galaxy42

I took The Roommate to see Les Claypool at the Roseland last night. Oringially, another friend of mine was going to go with me, but a last minute engagement with his death bed put the kibosh on that. He got a cold. That left me with an extra ticket and no one to see the show with. I figure I owe Roomie the price of admission for the nickle and dime shit that he does around here, so...free show for him, concert buddy for me. Win-win.

He had no idea who Les Claypool was, aside from being the guy on the myriad of Primus/Claypool t-shirts I wear all the time.

We could have both done without the opening act. He wasn't a fan of the music, which I didn't mind, actually. My problem was with the sound man. It was a screeching mess. This didn't leave Roomie with much hope for the headliner. I did my best to reassure him.

Once Claypool and the boys (Skerik on sax, Mike Dillon on vibraphone/percussion, and Paulo Baldi on drums) took the stage, he was feeling much better about the night. Especially after Claypool took a moment to address the crowd and warn them that there was a rather young lady up near the stage and (paraphrasing), "She wants to enjoy the show, you want to enjoy the show... any moshing that may occur should be done back there. We don't want some drunkin, sweaty, bastard to ruin this girl's fun." I caught a glimpse of the girl near the end of the show. She couldn't have been more than 14 years old, and her father (trooper that he was) looked as though he had seen a ghost.

Anyway... here's a quick breakdown of the set list (that I stayed for, Roomie is the sort that likes to cut out early... were it up to me, I'd have stayed until the bitter end):

I added a nice, purple, Claypool t-shirt to my growing inventory of concert T's. I feel as though he might owe me a weekend stay at his home for all the swag I've purchased from him.

The sound was amazing. Loud as fuck, but crystal clear. The most amazing thing, though, is that I had absolutely no ringing in my ears when we left. None. That might be the first time I've seen him (or anyone, for that matter) and not suffered some sort of damage to my auditory sense.

It was a good night.