Now this, was an amazing concert. It was a combination of things. First off, it was standing room, so that always means you get much closer to the band then you would with any sort of seating arrangement. This closeness adds immeasurably to the concert experience. Of course, to keep our spots, we had to get there early, stand in line, then stand, or sit on the ground, in our places. And, though I had done this before, I forgot to bring blankets, or enough water, or proper hats or whatever, and it was hot, and dusty and sweaty, and people were stinky already, and doing that annoying thing where they creep up in tiny spaces and then act like they were there and I am the one in their space. Bastards!
          Another reason of course, was the line up. Not only am I a HUGE fan of Damien Rice, and a moderately big fan of Fiona Apple, but the first guy, who I had never heard of and didn’t really want to pay to see, played like three short songs, and then was done! Ten minutes, in and out, painless, someone finally understanding that we generally don't care about those opening guys, so lets get on to the good stuff.
         And the good ol' stuff was good.  Damein Rice was not as good as I was hoping, for three reasons. 

First off, it turns out he has a whole bunch of unreleased stuff, that is a lot more rocking and rolling, and that he played a lot of, instead of you know, just playing the album everybody had heard and wanted to hear songs from. 

Secondly, there were these incredibly annoying girls right behind me who kept on shouting "DAMIEN, PLAY LONE LILLY!!!!" And by shouting, I mean searing their throats, balls to the wall, no blocking, right in my ear screaming and wailing. God I hate them. Those horrible, horrible girls were actually hurting my ear drums, as well as screaming over songs. Not only that, but they kept on pushing against me, one time even they pushed off of my shoulders so they could get on each others shoulders, shoving me down, and ruining only the most popular song, "The Blowers Daughter" for me, and the video I was taking (twice actually, because seconds later they got told to stand down by security). Really, girls like that, like that screaming gay guy at Dresden Dolls, and like those tall guys at Modest Mouse can really just ruin the whole experience. Bah! 

The third reason that he wasn't as good as I thought they would be, is that they sounded very much like any band does when live, and Fiona Apple doesn't. That’s right, the fact that Damien (he is cool with me calling him by his first name), was followed by the insanity of Fiona Apple's show, actually harmed him, I would be much better off seeing him by hisself.

           Having seen way, way too many concerts recently, I can tell you that it is a bit up in the air as to who is going to be good in concert.  Some people who you would expect to be awesome (Aerosmith, Kid Rock, Tenacious D, Radiohead) would not be so great and some bands who you would not expect that much from (Regina Spektor, Midnight Creeps, and now Fiona Apple) would be awe inspiring.

         Fiona Apple, as you can tell from any of her songs, puts a lot of emotion (those emotions mainly being pain, anger, and sadness) into her songs, as does, let’s say Alanis Morrisette or Jewel. The difference being, they all wrote their first albums like 10-15 years ago, and really shouldn’t still be that mad, the years should have provided some healing. Not Fiona Apple. She is a crazy lady, a mad woman; she needs some Ritalin and has tourettes. Really, I have never seen anything like her, she is so full of energy she is almost scary. She would be singing her song, and then there would be a break in the music and she would start dancing all crazy all over stage or she would pull the mike away from her mouth and keep screaming and swearing at the guy who she wrote the song about 10 years ago. She was awesome and tremendous and the audience was spazzing out alongside her. Never seen anything like her.

Ok, that went on a bit long, too many videos and pics, so pics this entry, vids next one.
( Close ups and everything! )