Concert Round Up

I realize that comparing Saturday's Justin Timberlake concert with the Alice in Chains and Velvet Revolver show on Friday is a bit like comparing Jack Daniels to Zima, but what the hell. I don't see two concerts in one weekend, so it's only natural for me to draw my own comparisons. And blog about them!

Friday night rocked, obviously. The audience was 95% men. The music was loud. Head-banging was inescapable. By the time Scott Weiland shimmied his hips on stage in a swagger that would make Mick Jagger proud, my feet were sore from standing and my voice was already hoarse, but the music gave me a shot of energy that kept me dancing throughout the rest of the show. Awesome!



My only complaint with the Alice in Chains/Velvet Revolver show was the 4 morons in the row directly in front of me.

My friends are part of the Alice in Chains fan club and were able to snag floor seat tickets, row 20. Since it was a rock concert after all, we (wrongly) assumed that the rows would be irrelevant since floor equals standing, dancing or moshing in all concerts deemed more hardcore than, say, Sting (another concert I quite enjoyed, btw).

Apparently the Vancouver security wanted to keep the crazed metal fans from running amok, so the rows of chairs on the floor were not only firmly in place, but also monitored by security guards planted every 5 rows, one at each end, who checked tickets before allowing you to pass.

So that left me stuck in row 20. Which would have been fine except for the 4 morons in front of me who decided to do their own little mosh pit, completely blocking my view of the stage. When you're short (like me) and you're surrounded by men AND the 3 tallest men in the whole arena are standing directly in front of you, you rely on the tiny gaps between heads and shoulders for your viewing area. If people aren't moving too much, or are at least moving to a consistent beat, you can plant yourself and see through that little 5 square inch space and enjoy the show. When buddy in front of you has to keep grabbing his friend and throwing their arms around each other, and singing into each other's faces and bashing their heads together...there is no gap. There are only flashes of stage obscured by hardcore, fist pounding fans that are so fucking gay for each other I really wish they'd just head for the men's bathroom to suck each other off.



But of course, they're not gay. They're so straight that when Scott Weiland is slithering around stage doing his patent pending hip shimmy, they start making fun of his dancing. That's right. The guys who can't enjoy a single Alice in Chains song without touching each other (and I mean seriously hanging all over each other) are now laughing as they mock the rock star on stage. And again, blocking my view. Grrrr.


Concert Checklist

For future reference, these are the key things to consider when looking at buying tickets at a particular venue:

a) if there is a floor seat option, are the rows going to be enforced?
b) if so, is the stage going to be elevated high enough that you can actually see? With a normal stage height, you'll have a better view from one of the rows on the side that are stadium style graduated height. They're probably cheaper too.
c) are there video screens?

The last one was seriously lacking in both concert venues. I can't remember the last concert I went to that didn't have some kind of close-up screen display and don't think I'd bother going to another big arena concert if the venue didn't offer that. I saw Eric Clapton a few months ago and even though my seat wasn't great, the show was amazing because I could look at him and the stage overall, then up at the screen which had live video showing things like his facial expressions close-up or the fret board. It's those kind of details that even the front row doesn't always have a good view of and really make concerts worth attending. Without the close-up cam, the show could be staged by a cover band for all you know. OK, Clapton would've been pretty tough to get away with, but Justin Timberlake was so far away that I often couldn't tell which one was him and which one was a back up dancer. Not good.


Speaking of not good, let's move on to Justin at the Tacoma Dome.



Everything about this concert was disappointing, and trust me, I didn't have high expectations. For starters, I didn't buy the tickets and don't even remember agreeing to go to the show, but somehow my sister wrangled me into going with her and I, in turn, wrangled one of my girlfriends into going with us. We had to park a million miles away in a sketchy factory area which did not make me feel safe at all and was not appreciated by my sister's feet, which were strapped into sexy high heels.

That was another thing I didn't get about the JT concert - the women were dressed to the nines. I expected the ratio of men to women to be the polar opposite of the Velvet Revolver show the night before (and I was right - 98% females), so were the women dressed up to impress each other? Or are there really that many delusional women who think that Justin Timberlake is going to spot them in the crowd and pull her up onto the stage a la Courtney Cox in the Springsteen video? Regardless, I wore Vans and my feet were happy.


Canada vs. USA

Once we got to the arena, the difference between Canadian privacy laws and US privacy laws was demonstrated in startling, jaw-dropping detail. Some of this may be attributed to the type of show that was being put on too, but nonetheless, here's the breakdown of the security check entering a Canadian rock concert versus a US pop concert:

In Canada, women were asked to open their purses and any cameras or recording devices were confiscated. My cell phone was OK. Next I was passed to a female security guard who patted me down just like at airport security, including feeling around my ankles for any contraband I may have stuffed into my socks.

In the US, I was verbally asked if I had a camera in my purse. I said, "No."

That was it!

No checking the purse, no pat down, nothing. One woman beside me answered that yes, she did have a camera. Next question? "Is it digital?" It wasn't, so she was ushered through. Crazy.


CAUTION: Drunk Women In Heels

Once we got to our seats, not quite nosebleeds but still high, I was again surprised by the abounding freedom. The concrete stairs were very steep and once we got to our bench seating, I thought the low railing in front of us at about shin level didn't seem particularly safe for an arena full of tipsy women in high heels dancing to Sexy Back. I didn't see anyone topple over though. Unfortunately.


Setting the Stage

JT's stage design was quite unique. It was in the middle of the floor with 4 catwalk areas jetting out from the middle to form a cross so he and the dancers could address the crowd on all 4 sides of the arena. The middle part was flanked by high curtain panels that moved throughout the show and had different video images projected on them. This would've satisfied my close-up screen concert requirement if the curtains had been either opaque (so I could clearly see what was being displayed on them rather than just a translucent idea of an image) or stationary. Since you either got a view of the curtain or a view of the center stage, I can see why they had to keep moving those suckers.


Talent, Schmalent

My biggest beef with the JT show was the show itself. I'm not a Justin Timberlake fan, so maybe I'm not really qualified to give my opinion here, but I do tap my foot if I hear one of his songs on the radio and even though I've never bought one of his CDs, I do think he's talented. He's a great dancer, a great singer and after seeing him on Saturday Night Live, I'm thoroughly impressed by his comedy chops too. All in all, I was expecting a great show even if I didn't know every song.

The problem? That kind of complicated, busy music just doesn't translate to a live show. It's dance music, but you can't really dance because you're stuck in a tiny 1 and a half foot aisle. There was a huge, I don't know how many piece band, but it's not the kind of live show where you'd just sit and listen, appreciating the talented musicians, like a jazz performance. It's also not the kind of music you can just bob your head and sing along to, since he does so much falsetto and runs.

So you're left watching people run around a stage so far below you that you can't really see what's going on, listening to music that might be fun to dance to if you had the room, then slow ballads that you have to sit down for, but can't really sing along to and you're left feeling like you should've just rented the DVD. Dancing in my living room? Fast forwarding the slow songs? Huge improvement.



Justin's Saving Grace

The best part of the JT concert was the brief encore where he played about half of the Saturday Night Live retro boy band parody, Dick in a Box. I whistled and catcalled as loud as I could, but alas, he didn't finish the song and went on to some sappy ballad on the piano. He gets a point for playing the song at all for that audience. And fortunately, we'll always have YouTube.