#StarlightTheater | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

nuoaru · 7 years

Text

A Perfect Circle at Starlight Theater, April 19th, 2017

So I waited almost a month and a half to post this, but in my defense, I’m lazy. So I grabbed an alcoholic beverage, found the set list online, and sat down to travel back to that night. Holy hell there’s a lot to remember, such as it being one of (if not the) best shows I have ever seen. But I’ll get to that in a minute.

DISCLAIMER: If you didn’t already know, the vocalist Maynard James Keenan hates photography of any kind, so people were escorted out for even having their phones out. So no pictures of this one.

So this story starts out the same way most of mine do. So I was sitting on the couch, day drinking.

I don’t even remember what I was doing, but I was off work so it was probably Xbox related. All of a sudden I’m random Facebooking (like I do) and a balloon pops up with Bryon’s face in it. (If you read my blog about The Kills, he’s the guy who hooked Sierra and me up with free tickets, but obviously that’s a different story. Obviously.) “Do you work today or tomorrow?” is all it said. Well I didn’t, so I sent back that I didn’t work til Monday, but I could still help out. I assumed he had a work question, and my laptop was at home so I thought “why not”.

Well this my friends, is where this story takes a turn. He asked me if I had any plans and I looked at my beer, the Xbox, and back to the phone and sent “no plans”. Well spank a beaver’s ass, this guy proceeds to tell me he’s got two fourth row tickets to A Perfect Circle if I want them. I looked at my beer again. “Whoa this is some good shit”. I put it down, and slowly started to piece it together. I wasn’t blackout drunk, I just got offered free tickets to arguably one of the best rock bands today on a day off. I put the beer in the fridge and said “I’ll see you later” and held the phone up in the air to reply so I didn’t drool all over it. “Don’t fuck with me” is literally what I sent. It turns out his daughter had a game that night so he couldn’t make it. “I would never fuck with you about Maynard” is what he sent back. I hadn’t talked to Jennifer about it yet, but it’s Maynard, and I wasn’t being fucked with. BY ANYONE.

Flash forward to the car ride, because of course Jennifer was going, because if you’ve forgotten, IT’S MAYNARD. We left in plenty of time, which is good because the line was loooooong. We paid for the more expensive parking, not to seem elite, but because we thought the walk was going to be shorter. Well that’s not exactly what happened, but it was worth a shot.

So we start filing in, and I see a row that says 4, but it’s a few sections back, so I was a little disappointed. But it was still really close, and for free I’ll take it. So we start winding through the sections and talk to the security guard for that section. She says “you’re in the wrong section” (mind you, I’ve never been here before) and starts leading us to another section that was 444 or something (not what it said on the ticket, but apparently they understand more than I do) and handed us off to another guard who joked “you better not jump on the stage” and brought us to the 4TH DAMN ROW. I was within spitting distance of the stage. Jennifer and I just kind of stared at each other while the reality of the situation set in. Immediately we got an earful from that section’s security guard that we better not have our phones out when the band comes out. I didn’t like it, but I wasn’t about to test it. Here’s the only picture we got at the show:

The opening band was already playing, a band called Prayers from San Diego. They’re a two man industrial metal group. After the show, I saw overwhelmingly negative reviews, but I thought they were pretty cool. The vocals had a lot of Skinny Puppy influence, so I can see how people wouldn’t dig it, but we enjoyed it. I completely forgot what their name was until I looked it up for this blog, so I haven’t really given them an off-stage listen yet.

I went up to get a couple drinks for us and was there for what seemed like FOREVER. I finally grabbed my drinks and met up with my friend Aaron Fox from the ol’ TMC days, and chit-chatted for a minute. But then the stage went dark and I said “I gotta go” and went as fast as I could back to our seats. The good thing is that once I got down towards the front, there wasn’t a lot of traffic seeing as not many people in their right mind could afford these tickets. (Thanks Bryon, yet again).

There was a see-through sheet covering the stage, and it was a blurry view of the band, and they had started the first few seconds of “The Package” by the time I got to my seat. I’d never seen A Perfect Circle live before, even on YouTube, so I was afraid that was how the whole show was going to be. But sure enough, hard guitars came in a couple minutes into the song, and the sheet dropped, so we could see the band in all its glory.

Let me be clear, of course Maynard James Keenan will always be the focal point of the show of any of the bands he fronts, because you can’t help but be drawn to him. If aliens ever start abducting people, I’m pretty sure a Maynard song would be the perfect decoy. But Maynard did not command the stage alone that night. That honor belongs to Billy Howerdel. Maynard definitely was the voice, but he stood still for an hour or two. Billy traveled the entire stage and made eye contact with every single one of us, at one point throwing some object into the crowd which i found out later was an instrument used to slide the notes on a guitar. I’ll have to make another entry later on all the bands that these people are in, because Maynard takes great musicians that are either from other bands or make other bands later. But here’s a list of bands you should check out that include the members that played that night:

Tool

Puscifer (Matt McJunkins and Jeff Fried)

Ashes Divide (Billy Howerdel, Matt McJunkins, and Jeff Fried)

The Beta Machine (Matt McJunkins and Jeff Fried)

The Smashing Pumpkins (James Iha)

There was no member of the band that slacked that night. Every moment of the show just charged us with more adrenaline and drained us of our vocals. The only member I wish was there was Paz Lenchantin, who is an excellent bassist and violinist. I can only assume that her absence is why they didn’t play “3 Libras”, which relies heavily on violin. Speaking of missing songs, I know they have a lot of songs to choose from, but the three main songs they didn’t play that I was hoping for were “3 Libras”, “Judith”, and “Passive”. Coincidentally enough, those are my favorite APC songs. But whatever. There’s not much to report on Maynard, he stood still the whole time. He was flawless on the vocals, but it gave me more respect for the singers that run around the stage and can’t do a few notes. I don’t want to take away from his performance, he was flawless. But he had no chance to do anything wrong. He was on a platform above everyone else.

Matt And Billy controlled the stage for their captain, sauntering across the stage and capturing us like a lead singer would. It never felt as Maynard was depriving us. I got this sense that he knew he was best served at the back delivering a perfect vocal performance while everyone else was giving their best to the crowd. There’s not a lot I can tell you without “you should’ve been there”, but then again, without 170 bucks, you and another wouldn’t have been there. Billy stared at Jennifer and I at least 30 times, and tossed his little glass toner thing (I’m still not exactly sure what it’s called) towards us, but it was a couple rows short.

Here’s the playlist:

1. The Package 2. The Hollow 3. The Noose 4. Weak and Powerless 5. Rose 6. Imagine 7. Thinking of You 8. By and Down 9. Thomas 10. People Are People 11. Magdalena 12. Vanishing 13. Hourglass 14. Counting Bodies Like Sheep to the Rhythm of the War Drums 15. A Stranger 16. Blue 17. The Outsider 18. Gravity 19. Feathers (new song)

They ended the show and the lights came on. I texted everyone I thought was still there and no one answered. I waited a bit for answers and we went to the merch booth. There we proceeding to spend half of what the show would’ve cost on t-shirts. I also bought one for Bryon because HOLY SHIT WE JUST SAW MAYNARD FROM THE FOURTH ROW! I just haven’t given it to him yet.

Then we ventured out to the parking lot. I took us into a direction that we definitely weren’t parked in, because I’m dumb. Eventually we found the car and drove home.

A Perfect Circle should be seen live by you, and there really shouldn’t be any argument about it. I’m just not sure how Jennifer and I got so lucky to see them on the 4th row. Thank you, Bryon.

#APerfectCircle #StarlightTheater #ConcertReview

0 notes