High Five Vol. 8

Sometimes an idea for a High Five pops into your head, that simultaneously makes you itchy to start writing, while also bumming you the fuck out. The idea: My Top 5 Concerts, which could easily have been Top 120. Even with carefully selected criteria, how could I eliminate the two (!) times I saw The Spice Girls with my brother, us bonding over the shared experience of emoting our shittily genetic out-of-tune voices as loud as possible to Spice Up Your Life? And how terrible of me to leave off the memory of my Mom’s face watching us at 12 and 7-years-old as we sang and danced to the chorus of Yellow Submarine at a Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band show. Or what about the time the bassist from Pearl Jam tried to help me find my lost contact lens in the Coliseum before Blind Melon went on? Or the Butthole Surfers & Nirvana show at the PNE? Fuck it; I don’t even want to write this anymore.
Fine, here is My Top 5. This will only be worth it if you tell me yours in the Comments. Seriously.

5. Best Opener/Main Act Combo Show
A Tribe Called Quest & The Beastie Boys
Pacific Coliseum, Vancouver BC
Aug 1, 1998
Stupidly good. Scarily good. The show was so good it overcame not only the urine soaked-popcorn stench that hovers over the Coliseum, but also a heaping slice of awkward: I went with a co-worker whose boyfriend had one crazy eye I could not even handle.

4. The Street Cred Show
Outkast, Xzibit & Ludacris
The Universal Amphitheatre, Los Angeles CA
Mar 21, 2001
All three acts supporting what I consider their best albums (Outkast – ‘Stankonia’ / Xzibit – The Dre-produced ‘Restless’ / Ludacris – ‘Back For The First Time’ ), a crowd hanging off of every syllable, getting to hear B.O.B. & What U See Is What You Get live, Outkast’s husky male track-suited back up dancers giving it like their feet were on fire, all on a warm California evening. As X to the Z would say, “Who says you can’t have your cake and eat it too? Fuck you!”

3. Best Crowd Show
Anami Vice
The Bourbon, Vancouver BC
Dec 6, 2008
I’ll set the scene. I went back to school in September 2008 – a two year program done in one year – while working two jobs. No fun, no friends, no family, no TV, no movies, no new music, minimal Husband-ing. Lots of Photoshop, Illustrator, Quark, homework and assignments bleeding out my ears. The first semester ended early December. So, this night not only did I get to celebrate Anami’s first big gig by being that perfect drunk, but also with a crowd full of familiar faces, surrounded by love and support and great music. I could have tripped and lost a tooth and still would have had the best night ever.

2. Best Intro to a Band Show
Jay Reatard & The Black Keys
The Commodore, Vancouver BC
April 6, 2008
I only caught the last 2/3 of Reatard’s set, but it was love at first riff. This was music I’d forgotten about. The punk that lit my shy suburban ass on fire back when I was 16. All that, and then a set by the ridiculous Black Keys. My girlfriend Sarah surprised me and bought me a Jay Reatard shirt that night, and until my fetal fat got too big I wore the shit out of that garment. I only got to see him live one more time before he passed away earlier this year at the frighteningly tender age of 29.

1. Best All-Around Start-to-Finish Show
The Hives
The Showbox, Seattle WA
July 30, 2004
I worked for a popular music chain for four years in my early twenties. Greatest. Job. Ever. Sure, it paid for shit, it was mall retail (aka where dreams go to die) and one of my co-workers personified the term “cuntbeast,” but I was there for the glory years of music. Before downloading, before music stores carried video games and scented candles to help their bottom line, it was just about, “hey, have you heard THIS SHIT?”

Every co-worker I ever worked beside introduced me to a new band. I knew about THAT SHIT before you did, but wasn’t a dink about it. The perk of the job, aka the reason you tolerated old men leaning in and asking you creepy questions about your lip ring, was the free stuff. Free advance copy cd’s, free concert tickets, free discontinued DVD’s. It was awesome. (Also awesome? This was the job where I met Piggy. My first impression? HATED his sandals.)

In making this list and looking back at my concert-attending life, those four years were the most concentrated. Because if you didn’t go to THAT SHOW, you got to hear your co-workers prattle on about how life-changing it was for the next few weeks, aka certain hell.

So, The Hives were playing in Seattle. A long-ass way from Langley. But, really, I couldn’t miss it. Myself and three co-workers went down to The Showbox, and despite the internal temperature being about as close to Mars’ surface as possible; despite the fact we couldn’t get water because not all of us were 19 and thus not allowed in the refreshment area; and despite the bitch of the drive home afterwards, this was the best show I’ve ever seen. (If you haven’t seen The Hives live, check this Letterman appearance where even the typically unflappable Dave is super stoked on what he’s just seen.) Every song, every move, every stitch of their amazing black and white suits was perfection. Pelle Almqvist, the lead singer, had his splits, howls and mic-spinning choreographed beautifully, and him and the rest of the Swedes didn’t take a breath during the wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am set. I left that show exhilarated, dripping with sweat, and ready to gloat about being there for years to come.