the studio sessions

A Thousand Words But None Were Spoken...

Went down to the White River Amphitheatre in Auburn, WA on Thursday to catch the Goo Goo Dolls and the Counting Crows.

We first stopped off at the place where we were staying for the night. Good old Motel 6.....which by the way had the creepiest check-in guy ever. He was wearing a hawaiian shirt and had this weird voice, which was a combination of fingernails across the chalkboard and getting kicked in the nads. His facial expressions were also quite scary. My friend's exact words were "Let's get the hell outta here".



After we checked out our room, we decided to head down to the venue. It was our first time in Auburn and it sure was interesting.....from the Auburn Motel, whose special feature was offering guests color TVs, to Clem's Monster Chili Dog stand.

The people in Auburn also seem to like fireworks a lot there. We passed by this large area that looked like a carnival with a bunch of stores and tents set up. It actually turned out to be a giant row of businesses selling fireworks. For the next 10 minutes, we passed by several more stands selling fireworks, artillery shells, and other sorts of questionable explosives. The next time I'm back there, I'm gonna visit Uncle Clem and order one of those monster chili dogs with a side order of fireworks...maybe throw in some napalm in there as well.



There's only one lane for each direction going in and out of the Amphitheatre. This makes for really long lineups and delays, so it was a good idea for us to arrive early. As we waited to enter the parking area, we could hear the Goos doing their soundcheck. It was neat parking our car and walking to the venue while hearing Johnny, Robby and Mike warming up for the show.

Songs partly played during soundcheck:
Give A Little Bit
Let Love In
Without You Here
January Friend
Broadway
Stay With You



We then went to will-call to pick up our tickets ordered through the Goo fan club. We didn't know our seat locations until tickets were picked up the day of the show so there were weeks of anticipation. We ended up with really good seats, 3rd Row Floor.

The White River Amphitheatre venue is quite nice, and includes many different facilities and a clean atmosphere.



Adam Duritz came out to welcome the first band to the crowd.



Augustana played a good opening set, which displayed nice vocals and harmonies.




Their upbeat pop-rock sound was really catchy.



The anticipation leading up to the Goos was very high. The last time I saw them was 4 yrs ago and it's still one of my favourite shows of all time. On this evening, the sun was shining really bright and it was quite warm.

The Goo Goo Dolls ran out just as the black curtain on stage dropped and they opened with Stay With You, followed by Slide. John came out with sunglasses on and mentioned that he wasn't wearing them to look cool, but because he "couldn't see shit with the sun" shining in his eyes.



As expected, John was crazy with all his guitar changes, changing them after every song. He used around 12-14 different guitars during the set.



Robby was his usual energetic self, running around onstage and playing his heart out. He played barefooted, no socks this time.



Mike played it cool as always and held down the fort on the drumkit.



During Black Balloon, there were five drapes of lights that came down to cover the set. I must say, with playing outdoor summer festivals at Amphitheatres where the sun is beating heavily in the background, it's hard to convey the emotional appeal of certain songs. I felt that slower songs such as Black Balloon, Iris, and Better Days would have meant so much more under a different atmosphere. The stage lighting has such a huge effect on shows and would have made the music more intense if it weren't competing with the brightness of the sun.



The songs were performed well by the band, but for me, having the songs played while the stage is covered in sun rays makes it harder to get the full feel of some of the lyrics and music. I thought that it would have been a perfect setting had they played an hour later with the sun down, but then the show would end way past the venue curfew time. Also, I agree with Robby that their sound is better suited for them to play before the Counting Crows as the show runs smoother as a whole that way.



Still, the Goos played a solid set as always and I had a blast singing along to every song. The supporting players on the tour, Brad and Korel, did a great job to compliment the sound of the band.



I thought the songs off the new album sounded really well. They ended up playing 9 of the 11 songs off the new release. Without You Here, Let Love In, and Become were some of my favourites of the night. Those ones were also played as the sun started fading so it made the intensity of the songs even stronger.




The Goo Goo Dolls finished off their encore and 1hr 15min set with Give A Little Bit.





On this setlist, Big Machine was crossed off and not played. On another setlist, Big Machine was not written down.

The Counting Crows came onstage and opened their set with Recovering The Satellites. Adam Duritz sings with so much passion. He moves around the stage and makes everyone feel the lyrics. His voice is so strong that his vocals run for miles.



The band sounded really tight and provided some great harmonies to the songs. In addition, when the Crows got onstage, the sun had fallen for the night and the atmosphere and energy was perfect.



Looks like Adam and Robby have been getting tips from each other as they both played barefooted.



During Rain King they included Raining In Baltimore in the song. One of my favourites of the set. Adam stopped the song partway through Long December while on piano and mentioned that he "screwed up but it was so beautiful". We all laughed it off and then they continued with the rest of the song.




Some other highlights from their 1hr 15min performance included Hard Candy and Round Here. Adam added some extra lyrics near the end of Round Here and sings a line "Is This Love?" a few times. I think the whole lyrics of the song are incredible and it was the most emotional one of the night.



On the setlist, Holiday In Spain is listed but wasn't played because they had already passed the 11pm venue curfew time.

When we arrived back at our motel, there was a cop car parked in front. We walked through the hall and noticed that there had been an incident in one of the rooms ten doors down from ours. Looks like it was possibly broken into. There was a cop inside the room investigating the situation. Good times at Motel 6. When we got back to our room, we decided to move a bunch of furniture in front of the door....just incase creepy check-in guy decided to pay us a visit during the night.

We got out of the motel the next morning and were both happy that we didn't get shot or stabbed. We then did what any other music lover would want to do.....head down to the crazy Seattle Record stores.



We stopped by Tower Records first. It was massive and we spent a good hour going through stuff. We definitely could have stayed a lot longer. I walked away with a special live double-disc album of The Dears that I haven't seen available anywhere else.



Next up was Easy Street Records. They get quite a few performers in there playing special shows and doing signings every so often. The Goos were in there last month to do a special gig. The place was awesome and it felt like heaven. They have the craziest selection of hard-to-find CDs and are priced quite well.



Between the two of us, we left both record stores with 10 CDs and 2 DVDs.....and that's after we spent a considerable amount of time narrowing down our choices.



Overall, the trip was a lot of fun and definitely worth the trek down there.

you left my heart stained

Jose Gonzalez played at Richard's last night.



The first openers were a British band called Psapp. They had a very playful and entertaining set, utilizing a lot of different instruments.




Things such as a toy telephone, stuffed animals with noises, mini electronic guitar, and even a cat hand puppet were all fair game to be used. Many of their songs had associations with cats, which were really cute.




During the performance, both Juana Molina and Jose Gonzalez came onstage to join them. They also mentioned that the three different artists have started a new band called Animal Damage while touring together. Overall, I was quite impressed with their set.



Juana Molina played next. The songstress from Argentina performed solo with her guitar, looping and effect pedals, and assortment of keyboards.



She did a great job creating layers in her sound with the looping pedals. For her last song, Juana had four different vocal loops going to create some really nice harmonies as she sang over it. She also had some good picking patterns on her classical.




Jose Gonzalez came onstage and played the set seated in a chair on a riser. Armed with just his voice and classical guitar, the Swedish artist played a brief but solid set. He opened with Deadweight On Velveteen, and proceeded to play most of the songs of his debut release, Veneer.



I liked how he had his pickup duct taped over the soundhole of his guitar.



Both Psapp and Juana Molina watched his set from side stage and had Jose cracking up as he played Heartbeats. I must say that I enjoy Jose's cover of the song a lot more than the original electronica version by The Knife. Everyone came up onstage near the end to say thanks and sing Happy Birthday to the tour manager. Jose came back out and finished his 45min set with a cover of Massive Attack's Teardrop.