Uuugh. So I woke Wednesday morning feeling extremely hungover. Actually, I felt loopy and fine (and I surprisingly looked good) at first but that's because I was still drunk. I had only gotten 4 hours of sleep after all.
My hungover state made for very slow movements the entire day (and a few EPIC brain farts, such as missing my invite to watch Faith No More SOUNDCHECK because I read a text wrong...I'll never live that one down - no really, don't ever bring it up).
On the plus side, I joined my friend T who was staying with her family at the gorgeous, infamous Chateau Marmont. I'd never been before and felt very much like a "lady" who lunches as we sipped mimosa's in the restaurant courtyard, ate their awesome fries and kept a sly look out for celebs and wheelers and dealers (saw Chris Cooper coming in, that was cool. Not as cool as drunk Keifer Sutherland I saw at the Roosevelt a few days before).
After that, I went back to my hotel and got ready for what was sure to be another long night. And by long, I mean awesome. How can it not be awesome? THIS WAS FAITH NO MORE'S LAST SHOW EVER!
I skipped out on any pre-beers with friends because I was still a bit shaky on my feet and didn't want the night to go in THAT direction again and went straight to the venue in time to see the opening band, Mariachi Los Toros. Yes, a mariachi band! And they were fantastic.
Next up was the band Red Kross who were also pretty cool. Lining up to get my pass earlier it sounded like a lot of people were on the guest list on behalf on that band - seemed like it was going to be quite a party afterward!
Strangely enough, this night of the show wasn't sold out and LiveNation was selling tickets for a (fairly insulting) price of $20 and if you paid extra you could get VIP access to the balcony. It explained why there were a lot of LA scenesters and porn stars in the VIP section - cheap tickets to some band they may have heard of once? Why not? But, you know, the strategy worked, the Palladium was freaking packed and the energy was incredible.
Anyway, show time! My friend and I ran downstairs and scuttled into the photo pit for possibly our last time ever shooting this *tear*
The band opened up with something new - Pills for Breakfast, an aggressively instrumental track off their first album. Sounded amazing and really made the pit experience special in my mind.
After the pit, we went back up to VIP to watch. First I tried beside the stage but it was too packed, and at the back of the crowd I couldn't see anything (damn my short legs) and even though the balcony was pretty packed too, I at least could see what was going on.
Hightlights:
* Rocking out to Cuckoo for Caca. There were two bimbos next to me, you know, total 'WOOO Girls', blonde, collagen lips, fake boobs, teeny tops, who obviously did not know the music at all and were trying to SEXY DANCE to Cuckoo for Caca. It was such a fail that I actually had to move my bangs across my eyes so I did not see them out of my peripheral vision.
This is Cuckoo for Caca...
You can imagine the hilarity in dirty dancing to this. And then I turned to the guy next to me who was clutching a poster like it was going to fly away and said, "Always the best song live, one of my favourites"
The guy looked at me as if I had two heads and then left the venue a few songs later. Yes, some people did not belong there and didn't get it.
Which was a shame because then he missed one of the best songs of the night, a cover of "Let's Just Kiss and Say Goodbye".
My goodness, people. If you were there, you know what this song means to us all. I mean, look at the lyrics:
It was their last show and, wow, it broke my heart. Patton, the whole band, performed it so well, there wasn't a dry eye in the house. It's taken me three weeks to listen to it WITHOUT crying. And I failed. I just watched it again and cried.
Le sigh. Here it is:
After that emotional experience, my friend and I went down to the floor for the encores to get more "into it." My view was shoddy but the sound was a 100X better at the back and I really felt the REAL fans were here. It was a great choice and allowed us to experience the OUTSTANDING "This Town's Not Big Enough for the Both Of Us" - a song originally performed with the band SPARKS and this time, SPARKS came on stage for it.
It was SO DAMN GOOD! Check out this amazing video. One of my fav songs, so much fun and so well done (oh and old guitarist Dean Menta was on stage for this one too which made it extra special.... two keyboardists, two guitarists, two singers - DOUBLE THE FUN:
MIND BLOWING! Watching the above ^ makes me stupidly happy.
That was followed by Digging the Grave (with Menta, still, who has such an energetic stage personality he's just as magnetic to watch as Patton is), We Care a Lot and, finally Pristina. The last song on their last album, it's never been a favourite of mine but I'll admit it's a totally different animal live.
Of course, Patton just had to stage dive to this song (which really isn't a stage diving song) and attempted to sing the rest while crowd surfing on top of a fairly grabby crowd. They wouldn't let him go - to the point where he had to punch a few people in the head because they were grabbing his junk. Poor Patton - or, well, he DOES know what he's getting into.
Eventually he was returned to the stage and the concert just ended like that. I couldn't believe that was it... no one could. I guess in that respect it was kind of fitting.
BY THE WAY - my official concert review is here if you want a more in-depth look at the last two shows, plus setlist, more photos, etc. But come back when you're done reading!
While I took a few minutes to let that information sink in (this was my 6th time seeing them this year and ... it was over? FOREVER?), we went to the backstage area. My friend was meeting another friend so he told me to just stay put downstairs (party was upstairs in the VIP section).
He plunked me among three people. Jerry Cantrell (again), Dave Lombardo (um, wtf) and Danny Carey. Now, I'm not a big Tool fan (don't judge) so I didn't realize who Carey was but I do know he's one of the best drummers out there. Well, him and Dave Lombardo. What pleasant company to keep!
Again, a total fish-out-of-water experience for me. But I just started talking to Jerry again cuz well, why not, I was standing next to him and he looked bored. We talked about the show compared to the one from last night, how the crowd was better, all of that. This was his first (well 2nd counting the night before) time seeing FNM and he told a story how Alice in Chains were this close to seeing them in Portugal at a festival but they had to catch a ferry.
Then Dave Lombardo got involved in the conversation. I just let them talk, watching them while in the back of my head I was going "OMFG SLAYER AND ALICE IN CHAINS ARE JUST TALKING ABOUT FAITH NO MORE IN FRONT OF ME." And when the convo died, I couldn't NOT say anything so I said to Dave, "Hey I just wanted to know that I think you are awesome."
To which Jerry said, "he's a pretty good drummer too." Lols.
And whaddya know, he turned out to be the nicest man on the face of the planet. We talked about when Fantomas was in Vancouver, talked about which songs he liked playing live (Spider Baby, Rosemary's Baby and anything off of Director's Cut really which made me very happy) and what the new album was going to sound like (electronic overdubbing of his own drums by Patton, other stuff, themes, etc).
At one point though my friend came back, blew my cover "Don't talk to her Dave, she's a journalist!" but actually Dave became even more interested in what I "did", which was really cool. Even if he didn't care, he acted like he did with utmost sincerity.
Highlight: Dave pulled out his iPhone and said, "Here's a headline for you: Slayer gets nominated for a Grammy" - he showed me the email on his phone that he had just gotten from management informing the band (Slayer) that they got a nom for best song in the metal category.
Congratulations were all around from Jerry, Carey and others. Now I realize that AIC was nominated too but Jerry didn't mention that - guess he didn't want to steal Dave's thunder.
Anyway, I just think that was really cool. And soon it was time to go upstairs for the party.
It was PACKED. Various musicians (King Buzzo, Dean Menta, etc) wandering around with mere mortals such as myself.
And the band Flattbush was there, who are just the best. I interviewed them a few days earlier and honestly, just the best bunch of dudes ever. I was hoping I'd see them backstage so it was great to see them again. The interview might turn out to be a project of sorts that's really...cool.
Flattbush, Bill (they are on his label Koolarrow) and I
Then I saw my friend Andrew who snuck into the party, proudly toting his setlist. He had gotten photos with the band over the last few days, but not Patton. So I made a $5 bet that I could get his picture taken with him.
Oh boy. I took Andrew over there to see him, just as Dave Lombardo was approaching. So there was a nice ten minutes there were Dave and Mike were just talking about stuff (no, not about Fantomas though I got the impression they hadn't talked in a while), but anyway so we just waited for that. And there were other fans there wanting to talk to Mike too. I could see Andrew was pretty uneasy about it and I started thinking, you know, I'm getting that vibe from Patton, perhaps this isn't the best time.
But I had $5 riding on this thing.
Anyway, when there was a free second I tapped Mike and said "Hey, can I introduce you to my friend Andrew" to which Mike came him the once over and said, "This ugly fucker?"
OH MY GOODNESS. Andrew's face just fell. I laughed cuz it was pretty funny (Andrew is obviously not an ugly fucker) but you know, they have a saying about meeting your heroes...
Anyway, the rest of the conversation between Patton and Andrew went... um, well, it was enough that Andrew made a two-second video about it here. It's pretty much proceeded to happen (WATCH IT - FOR REALZ - HILARIOUS):
But hey we got the picture! What a charmer!
And I got my five bucks!
Ahhh, good times. Anyway, we hung around with Mike for a bit more (who wasn't actually in that bad of a mood, it just depended which fan boys were bugging him... because there was one he was like, "I hate him" - don't know who it was, but obviously getting your picture taken one million times in one night does not make for a happy Patton lols.
Then we decided to leave, found a bunch of people waiting outside (unlike the night before where there was NO ONE), including my friends who were braving the cold:
Then we went back to the W and proceeded to laugh about the night, talk and watch The Expendables.
Yup. That was how I ended the night of watching my favourite band for the last time ever. I watched the WORST MOVIE IN THE WORLD until 4AM. It was MST3K material but you know, I laughed the entire time so it wasn't quite a write-off.
And whenever I think of that movie, I'll think of Faith No More in Hollywood. Ain't that special? :P
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