Many moons ago, I was gainfully employed and did not have a large credit card balance, so I bought a ticket to the Grace Potter show. Then both of these things changed, but I still had the ticket. I love Grace Potter. I arrived late to the Avett Brothers show last fall when she was rocking some hot pants with her tasty Southern rock, and it was will call, so I am definitely following through with this. Then David Cook announces he's coming to town, with a 4 week notice. Though I am no longer employed, it's only 20 bucks, he rarely tours for real people these days, and I can handle going to 2 shows in 2 days, right?
However, I am sort of an ex David Cook fan, despite the name of this Blogger profile. Yes, I was totally obsessed with him in 2008 and 2009. However, at that time in my life I had my own computer after three years and I badly needed a hobby. I slid right into that Idol fandom and became, well, what Idol fandom is known for. I had a lot of fun. My online friends really supported me when I lost my job in 2009 and pretty much had nothing to my name. They even offered to buy tickets for me to take my mind of all the impending disaster of crushing poverty. But (fortunately) that never came to pass and several aspects of the fandom really began to bug me. It was very clique-y and there were competing groups of fans always angling to see how close they could get to Cook and his crew and who had the record for attending the most shows. People who could not afford to go to multiple shows and increase their fan prestige were mocked and insulted for not being good fans and making the wealthy fans feel bad. There was a lot of drama and angst about whether Cook should let his band members take over the singing and songwriting duties for him. It just became a pretty nasty scene.
In the midst of all of this, someone else won Idol the year after Cook did, and he also wrote catchy songs and played the guitar, and was much more of an underdog, and his fandom had a lot less drama and angst. So I switched my loyalties, shall we say, and I've since spent a lot of time online ragging on Cook and some of the angst in his fandom. I also felt left out of that fandom because of my political differences where it was expected that *everyone* thought a certain way or at least shut up while the ladies with more PC idea got to rant and call us names. Kris Allen fandom is a lot more tolerant of us that don't toe the liberal line. I didn't like Cook's second major label album, and I didn't care for the emo power ballad direction that he was going in. I just wanted a music and a fandom that was less serious, and I tend to gravitate more towards country and pop these days. Cook's post-major-label sound seemed turgid and monotonous to me. In addition to that, I was quite infamously not amused with the fact that he removed himself from the road for 2 years, playing only private or red-carpet gigs, and yet was constantly being featured in puff pieces that misrepresented this.
However, despite of all of this, I have bought anything he has ever recorded. However, since I already knew how fabulous Grace was, I joked that the only way that the Cook show could top hers is if guitarist Andy Skib was willing to wear hot pants.
So, September 25th comes around, and I get to the Grace Potter show late (as usual), after emerging from a parking spot that apparently was SO FOREBODING that even though the club was packed to capacity no one else wanted to park anywhere near there. I didn't get nearly as close as I wanted, but it was still an awesome show. Here is one example of my not-entirely-in-focus photos from the show:
As you can see, no hot pants, but that miniskirt doesn't leave much to the imagination.
As you can see, I'm still trying to work this smartphone thing out.
I'll talk about the actual music in a minute, but first let's discuss how obnoxious this crowd was. There was the tattooed girl who kept playing the "I WHIP MY HAIR BACK AND FORTH" game during the opening act. Then there was the very androgynous person next to me that kept jumping up and down to find his/her friends on the balcony (very, very annoying). When his/her girlfriend showed, he/she performed a mating ritual that consisted on running his hands through her hair, then through his, then trying to dry hump her right there on the floor. (Gross). Then there was the middle-aged guy who keep leering at me while feeling up his much younger wife/girlfriend. And to top it all off, the guy who tried to trip his girlfriend and FAILED, then decided to trip me instead. Tons of fun, I tell you.
Despite all that, the show was awesome. She opened up with a couple of songs I don't know, then went over to the piano to sing "Parachute Heart" and "Goodbye Kiss". The she came back to the mike and sang "Low Road" and "One Short Night" and encouraged us to have sweaty, ill-advised sex with each other. (For one of the many reasons I did not take her up on that offer, see the previous paragraph). Then it was back to the piano for "Stars" and a long, bluesy version of "Treat Me Right". She then did a hoedown song I didn't recognize (I'm from Alabama. I've heard a lot of hoedown songs in my time, believe me) and followed it up with a hot-pants-worthy version of "Medicine" and "Nothing But The Water", which was the longest, sweatiest, most visceral thing I think I think I've seen on stage, and that includes the time I saw Mary Timony on the floor of the Bottletree Stage rocking a guitar solo while lying on the floor in a miniskirt that left even less to the imagination than the one Grace was wearing. In its honor, I submit the only good picture I took that night:
Somewhere in there were "Keepsake" and "Stars", as well as long, pulsating versions of "The Lion The Beast The Beat" and "The Divide".
All in all,a totally searing rock star experience. I don't even mind overspending on the T-shirt.
So the next night, the only way to possibly beat that experience was if Cook's entire band showed up in hot pants, right? Alas, this was not to be.
Cook was playing in the Workplay theater, which holds about 250 people. I am going to say there were about 75 people there. And I'm being generous. I have been to about 15-20 shows at this venue over the past 3 years (I am aware I might have a concert addiction, but the shows there are really cheap, usually not more than ten bucks) and only 2 of those shows had a crowd this small. Both of those bands came back, but due to Cook's somewhat uncertain career plans and the fact that this was his only trip here since 2008, I figure this was probably my only chance to see him.
The opener was a cute little girl named Jules Vera from Auburn. She was lovely, but she seemed a bit intimidated by the fact that so many people (probably about at least half the crowd) admitted to driving in and had all been to Cook's show in Florida the night before.
Cook's show was fairly solid, if unsurprising. He has been playing the exact same setlist every night on this tour, but the fans that follow him to various cities don't seem to mind and the locals will likely never find this out, so perhaps I shouldn't care, either. The small crowd seemed to loosen him up, and he even had the bartender bring him some beer onstage.
I had some beer while I was there. Beer is utterly disgusting. I would have asked for tequila.
I am not going to go step by step through the setlist because if you're reading this, you know what it is and I'm not going to rehash it. "We Believe" and "The Last Goodbye" don't sound any better to me live, but "Come Back To Me" did grow on me. I am not fond of "Wicked Game", and it's not just because Kris Allen did a better version and even then he didn't improve on the original. The song needs a lighter touch than Cook can provide. Now, if he wants to sing Soundgarden or Shinedown that would be perfectly fine, and people like Kris shouldn't sing those songs. But at any rate, I did not enjoy it.
If you're mad at me for saying that, please enjoy these pretty pictures:
I will say that "Declaration", "Light On", 'Paper Heart", and "Heroes" were in pretty fine form. Of the new songs, I don't like "Carry You" or "I'm Gonna Love You" at all and my opinion hasn't changed. "Eyes On You" (aka "the funky song") was incredible, despite all the drunk middle aged women (OK, there was at least one guy, too) trying to turn the floor into a disco (sadly, there was enough room to do that). "Kiss and Tell" and "Laying Me Low" were pretty muscular, and "Where Do We Go" is growing on me.
The highlight of the show was the 15 second sliver of "Silver", one of his pre-Idol songs. He also sang about 30 seconds of "The Time Of My Life", but I would much have rather had a full Analog Heart song. One of the girls asked if he would sing "Don't Say A Word", but he declined, saying he hadn't sung that since he was in a different insurance bracket. I know if it's mostly the hardcore fans who are coming out, they would love it if he re-learned an Analog Heart song to vary the setlist a little.
All in all, it was a fairly entertaining show. I'm glad I went. Cook openly admitted that he doesn't really know what he's doing album-wise, so if you're a fan, I advise you to come out.
I didn't stay for a M & G because I find those things unbelievably awkward. However, I will give credit to Cook for meeting the crowd by the merch table because he certainly doesn't *have* to do that, and his demeanor during the show was a far cry from a lot of the things I've accused him of in the past. Still, I don't expect to see him for a while after this tour. And of course, I would have enjoyed it a lot more if hot pants were involved.
