There is nothing better than watching a diminutive Rivers Cuomo singing in front of an ridiculously enormous W that has flames shooting out from all sides. I really don't think anyone else but Weezer could pull something like that off and have it be so freaking awesome.
This was the second Weezer show I've seen, and it was by far my favorite of the two. The venue was the DTE Energy Music Theater (formally known as Pine Knob) in Clarkston, MI, and it is one of my favorite venues. It's one of those outdoor dealies, with a pavillion and all that good stuff. Fortunately, I had fantastic seats in the pavillion. I didn't envy the people on the lawn, because the place was more crowded than I had ever seen it before.
Dashboard Confessional was the opening act. This was also the second time seeing Dashboard live, and I liked both equally. The first time I saw Dashboard, I was at an extremely small venue, and quite honestly, not too many people knew who he was. It was a great concert, but entirely different from this show. The first one was just him alone on the stage, with his guitars and a stool, which made the show really intimate and there was fantastic unity between Chris Carrabba and the audience. But in this show, he had a whole band backing him up, and he was playing for far more people. A lot of people who liked Dashboard when he first started out, talk crap about him because now he's got a band, and doesn't sit on a stool. Really now. I think this is ridiculous. Though seeing him in the beginning was great, seeing him with a really good band to back up the already good music made it even better in my eyes. The drummer was especially awesome, and having a band, honestly, makes the music much more playable and interesting. He played a lot of songs from Swiss Army Romance, and they also played my personal favorite last, Hands Down.
Weezer came on just as the sun was going down. They played a fantastic set, and Rivers (sans fuzzy beard) was, honestly, as geeky as ever. At one point he actually said to the audience "Jiminy Crickets!". I can only hope that someday, I will reach that level of geekiness.
They played awesomely, as usual, with every song right on and perfect. They played six songs from Pinkerton, which is quite unusual, but really cool. My favorite album is the blue album, and they played several songs from that also; Surf Wax America, The Sweater Song, Buddy Holly; The audience and atmostphere of the concert was great, and everyone was singing along at the top of their lungs.
They played a few from the green album, including the audience favorites Island in the Sun and Hash Pipe, and oddly, not many from Maladroit, but I lucked out and they played my favorite, Burndt Jamb.
To sum it up, my favorite point of the night was when Rivers said to the audience, "I think this is going to be one of those nights." And it really was.