Big Rock Weekend

Friday, August 3: Road trip to Covington for a show by Interpol. Even though I think their new album has a few dead dead spots, I thought it was a fine show in an interesting venue. And it has to be said: A pleasantly high number of hot hipster chicks were in attendance. It it also has to be said: Carlos D's new frontier dandy look is not half as striking as his Hitler Youth look, mainly because that little douchebag Brandon Flowers beat him to it.

The venue, the Madison Theater, was pretty cool. It was sort of like Louisville's Palace without seats. My pal Shay and I were parked near the sound board. Some guy standing behind me saw me writing down the song titles as best I could and about seven or eight songs into the show asked me if any selections from Interpol's first album had been played. I replied, "Not yet." To which some oaf in a Killers t-shirt (hmmm) turned around and said, "You don't have to stand here if you don't want." Which made absolutely no sense to me or the guy who asked me the question, so we just gave Mr. Killers a who-asked-you-asshole look and he turned around.

But wait, it gets better. The sound techs had several small fans aimed in their direction. Mr. Killers couldn't help touching them and changing them, and he got thrown out, which was, all things considered, pretty fucking hilarious. But at least he didn't have to hear anything from the first Interpol album.

Set list:
Pioneer to the Falls
C'mere
Narc
Slow Hands
Rest My Chemistry
Mammoth
Public Pervert
Pace is the Trick
The Heinrich Maneuver
Evil
Not Even Jail
PDA
- - - - -
NYC
Obstacle 1
Stella Was a Diver
(thanks to Shay for filling in the gaps)

Sunday, August 5: Road trip to downtown Louisville for Queens of the Stone Age at Coyote's, which I had always asumed was a cowboy/biker bar. And it is, but they've been booking rock shows of late (Modest Mouse are scheduled later this month). I was supposed to interview one of the Queens for an article in LEO, but I couldn't make things line up with my schedule (I work a day job), so in the interest of not blowing a deadline, I backed out of the assignment. Which kind of sucked because it meant that comp tickets were not coming anymore, and the admission was $25, which seems a little steep for QOTSA, but whatever -- we got in to Interpol free, so I guess it all evens out. Once agin, Shay was along for the ride, as was our pal Chris. We met at Chris's house in beautiful Jeffersonville, Indiana and had a few adult beverages before we crossed the river for a night of heavy rock.

Now, I dig QOTSA, but I must admit that two of their last three albums have kind of left me underwhelmed. I was especially disappointed by their somewhat patchy third album, Songs for the Deaf, because it came after their start-to-finish brilliant second effort, Rated R. Happily, their newest effort, Era Vulgaris, grew on me after repeated listens, particluarly "I'm Designer," "Make It Wit Chu," "Turnin' on the Screw" and "3's & 7's."

So anyway, I was pretty psyched to see them play live -- especially material from Rated R. I figured "Feel Good Hit of the Summer" and "Lost Art of Keeping a Secret" were both guaranteed, but I was hoping maybe they'd throw in "Auto Pilot" or "Monsters in the Parasol" as well.

The joke was on me: QOTSA completely ignored Rated R. Assholes. It's like Josh Homme read my mind and said, "Let's fuck with this jackass and skip Rated R tonight, boys."

Whatever. It was still a decent show -- they played a lot of stuff from the new disc -- but still a letdown.

This never wopuld have happened if Nick Oliveri was still in the band.

Set list:
Regular John
Do It Again
First It Giveth
Tangled Up in Plaid
3's & 7's
Avon
Into the Hollow
Misfit Love
Suture Up Your Future
Burn the Witch
Turnin' on the Screw
The Fun Machine Took a Shit and Died
Little Sister
Sick, Sick, Sick
Go with the Flow
- - - - -
No One Knows
Song for the Dead