Showdate: July 17th, 2010
I remember visiting the Champs de Brionne winery that pre-dated the Gorge Amphitheater. I was in fifth grade or so. Watching the bulldozer work, the winery employees said it was going to be a concert venue. Sounded asinine to me then. Who would drive to bum fuck nowhere to see a concert? Good thing visionaries don’t listen to fifth graders.
Enough reverie. Let’s light this fucker.
85 degrees. Sunny. Perfect Eastern Washington weather for a show. Alot of the ‘old gorge’ is gone. Not as dirty. Paved walks. More concessions (Not better! Whomever contracted the beer options here should be forced to drink this horse piss for a month straight. Motherfuckers). A reserved GA area. VIP box seats. Blah blah. The views, atmosphere, and vibe are so spectacular. Unique. Any live music fan owes it to themselves to hit this place at least once.
One last word about Live Nation who owns and operates this venue. $9 for a 24oz can of Pabst Blue Ribbon. $12 for 24oz Corona. $40 for a Tshirt. You should be fucking imprisoned for date rape. Listening to the Live Nation investor presentation where Live Nations talks about “touching the fan” makes me want to hurl. I feel the LN touch for sure. Like being sodomized with a mop handle.
Kings of Leon! Jacked up for this show. Openers were The Features and Built To Spill. Ignored and boring, respectively. We are in the 8th row on your left. Banging seats. Kings of Leon hit the stage at 9:30pm. Jared (bass) is your right, Caleb (vox/guitar) center, and Matthew (guitar) your left. There is a fifth musician doing loops, vocals, and guitar work to Nathan’s (drums/percuss) right.
Sun is just setting, crazy pretty out, and KOL launches into their first song “Crawl”. With the fuzzy bass and guitar crystal clear. Sound is awesome. Pristine. Second time I’ve seen the Kings live, and Caleb’s voice always trips me out. Love everything about it. Total treat for me to hear it live. All hell is truly on it’s way…and then the guitar solo rips over the top. Heaven. Going to be a great show. You know? You’ve been there. Everything is right. Total rush knowing 2 hours of fun is coming where you can forget everything else.
Alright. Enough ramble. Setlist.
Crawl
Taper Jean Girl
My Party
Be Somebody
Immortals (New Song)
Molly’s Chambers
Fans
Milk
Closer
Radioactive
Four Kicks
The Bucket
Southbound (New Song)
Where Is My Mind? (Pixies Cover)
Sex Is On Fire
Notion
On Call
Trani
——–>Encore
Knocked Up
Use Somebody
Black Thumbnail
There is always a song in a live set that surprises me. With a good band at least. As much as I love the songs “Taper Jean Girl”, “Molly’s Chambers”, and “Four Kicks”. Tonight the fire for me was “My Party”. I’ve read alot of angst from long time KOL fans about the last two albums. The usual change/sell out argument. I get it. And to a certain extent, I’m in that camp. But. Live is always going to be my thing. And the way “My Party” was thrown down gives me no worries on new songs. Even with vocal effects and the like.
“My Party”. Totally distorted bass loop in the beginning. Volume is jacked on it and it is just pounding. Pounding. The type where it feels like the air has mass as it hits you. Caleb on the vocal effect mic and Nathan just laying down the beat. Caleb’s leaning into the mic spitting fire “You talkin’ ’bout my baby? I could flip you upside down and I could mop this place.”….Jared’s bass flying in after the chorus 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8, then going into the breakdown. Mix is perfect. Bass, drums, guitar, vocal all distinct and clear. Ohhhhhhhhhhh, she saw my party. Guitar flying in for the second time, shitloads of herb in the air. People dancing. Ooooooooh. Only thing missing is the old school dirt cloud of the Gorge.
My second favorite moment of the night was a cover of the Pixies’ “Where Is My Mind?” from the Surfer Rosa album. Just perfect. Everything about it. I’m not going to dork out about it, but hearing one of my favorite bands and songs ever covered by KOL was the fucking shit. Was so excited when I recognized it my sunglasses flew into the row in front of me. With your feet in the air and your head on the ground.
Lot of fun moments. Great times. Caleb saying how they’ve been looking forward to this show for a long time, the moon huge and low with Caleb telling us to look at it, Caleb asking if “you ever had one of those nights you just want to get drunk? That’s me!”, Jared in what looked to be black leather, Matthew playing guitar with his teeth on “Closer”, the crowd singing the chorus to “Sex Is On Fire” so loud that they didn’t bother with chorus vocals half the time, and being back in my 509 homeland at a place I’m proud to claim as ours. Good times.
Kings Of Leon. I got no complaints. The stage presence is still dead. I’m over it. They don’t have to run around and point at the crowd, put socks on their dicks, or do a bunch of stupid shit. I’m in. The music is more than enough.
