Subject: Billboard Is The KEY
Date: 10/22/98 4:11 PM Mountain Standard Time
From: TUBULAR
Wednesday October 14th. long day! It began at 6am going all
over West LA with Metro Transit Busses...Oh well, it was a
good morning anyway. Mid-late afternoon I got myself on yet
another Bus and landed outside The Roxy and walked over to
the Key Club... it was about 5pm and as I showed up I instantly
saw Prairie on the job and I was happily welcomed by the band.
New lighting rig in the place and all the old VaryLite system
is now removed along with most other traces of the once upper
scale and hip to the hip only fiasko club of Billboard....
The Key Club is a neat place that holds just about 300 people
with an upstairs and downstairs seating and dancefloor infront
of a built to be spinning stage, However I don't think it spins
much anymore... The people and crew of the Concert part of
this club are all great folks, InHouse Sound Man and Stage
Manager "Pilgrim" is always a smiley chap and new Lighting guy
du jour is also very nice and courteous.
Happy to see some static lights along with Moving lights of the
sort that I can handle, i.e. Intellabeams, Trackspots,
Colourscans, CyberLights and what not..... I had to work off
the new Rollacue board called AVO Pearl 2000 which is one hell
of a great lighting desk. it can do anything you want and
that's just fabulous, Finally a desk that can handle it all
and do it better than the original controllers ever could....
Anyway, Soundcheck is in full mode and MTV People are there to
shoot the Sound check and as goes with programming and such I
got some scenes going for a little while there and I think it
looked good. About 8pm after dinner, downstairs under the club
is a neat bar for specially invited or the band and crew etc.
but on this day it was a free for all...
MTV (VH-1 Production) filmed a full scale interview with the
band and even did individual spots with each and every one of
them.. Quite good questions too.
With the short notice booking of this gig, advertising alone
wouldn't make any impact for this day's LA crowds, and so an
estimated 100 people saw this show. and I wouldn't be at all
suprised if they were all on the guestlist. ;-) I saw a lot
of recognizable faces, some folks from the past showed up and
that's always nice. Marilyn Wood came down from Oakland to
sell T-Shirts and what not, and old A&M days people came about
too, always a fun time to hang around.
The Show! At 10.30 the lights went down (Hmmm I guess I did
that;-) and the stage was slowly filled with synthetic sounds
from David Medd and Gary Cambra.... on their respective
Keyboards.... Blue Lights and a slow moving green beam swept
across the stage with the sounds of Up From The Deep....
I kept that mood for the entire song and added some reds to
Gary as he sang... Tell Me How You Want It.....Well, and
that's how I lit it!
Fee comes on stage for WDYWFL and does the end listings
flawlessly including a dreamdate in kneepads with Monica
Lewinsky...oh... I mean Paul Williams...;-)
The Crowd was an enthusiastic one which seemed to press up
towards the stage like it was a forum deal or what not...
behind them was some empty space though...
After the Solid Gold Kama Sutra Coffee Pot was disposed of in
favour of the Baby's Arm... it was time for Sushi.... Upbeat
lighting with lots of yellow and blue for the Completion look...
next into She's A Booty just to quickly handle all the Hitsville
stuff and then get into the modern day feel show....We're taken
by a great surprise as they jump into Say Hey and then Eyes from
the B-Side, (I think it's time to do the entire thing again,
because it's such a strong Live thing) which went straight into
Tip Of My Tongue. Great uplifting musical section and my fave of
the day fer sure. Green & Yellow and Reds for that B-Side Feel.
Smooth transitions.... We need a few more Roger sung tunes in
the set ... absolutely!
More CBP Material (which by the way is by far the most featured
album still in any Tubes Concert since 1981) Attack Of The 50ft
Woman (Can't figure out why this song wasn't used at all in the
Darryl Hannah re-make of that movie?) sounds as great as always
and wonderful playing from Prairie...MR.Hate which is seemingly
all about the California Smoking Ban these days, but That's OK...
I for one Love to see an end to all smokers.... Ban it
everywhere :-) Crazy Lighting with that Killer Strobe effect
during the "chase" just kicks ass every time it's in a place
like the Key Club, it's just so perfect :-) Amnesia, ends the
CBP section of dramatic tunes and has Prairie's best performance
of the day, Just love that drumming :-)
Piece By Piece is up next and is a Perfect Live Tune too. During
the Love Bomb Tour of 1985 they only performed that song a
handful of times because the vote of the band was thumbs down
since they didn't technically write the song.... so it was never
done live again until Fee returned to the Scene now in 1991/2.
I am happy it's in the set... Another return to the show and
without all the cheerleaders and babes on stage it still holds
up as an interesting and fun song to play live. SportsFans is
still funny even without the Letter calls in the middle....
A heavily decimated GOA has been stripped down at least for this
night to the one lone appearance of "Say What You Want" It
works well and should have had one more tune in the set, but
I guess not for this night...
TV Is King gives us the only Remote Control and I Was A Punk
feels kinda dated today, but ah well... I'd rather hear
"I'm Just A Mess" any day.... what a wonderful and saddly
overlooked tune that is....
After IWAPBYWAP there's only one tune to follow these days and
that's the Obligatory and only song to have been performed at
Every Tubes show since its inception in 1974. WPOD.... I once
saw them Open their show with this ;-)
Encore Time is Mondo Bondage and Talk, and as such, rounds up
the show fine, but somewhat used up feeling in that actual part...
maybe something else to spark the fusion as the perfect ender
could be considered, or something newly written pray tell? In
whatever way we think or dream, Any Tubes show is always
wonderful to be at and this one was actually a greater show
because The Lighting was just smooth and the band got some good
adrenalin going throughout the entire show and the MTV People's
presence there definitely made it all the more invigorating. and
I just feel sorry for all the people who like music and have
never attended a Tubes Concert, It's definitely something to
behold! And with that little story...I'll just Talk To Ya Later.....
BOLLE_!_?
By the Way, this was my #178 show with the Tubes! :-)
(
geocities.com/jdsundstrom)