherry Lips". From that song onward, Shirley Manson et. al played crowd favorites such as "When I Grow Up" with such intensity that one could feel the bass drum in the pit of their stomach. Manson herself was positively intoxicating, if not chemically inebriated as well. Between songs or in convenient interludes, she was engaging to her enthusiastic crowd, who certainly had trouble deciphering her thick, slurred accent. As a result, they simply responded with equally incomprehensible yells, and jumping. Lots of jumping. The music, as I had intimated earlier, was ostensibly led by the beats set down by the magnificent drummer whose name I won't even pretend to know. His thrashing of the skins was both pleasantly deafening and superbly performed. Even I could hardly hear Manson's invigorating lyrics over the thunderous amplifiers, but I got the gist. At the end of the set, Spencer and I made our way to our actual seats, conveniently next to two moderately good-looking chicks who also went to 'SC that will come into play later. Intermission was spent primarily scoping out chicks, all the while careful not to catch the eye of their overprotective mothers, or worse, boyfriends, and occasionally engaging in conversation with the two next to us. That was primarily Spencer's field, as he was directly next to them and I was one removed. After about thirty minutes, the "headliners" rose from beneath the stage, a la Phantom of the Opera, to indomitable applause and earsplitting, shrill screams of approval from the teenage female constituency. Gwen Stefani's rhythmic hip-shaking and bellydancing and various other demonstrations of flexibility forced me to recall and reissue my affirmation that I'd sell a testicle in order to nail her. Not my own, of course, but she's still sexy as hell. Musically, the guitarist seemed far to able for the niche afforded him by the limitations of a ska-pop band, and he was well aware of the fact. His rare and brief solos were not nearly an adequate showcase of his talent, but were memorable nonetheless. Stefani herself has absolutely no talent for genuine singing, as showcased by her horrid aberrations of voice in the two slow-tempo songs of the evening, whose titles I don't care to recall. While she was able to appear melancholy with the lyrics and her body language (which kept me salivating), her voice cracked far too often for the emotion to be taken as genuine. She can scream with the best of them though. By far, the most entertaining member of the sextet (yeah, they count those other two guys) was the quasi-rastafarian backup singer/dancer/trumpeter/keyboardist. Picture "Tiger" from Tekken 3, in all his glory from the denim bell bottoms with the pink shirt and navy vest, to the bizarrely entrancing capoeira dance style. For the most part, the band had a lot of energy (except the aforementioned guitarist) which is always nice. This was especially evident during one of the last songs, "Just A Girl," which, in a shocking divergence from the norm, I agree with pop culture in that it is indeed a good song. So this brings us to the end of the concert, when I learned that during the course of the intermission, Spencer had secured a ride home for us with the two ladies mentioned earlier. On the way to the car, I was given the opportunity, of which I took advantage, to engage in conversation with the girls myself. Our conversation revolved mostly around the concert itself and the individual bands. Charming as I was, when we reached the car, a bright yellow New Beetle Turbo, conversation essentially ceased, and I sensed unease among our chauffers. Forty-five minutes later, we arrived at the hotel where Spencer and I reside. We got out of the car, and I said: "Well, ladies, thank you very much for the ride and the great conversation, stop by anytime," without a hint of sarcasm, though it was fully intended. They responded with "Sure, no problem," and drove off. Quoth Spencer: "They're never comin over." Me: "Nope." Later that evening he asked if we'd ever see them again, and I replied "Not with any intent to do so on their part." We won't be missing much, they were nice and all, but mellow like that Asian chick on "Daria". I suppose a fitting end presents itself here, so stop reading......now. |