Ramblings of a Rabid Consumer

The best live experiences I had in 2011 (5-1)

2012-01-15T21:02:00.000-08:00

Be sure to check out the rest of my top 30 concert experiences of 2011! See you in 2012!!!

30-21

20-16

15-11

10-6

Without further ado, here are my top 5. Enjoy!

5. System of a Down and Gogol Bordello 5/15 (Shoreline Amphitheater, Mountain View, CA)

Back in 2001 I got sick for like two weeks from some type of flu. It was a few months after 9/11 so all day for two weeks I would do nothing but watch news on 9/11 and listen to the new System of a Down album “Toxicity”. That I would say is the most intimate I was with this band and made me really excited to finally be able to see them live. Also most of them are Lebanese like me, which would always made listening to them interesting when they were guests on Love Line back in the day. Many times they would talk about their latest trips to Lebanon on the radio show.

Me and Anthony scored great seats near the front and raged out to our Arabic brothers!!

4. Lil B 4/21 (Mezzanine, San Francisco, CA)

What can I say? The BasedGod knows how to deliver an amazing show. This concert was just one of the craziest parties I’ve ever been to. Lil B came out with a bottle of grey goose and started pouring it in everyone’s mouth then passed it into the crowd to get everyone going. He played some of my favorites such as Cold War and Like a Martian. Everyone was cooking and having an amazing time! TYBG!

Check out my homies @whitegxrl , @MauricePrice , and I going HAM in the video below!!!!

3. Jeff Mangum 9/10 (Jordan Hall, Boston, MA)

Ever since we heard “In the Aeroplane over the Sea” back in 2004 me and my longtime friend Ramzi Kawar (Guitarist of the San Jose collective Bell Thieves)have said we would go anywhere in the world if Jeff Mangum ever reunited Neutral Milk Hotel for a show. This year, the year of impossible concert accomplishments, allowed us to prove ourselves true. We booked a flight over to Boston along with our friend Kyle to see the master perform.

The Boston trip was a wild ride full of great food, sights, pimps and hoes. We also checked out Harvard, the Museum of Fine Arts, and many of the sites around the Boston area. Amazing trip overall. The highlight however was of course Jeff Mangum’s performance. After awkwardly making his way to his seat at the front of the stage he started right away with my favorite song “Oh Comely”. I swear to you I cried four separate times just in that song alone. At this point no one in the audience dared utter a sound and barely could make a breath. The next track was Two Headed Boy Part 2 and right before the first chorus Jeff Mangum uttered under his breath “I can’t hear you”. That is when every single person in Jordan Hall began to sing along. I have never had such strong Goosebumps in my life and could barely breathe for a while it was so powerful. I have dreamt of seeing these songs live for so many years I never expected it to supersede all of my expectations. After an incredible show and awesome encore the crowd just did not give up clapping. We clapped after the lights went up and they told us to leave for about another 15 minutes before Jeff Mangum ended up coming back on stage. This was the only time in the tour this happened!!! We weren’t allowed to video tape but I got some shots of him coming in for the encore and at the end of it, but the whole song is audible in the video J

2. The Throne 12/14 (HP Pavilion, San Jose, CA)

My first concert ever was the 1998 KMEL Summer Jam when I was 12 years old. The headliners of that show were Jay Z, Jermaine Dupre, and Mary J Blige doing a set together. Unfortunately I was 12 and couldn’t convince the person who took us there to stay for the last act so I missed it. My next opportunity possible to see Jay Z live happened at Coachella 2010 after he came out of retirement for Blueprint 3. Again, I had the misfortune to miss him then as well because Coachella booked Fever Ray at the same time and Fever Ray is even more rare and amazing to see than Jay Z.

Now top this off with the fact that ever since I first saw the “New Workout Plan” video in 2005 I was Kanye West’s biggest fan. Especially ever since the Taylor Swift fiasco I felt I was the only person defending Kanye for over a year. Coachella was what helped deflate some of my crazy Kanye passion over the last few years so I almost wasn’t even expecting big things from this show in comparison.

Once I got there and realized how amazing the VIP experience I got myself was going to be though I knew I was going to have one of the best concert experiences of my life. To start off, Jay Z came right next to my section to walk onto the platform they had in front of our VIP section to start the show with HAM and Who Gon Stop me, two of my absolute favorite Jay Z verses!

I then learned from that experience with Kay being so close to position myself right for when Kanye came to our area. As you can see in the 2^nd video, I am in a prime spot to video tape him when he comes down from the podium, and the most amazing unexpected thing happened. HE SHOOK MY HAND!!!! TWICE!!!!! I fucking couldn’t even believe it and began cooking so hard to the fact that Jay Z was also playing one of my favorite new songs of his “On to the Next One” at the same time. It was one of the most perfect moments of my life.

1. Coachella 4/15-4/17 (Polo Fields, Indio, CA)

I think this speaks for itself:

Friday I saw:

New Pants, 12^th Planet, Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears, Brandt Braer Frick, !!!, Ozomatli, Titus Andronicus, Skrillex, Odd Future, Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Lauryn Hill, Kele, Interpol, Cut Copy, Beardyman, Crystal Castles, Kings of Leon, Robyn , Boys Noize, and Chemical Brothers.

Saturday I saw:

EE, Mariachi El Bronx, Joy Formidable, Twelves, Foals, Gogol Bordello, Two Door Cinema Club, Erykah Badu, Cage the Elephant, Glasser, Laidback Luke, Lil B, Elbow, Shpongle, Mumford and Sons, Animal Collective, Arcade Fire.

Sunday I saw:

Menomena, Delorean, MEN, fun., OFF!, CSS, Death From Above 1979, Duck Sauce, Trentenmoller, Durran Durran, The Strokes, Kanye West

All that along with how amazing the Creators Project made all of the acts, stages and the whole fests aesthetic was just a blast. I also scored Dave Chappelle tickets in such a clutch way on Sunday for 4 of us who went the next day in San Francisco (we drove straight there from Coachella). Jumping for an hour and a half to Cut Copy, Kanye hovering above us as he proclaimed “I fantasized about this back in Chicago”, and seeing all of the cooking utensils people brought for Lil B’s legendary set. It was just a perfect festival experience.

I have a ton of amazing video from the festival, I hope you enjoy them and had a good time reading about my 2011 experiences. Here's to 2012!

The best live experiences I had in 2011 (10-6)

2011-12-30T15:47:00.000-08:00

30-21

20-16

15-11

10. Prince 2/23 (Oracle Arena, Oakland, CA)

I’ll admit I was not really a Prince fan before I went to this show. Back in 2008 I tried to get tickets for me and two friends off Craigslist to Coachella where Prince was headlining and I got scammed out of the tickets and 400 bucks. Since that Coachella I have really been dying to see Kraftwerk, Portishead, and Prince.

When the tickets for Prince came out it was kind of a generous gift to myself since they were close to 300 bucks for a decent seat. That week I saw Chromeo, Godspeed You! Black Emperor (Twice!), Odd Future and Prince. Easily one of the best concert weeks of the year.

As soon as Prince came on I was convinced that this man was a God of his craft. He deserves all the hype, legend, and ego because he is an amazing musician. He had a commanding stage presence and played the guitar better than I ever would have imagined. He also did a lot of costume changes and cool tricks like throwing his guitars in the air for poor workers on the ground to catch.

The best part of this show however has to be the fact that it was the greatest encore I have ever seen live. He came out for FIVE encores! Like literally it got to the point where the Oracle put on all the lights, even the advertisements and people were still clapping and cheering like crazy and he came out with all the lights on still. Since he owned the crowd so hard they turned down the lights again and put the stage lights back on. Such an epic performance from one of the world’s greatest performers.

9. Interpol 1/31 (The Warfield, San Francisco, CA)

At the beginning of the year I was starting to realize that 2011 could be the year where I accomplish most of the concert goals I have always thought to be impossible. At this point I already had my ticket for Godspeed, a band I never thought would come together again. Also, I was heavily following Interpol’s setlists and saw that they started playing The New for the first time since 2003 in Europe.

For those who don’t know, The New is Interpol’s best song and possibly one of the greatest songs of all time. Ramzi and I have always said it would be the greatest song we will never see live. Needless to say, it was an absolutely mesmerizing experience to see it right in front of me, seeing Daniel Kessler and Paul Banks tune their guitars down and up just gives me goose bumps to think about.

On top of all of that, they played the song “Safe Without”, which has to be maybe one of about 5 times they have ever played it live. This was very special to me because I had recently moved home from UC Davis and the song that I would always blast to help me get through leaving Davis was Safe Without.

I have seen Interpol 7 times now and this was the most special show to me.

8. Kylie Minogue 5/22 (Caesar’s Palace, Las Vegas, NV)

I have had a crush on Kylie since she played Cammy in the shitty 90’s Street Fighter movie. Like everyone else, she infatuated me with the track “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” and has had many other great songs since then. I always have her on my wishlist for Coachella and knew I had to see her if she ever came to the states because she likes to stay in Europe.

About 4 years ago she was diagnosed with breast cancer and that ended up putting her in the category of live acts I will never get to see. When her Aphrodite tour in the US was announced I was ecstatic and bought tickets to her Vegas and Hollywood Bowl performances so I would have a choice on where to see her for the first time. Making the choice to see her in Vegas marked the beginning of the trend of me crossing state bounds to see live acts this year. I continued that trend with Lollapalooza and Jeff Mangum (Chicago and Boston respectively) and next week with Holy Ship!

After her performance we went to the nightclub TAO where Rihanna was having her Billboard Music Awards after party. At that we saw Black Eyed Peas and briefly I saw Joe Jonas, Beyonce and Jay Z. Jay Z had changed his hair style which was the first indication I saw that WTT was completed which was pretty awesome. Great weekend all around.

7. Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All 2/22 (Slim’s, San Francisco, CA)

In November of last year I was starting to get interested in what new underground rap was coming out. I found a thread in the Coachella forum about it and a few names kept popping up including Lil B, Earl Sweatshirt, Big KRIT, and Tyler the Creator. This was the start of my introduction to Lil B and unknowingly my introduction to Odd Future. I heard Earl and French a bunch of times from there but I had no idea what Odd Future was. Once the Coachella poster came out and OFWGKTA was on the lineup, another thread popped up on the forum explaining who every member of the collective was. I was pleased to see that Earl and Tyler were in the same group and that they would be at Coachella.

A few weeks later Tyler and Hodgy did their legendary performance of Sandwiches on Jimmy Fallon’s late night show. Two days later was this show in San Francisco. This show was back when OF had only one shitty T shirt on sale that was clearly something they did at a print shop for cheap with Costco white T’s. Now they are headlining festivals with Wu Tang! It is so nuts how far these kids have gone since last year.

The crowd was so rowdy for this show; I literally got moved to the front without even trying just because of how nuts it was. I will always remember Tyler pointing the mic to the kid right next to me who rapped an entire verse of a song. So epic! Tyler was sick that day and kept leaving the stage to puke which made it even more awesome. GOLF WANG!

6. Godspeed You! Black Emperor 2/19 (The Warfield, San Francisco, CA)

Godspeed is one of those bands I have always heard nothing but underground legend when it came to their live shows. Only a handful of people had ever seen them live before and it had been many years since they broke up. Being that they are a 9+ piece band it seemed as though they would never tour again.

Of course as soon as I heard about this show me and my closest friends bought tickets because we all had our stories and reasons to need to attend this show. They played an amazing setlist and mesmerized the crowd for two hours straight with no encore. Exactly how I always envisioned seeing them live. The only bad part about this for me was that they performed 3 nights in SF that weekend, I went to two, and the only night they played my favorite song of theirs was the night I did not attend. GAH! I have to see them again to hear that song!

The best live experiences I had in 2011 (15-11)

2011-12-26T14:13:00.000-08:00

30-21
20-16

15. Drake/B.o.B./J. Cole/Tyga/Taio Cruz/New Boys/E40 12/18 (HP Pavilion, San Jose, CA)

Well I went to this show thinking it would be J. Cole, LMFAO, and Drake. I have heard J. Cole’s name a lot over the year but haven’t given his music much of a chance, and I didn’t really care for LMFAO. This show to me was all about Drake. I was skeptical of Drake at first. While in Davis I heard the song “Successful” and liked it but it didn’t really convince me of Drake’s talent. Even though my brother seemed to have a lot of respect for him I just couldn’t see it yet.

One night, I was flipping through the TV before bed and I stumbled across Palladia playing random music videos and Drake’s new video for “Over” came on. Something about that song really stuck with me and I then became really eager to hear his new album to see what other surprises may lie within. I ended up loving “Thank Me Later” and listened to it quite a bit in the last almost two years now. Songs like “Karaoke” spoke to me on an emotional level while songs like “Show Me a Good Time” made me dream of achieving all of my goals to live it up with the people I love. Drake came to San Jose in early January and I missed the show which motivated me to attend next time he was in town.

Well, the opportunity came with this show that I thought to be a Drake concert with some backup. Turns out it was the Wild 94.9 Wild Jam (this shows how little I have been listening to the radio these days lol). To my surprise Tyga and B.o.B were on the lineup as well and added to the awesomeness of the night. All of the sets were a lot of fun to watch and it was great to see Drake do his parts for “Forever” and “Bedrock”. Earlier this year I have seen Eminem do his part in Forever and was hoping Lil Wayne and Kanye West would do their parts as well (I saw each twice this year and they didn’t both times!). Bedrock though I have seen now in its entirety in different concert this year! SWAG!

Here is everyone from the song in 3 separate shows I was at (the middle one is not my video but the rest are)

Drake put on a great performance which you can see here:

14. Lil Wayne/Nicki Minaj/Rick Ross/Travis Barker/Yellawolf/Gudda/Birdman/Millz/E40/Too $hort/Paul Wall/Mix Master Mike 4/24 (Oracle Arena, Oakland, CA)

Well shit, I thought seeing Lil Wayne on Easter Sunday was swag enough. This show was a spectacle in every sense of the word. I mean look at who was there to start with! Everything from Travis Barker’s epic set with Mix Master Mike where he brought out Yellawolf and Paull Wall each for a few tracks to Rick Ross’ grunts and his DJ’s incessant usage of the “M-M-M-MA-MABACK MUSIC!” sample to Lil Wayne coming out with an epic hour long set only to leave the stage for an hour to showcase Young Money’s new star Nicki Minaj in the middle of his set. He came back out for another hour and a half! SO EPIC!

Unfortunately I forgot my HD Flip in the car so I only have some shitty phone footage. This song is complete however:

13. Britney Spears and Nicki Minaj 6/18 (HP Pavilion, San Jose, CA)

It isn't much of a secret that I have liked Britney Spears since her first album. After her 3^rd album I stopped really listening to her music except for singles that came on the air. Toxic for example reminds me of my High School Prom night and I could give a shit less about the album it is on. She had her freakout when I was new to Davis and a year later put out one of my favorite pop albums “Blackout”. Unfortunately the public was still wary about Britney at the time and didn't really buy into the album and she did not end up touring for it. When “Circus” came out I missed out on the tour she had for it which really bummed me out because she played all of the songs I would have wanted to hear on that tour. Although I enjoy the Femme Fetal album, I would easily give up seeing most of those live songs for some of the Blackout songs and a few tracks off “Circus”.

Earlier this year I ended up seeing Britney Spears tape 3 songs live for Good Morning America at the Bill Graham Civic in San Francisco, but it only left me yearning for more. Especially since the 3 songs were all from Femme Fetal. On the show Good Morning America she revealed that she would be touring with Enrique Iglesias so I was at least glad to know I would have a chance at a real show this year. When the tour was announced however I was very pleased to see that Nicki Minaj was going to back up Britney both because it was great to see Lil Wayne’s showcasing actually worked and is bringing Nicki into superstardom along with the unexpected single (It’s a bonus song on her album) that brought her to the top “Super Bass”.

The production of the whole show was top notch and a lot of fun throughout. Ultimately I am a little disappointed with Britney’s setlist because of the lack of Blackout and Circus songs but I am just going to take it as a reason to want to see her again because the whole set was a great time regardless.

12. The Fiery Furnaces 5/18 (Café Du Nord, San Francisco, CA)

So this is my favorite band. I saw them for the first time touring for “Blueberry Boat” the Friday before Coachella 2005 weekend in San Francisco and it was amazing. They came back right before “Rehearsing My Choir”, the album with their grandmother, came out to Café Du Nord but at the time I was not 21 years old and this was a 21 and over venue. Since this was my favorite band I took measures to make sure I can go in and ended up taking my mom to see them and the venue let me in with her. Since then I have seen them 3 more times before this show and met them a few times. During this show they set up seats for everyone and I ended up standing to the side with a perfect view of the whole thing. I got to talk to them again after the show and take a picture. Both of the Friedberger siblings had a big year this year so this was great all around.

11. Lollapalooza 8/5-8/7 (Grant Park, Chicago, IL)

Lil B the BasedGod in 2011

2011-12-26T13:11:00.000-08:00

Lil B has had a really busy year this year. It is hard to keep up even as a big fan at times, so here is my rundown of the 10! mixtapes he put out this year and a Based list of top 5 produced Lil B tracks of the year.

TYBG!

Top 10 Mixtapes:

10. Blue Eyes