Ween - The Forum March 7th
Hangin' with GenerFriday night was easily the best gig I've ever seen. After about 10 years of waiting, getting 2 nights of Ween back to back was worth every bit of waiting. I might leave Thursday night for someone like Vincent to cover if he feels like doing so. It was a great gig, but overall a little flat or to me at least it just didn't seem like something clicked. Friday night all the planets aligned and the boognish smiled upon the Forum.
The night started unexpectedly as I was walking down Flinders street I see a guy up ahead with this big fuck off SLR camera taking a photo of Flinders st station. He lowered the camera and turned to walk towards me and sure enough it was Gene Ween. I had a quick conversation with him about how much I enjoyed last nights gig and looking forward to tonight. He mentioned the sound wasn't great on Thursday, bad bass, but that would be fixed up for tonight (sure enough it was). He graciously posed for a photo and came across extremely humble and silently proud that someone recognised him. We shook hands and that was that.
Fast forward two hours and I was back at the forum ready for another brown night. First order of business was swapping my small sized t-shirt that I bought the night before for the medium size. The t-shirt chick was really fucking unhappy with this because I didn't iron it and cover it with rose petals or something for its return. She literally threw the medium t-shirt at me and snatched the small back, fuck you.
Got myself a good spot with my mate Norman and were treated to the opening number Fiesta (the only song for the whole evening that was played at Thursday's gig). This night was truly a lot browner than Thursday; it had a few more obscure treasures in the set list such as 'Nan', 'Papa Zit', 'Powder Blue' and 'Awesome Sound'. Right from the start the sound was much louder but yet clearer. I found a couple of songs disappointing and lacked a bit of power such as 'Bananas and Blow' and 'Help me scrape the mucus off my brain'. The acoustic set was really cool but once that ended the show just gathered more and more steam.
Deaner's 10 minute guitar solo in 'Woman and Man' was incredible and included a guitar change half way through almost without skipping a beat. He also took over the drums for 'Big Jilm' when it was announced that Claude had gone for a piss. Claude returned half way through the song and realised he had nothing to do so he just walked around the stage looking lost but his time was to come. A 15+ minute drum solo in 'Never squeal on a pusher' was one of the most incredible things I've ever seen. At one point he was drumming with 3 sticks in each hand and then switched over to playing with his (own) bare hands.
A few tracks sounded different to album and previous live versions ... 'Transdermal Celebration' had a different breakdown and 'Happy Coloured Marbles' managed to sound even more menacing than normal. The crowd ate it all up too, 'Gabrielle' had everyone singing with one voice and 'Push th little daisies' got an amazing response.
'Buenas Tardes Amigo' was probably the most awesome live song I've heard. It was absolutely epic and should have closed out the gig proper; it was just a wall of sound. To my knowledge 'Friends' was played for only the second time ever at this gig. It was probably one of the most bazaar songs I've seen. It was almost as if they all had no idea what they were doing. It ended abruptly with Gene getting a quick keyboard lesson and took over the keyboarding for about 10 seconds and awkwardly played a couple of notes to finish the song before walking up to the mic with a big smile and shouting "thankyou!" and then they all walked off stage quickly. 'Awesome Sound' was such a good close to the gig though; it was brown to the max and had the crowd going wild. They finished the gig with a jam where every band member ended up with drum sticks and playing different parts of the drums at the same time. It actually sounded really coherent too and well done, obviously rehearsed but a novel way to finish off.
All in all it was the best gig I've ever seen and they had better come back to Australia ASAP.
Set list for anyone interested:
Fiesta
Nan
Take Me Away
Transdermal Celebration
Bananas And Blow
Learning To Love
Spinal Meningitis
Happy Colored Marbles
My Own Bare Hands
Buckingham Green
Mutilated Lips (acoustic)
Tried And True (acoustic)
Birthday Boy (acoustic)
Help Me Scrape The Mucus Off My Brain (acoustic)
What Deaner Was Talkin' About
Roses Are Free
Push Th' Little Daisies
Woman And Man
Stroker Ace
Dr Rock
Powder Blue
Papa Zit
Gabrielle
Did You See Me?
A Tear For Eddie
Big Jilm
You Fucked Up
I Can't Put My Finger On It
Never Squeal
ENCORE ONE:
Buenas Tardes Amigo
Friends
ENCORE TWO:
Awesome Sound
Best. Gig. Ever.
And so was the crowd. Angry and fucken rude.
2 Encores eh. Only the one the first night. I wasn't overly impressed with Thursday. I'm glad Friday rocked.
It's interesting that the set lists were different.
Yeah I heard a lot of people complain about the crowd on Thursday night, I didn't come across any problems either night. Except this one bitch who annoyed us with the "how long have they been playing for?" question right as the awesome guitar solo from Buckingham Green was starting.
I was knocked over a couple of times by people pushing past. I'm not small and I was surprised at the aggressive and rude attitude shown. I called someone a fucking cunt because he pushed me forward with his shoulder to get past but he didn't hear me over the bass.
I was going to leave because I was so pissed off. One cock next to me said "everyone is going to go off when they realise what song this is". This was, mind you, about half way through Voodoo Lady. So you can see the mentality of the crowd. Did you see the fights out the front afterwards?
At least the crowd got their shit together during the encore.
I thought Dean's guitar fucken rocked through the whole show though.
I didn't see any of that, I was out the front for quite awhile afterwards too and saw nothing.
Far out Monarch, you got to meet the fucking King. Tell me everything. Obviously he was nice and all, but talk us through it. Gene Ween! Far fucking out!
So. Jealous.
It happend pretty quickly, or at least seemed to. I was having drinks with a few friends then left to head to Flinders Stations and had the ipod in, listening to 'Beacon Light' and suddenly the guy singing in my ears is standing ahead of me about 50 metres. It was the block past the immigration building heading towards the station. He'd just finished taking a photo of the station, or maybe it was Eureka Tower with this huge SLR camera (he has his own website for photography). So I just thought I'd approach him with a real casual "Hey Gener!".
He was really laid back and didn't freak out or anything that someone approached him, I told him I was a huge fan and saw the previous nights show and that they rocked and was going tonight. He said that the sound let them down on Thursday night with hardly any bass and thinks they started a little slow .. I'd agree with both points. I asked if I could take a quick photo and he said "yeah man of course!". His smile in the pic sums it up quite well, real genuine. I asked him how he was enjoying wandering around Melbourne and he said it had changed heaps since last time and it was like coming back to a brand new city for the first time. So I thanked him for coming back out again on tour and made him promise it wouldn't be another 10 years until the next one and he replied "absolutely not!" so there's a promise from Gener himself that they'll be back soon!
We shook hands and I wished him luck for the gig that night and we walked off in our seperate directions.
I'd probably have asked him more or said something different had I knew I was meeting him like backstage passes or something, but when you almost literally bump into him walking down the street you're a little less than prepared!
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