Monday, February 27, 2006

B.R.M.C. @ Metro in Chicago 2-8-06

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Restless Sinner
Ain’t No Easy Way
Shuffle Your Feet
Howl
Love Burns
Awake
In Like The Rose
Six Barrel Shotgun
Punk Song
Stop
Weight Of The World
Promise
Sympathetic Noose
Gospel
High / Low
Red Eyes And Tears
Spread Your Love

Mercy
The Line
Rifles
Heart + Soul

The Morning After Girls were good spacey droney psychedelic rock. Totally cool and they sounded a but like the Dandy Warhols and even a bit like Spiritualized. They played rocking and spaced out songs equally well.

Elefant were a bit of a one trick pony. All their songs sounded kind of the same. Diego, the singer, was funny because he seemed cocky scoping out the audience for cute girls. He was entertaining when he fell off the stage and made some guy sing. Then, near the end of their set, he held a girl in the front row’s hand for awhile. As attractive as he is, the way he went about strutting and kneeling on stage was quite silly. Still, it was entertaining!

B.R.M.C. were announced as a sold out show being broadcasted on a local radio station. The announcement made about the Grammys awarding the worst music was too true. The show began with just Peter playing “Restless Sinner” and later joined by Spike, Robert, and Nick. Peter had his hair slicked back, but still curly. The rest of the set flowed well with “Shuffle Your Feet” getting the audience to clap and sing along. “Ain’t No Easy Way” showed off Peter and Robert’s ever improving slide guitar playing and moved the crowd even more.

“Howl” slowed things down a bit with Robert’s emotive vocals and Peter’s falsetto chorus. “Love Burns” picked up the momentum again with more people recognizing the song. Highlights for me included “Awake,” “In Like The Rose,” and “Six Barrel Shotgun,” which were all amazing to see live. “Whatever Happened to My Rock n’ Roll?” was great as usual with Robert and Peter switching microphones and finishing on the opposite of their usual sides.

In between one song, Peter introduced his guitar tech Dave, who came out in a bear costume during the next song! This really made Robert smile more than Peter, who barely reacted to it. Next, Robert sang a block of songs “Stop,” “Weight of the World,” “Promise,” “Sympathetic Noose,” “Gospel Song,” and “High/Low,” which made me excited since I had never seen it done live before. I love the distortion that Peter does with his guitar and Robert’s vocals on that song.

“Red Eyes and Tears” is always a treat to hear and “Spread Your Love” was great despite a false start. For the encore, Robert came out alone and announced that Peter wasn’t feeling well and proceeded to play “Mercy” on Peter’s acoustic guitar. It was a beautiful version of the song. They ended the show with “The Line” which Robert had to restart after forgetting some lyrics, “Rifles” which is always a crowd pleaser, and “Heart and Soul” which was a cool as I thought it would be to see and ended in plenty of noise and distortion.

After the show, Elefant had a pizza and beer after party/DJ set. I met Michael Been who recognized me from the Tour Archive! He was nice and told me about how he grew up in Chicago. After that, I spoke briefly with Robert not getting my camera into the show despite it being somewhat crappy. Outside the venue, Robert got into a snowball fight with the Morning After Girls. That was pretty funny!