:: Dillondesk -- the blog of LCD ::

:: Friday, November 04, 2005 ::

:: Calvin 9:20 AM [+] ::

Pretty cool show.

My lovely wife has a not-so-lovely-cold and an almost complete lack of voice, but we did swing and sway and make wavy motions with our hands in an ocean of thirty-somethings in various stages of black and gestation (we counted five very pregnant mommies).

We left late and missed the whole set of the opening act, the Bravery.

As they dressed the stage for the headliners, I was less exicted than worried. There was a huge silver ball stage left with words like "SEX," "PAIN," "DEATH," and "SUFFERING." It had red lights on it and looked suspiciously like ET's spaceship. There were three keyboard stands that also had the retro-polished-steel-with-red-lights UFO thing happening, and two platforms for Gahan to prance into the audience upon.

The background techno that played while the roadies did their thing had many heads bobbing and toes tapping, though the venue was FAR from being full.

When Depeche took the stage, I was excited and a little worried. David Gahan looked great -- slimline black jacket and suit and spiked hair -- he was in much better shape than the paunchy Kevin DuBrow I saw back in July. Martin Gore, however, had on some kind of bird suit (ther cover of the new album, Playing the Angel has this graphic of a little man made from bird feathers, and I guess he was trying to tie into that theme, but the little tufty wings he was wearing with the tight skullcap and feathered mohawk really didn't do it for me.

As they started playing, it was EXACTLY the same setlist they played at the Bowery Ballroom in NYC on October 28, so I was again a little excited and worried. Excited because I knew they would play "Personal Jesus" and "Enjoy the Silence," but worried because they would not be playing "Never Let me Down" or "Everything Counts." Oh well, I thought -- no big deal.

And it wasn't, except we found ourselves trapped ina bad Sid and Marty Krofft Saturday sci-fi adventure -- think Dr. Shrinker meets "I Love the 80's."
EVERY seat in front of us facing the stage was filled with white men dancing. That itself was not unusual, but I swear these guys were all like 7 feet tall. It was like watching the Masquerade's basketball team or something. Needless to say, I was very grateful that they had three large video screens, or I wouldn't have seen much of Mr. Gahan's flourishes on the stage. The one standing next to me kept texting someone on his phone and high-fiving people (I got a high-five when I did my "Happy Hands" move during the encore)

He was the highlight of the show -- he was dancing around like a 16 year old who just heard his first Dead or Alive record. His energy level was great. THe video camera kept focusing on his abs and tatoos -- much to the delight of all kinds of cross-sections of the audience.

The lights and effects rteally made the whole UFO thing work together -- the lights were amazing, expecially during "Personal Jesus" and the encores.

It was a gas watching the folks on the floor dance -- we saw a Molly Ringwald clone in a green sweater and several very excited men who lacked hair but not enthusiasm.

When they got to the end of the first set, I was pretty sure the show was about over, but this was actually the best part of the evening.

They came back and got my lovely wife VERY exicted and happy with "Somebody," and it just got better from there.

The whole audience sang along to the encores, and the energy level was great.

Gahan cursed at the band and stopped the show during "Everything Counts," saying "WTF was that?" and apologized for "sucking." They started again and the keyboard programs actually matched the drums and all was well.

For some reason, Gahan decided to "treat" us to "Goodnight Lovers" after making my night with "Never Let Me Down." It destroyed the buoyant mood of the crowd and several folks who obviously did not care for the new material left feeling a little cheated. I guess they wanted them to come out and play all of Violator and go home. We didn't get "People Are People" or "Black Celebration," or "Blashphemous Rumors," but I wasn't expecting to, and they did a great job with the new material -- especially "John" and "Sinner."

Oh well.

Like I said -- good show, great parking space (thanks Fran) and much less intrusive searching of our bodies than at the NIN show -- (I wonder why????)

Setlist - Depeche Mode -- November 3, 2005 -- St. Pete Times Forum

Intro
A Pain That I'm Used To
John The Revelator
A Question Of Time
Policy Of Truth
Precious
Walking In My Shoes
Suffer Well
Damaged People
Home
I Want It All
The Sinner In Me
I Feel You
Behind The Wheel
World In My Eyes
Personal Jesus
Enjoy The Silence

Somebody
Just Can't Get Enough
Everything Counts

Never Let Me Down Again
Goodnight Lovers

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:: Thursday, November 03, 2005 ::

:: Calvin 5:04 PM [+] ::

Depeche Mode tonight.

When I was in school, it would not have been very likely that I would GO to a DM concert, much less enjoy it.

I have been thinking about this while looking at the songs I have downloaded from iTunes, and I have decided that something strange happens as you get distance from your adolescence. Music and entertainment you had great disdain for (or atleast FEIGNED great disdain for) becomes a source of nostalgia. We were SURROUNDED by an eclectic melange of music, fashion and images, I think even more than today's kids are. SUre, it's true that many of them have iPods and spend time on the web where they can call up videos of everyone from Britney to Marilyn Manson, but how likely is it that they would call up both of those within five minutes of each other? WHen we were growing up, our channels of infotainment were limited, so we couldn't specialize the way kids do today.

Watching MTV, I HAD to watch Paula Abdul, Def Leppard, and Depeche Mode so that I COULD watch REM, U2, Talking Heads, and Billy Bragg. As a result, those tunes ingrained themselves into my psyche and became a part of who I grew up from/as/to.

Plus, I really always loved "Never Let Me Down" and "Enjoy the Silence," even if I never would have admitted it.

As a result, I will have been to three concerts in the ST. Pete Times Forum in four months, ranging from the ridiculous (Rock Never Stops -- FireHouse, Quiet Riot, Ratt, and Cinderella) to the sublime (NIN) and everything in between (DM tonight).

If only Ben Folds would play south of Georgia in 2006, I would feel more complete.

Taking the day off on the morrow so's I can get me 40 winks and get caught up on me reading classes, arrrrrr! (I know -- "Talk Like A Pirate Day" was September 19 -- I missed it this year)

Farewell. I am off to take a ride with my best friend.

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:: Tuesday, November 01, 2005 ::

:: Calvin 5:59 PM [+] ::

 

Bye Bye Bunny

Bunny (or Snowball or Snowflake, depending upon whom you speak with) has shuffled off this mortal coil. He was sick for a couple of days, and I hesitated taking him to the doctor. I read online about what might be wrong (he wasn't eating -- it was probably an intestinal problem). The site said to massage his belly, which I did, and I also washed him off because he was a little incontinent as well.



I woke up this morning and he had passed on in the night. He is an ex rabbit. He has ceased to be.



I wish I had been a better friend to him, but he must have been somewhat happy -- most of the sites said the average lifespan is about five years, but they have been known to live as long as fifteen. For him to hang on as long as he did, I have to think he liked being around us a little bit. I think I am sad because I feel guilty for passing out candy instead of carting him to the animal ER, and he was my last connection to Meadowbrook and my former life BLW (Before Lovely Wife). Whatever. Death sucks.



I did get some shorts on and buried him by the kitchen window before school so I wouldn't have to put him in the fridge (he deserved a dignified sendoff). I also lost my doorstop at school, which to some (Amber in seventh period in particular)might not seem like such a big deal, but it makes a huge difference for a teacher who is actually out in the hallway like he is supposed to be. Oh well. Cosmically, I guess this is a little karma to balance out the wonderfully charmed life I have been leading for a while.



Bye, bunny. You were a nice guy
 

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:: Sunday, October 30, 2005 ::

:: Calvin 7:54 AM [+] ::

Saw MirrorMask yesterday -- it was wonderful. The visuals crackled and felt like I was watching a Harry Potter version of a Gaiman/McKean graphic novel where the strangely grotesque, impossibly angular characters surrounded by papier-mache and floating fish move around on the page.

All of the criticisms I have heard leveled at the film are absolutely true. People object to the fact that the film moves very slowly, and that at times the visuals seem more important to the filmmakers than the characters.

Dude. It is a movie about a girl who gets lost in her OWN DREAM. You think that fantastic visuals and a slow DREAMLIKE pace might be dictated in that situation!!!??!?!?!

Anyway, it was nice to anticipate a film and have NO LETDOWN whatsoever. (HHGTGG?) I loved the floating books and the floating giants, and the floating fish (lots of things floating in this one). I really enjoyed the humor, though -- I loved the line about the waiter (now you have to go see it! -- or at least rent it on DVD because it probably isn't playing anywhere near you -- we had to drive 2 hours).

Before the film, we went to the USF ST. Pete Times Festival of Reading -- a street fair complete with barbecue in celebration of books. We saw R.L. Stine speak (it was cute watching the little kids walk up to him in awe), as well as a great panel of young adult authors (our favorite was Adrian Fogelin - author of Crossing Jordan -- her stories about he music of her mom's typewriter and reams of paper weighed down with cups of cold coffee and mysterious clouds of creamer were great -- and her passion about literature was refreshing). At the end of our time at the festival, we saw Carl Hiaasen speak -- he has a SECOND book for kids out -- called Flush.

As the fellow Miami Herald writer who introduced him said, I was a little surprised and concerned that Hiaasen was writing books for kids. Could the author who brought us lines like, "I don't want some yahoo sticking niblets up my hoo-ha," who had a villain be "romanced to death" by a bottle-nosed dolphin, and who had a character named Tool who stole roadside memorials to plant as a garden and stole Fentinil patches form invalids in hospices possibly tone things down enough for a younger audience?

Evidently, he can in the books, but his anecdotes during the presentation about the trails of sleeze that lead to Florida and lawsuits over someone in a "gentleman's club" being "smacked so hard by a dancer's anatomy that he got whiplash" make me a little leery, still. He made everyone laugh with his stories about the location shooting for the film version of Hoot, being produced by Jimmy Buffett. The tales of stunt and Hollywood mullet were hilarious, as was the story about the alligator in tea porta-john.

I loved hearing him talk about his inspiration for Skink ("he was a former governor who stripped naked, ran into the wetlands and survived by eating roadkill -- all of which I think are natural reactions to Tallahassee.") and I loved how non-chalantly he handled the fact that the portable stage curtains behind him on the dais collapsed in the middle of his presentation. He joked that Jeb had just run out the back door.

All in all, it was, as my lovely wife noted, quite a "literary day."

Today, I am grading papers, attending a younger child's birthday party, and church. Not so literary, but a nice breather from drama at work.

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