Brewed Musings

Brewed Beverage of Choice:  A Pint of Anchor Liberty Ale

I know.  I know.  It took you long enough, confucian brewer, to get to this point.  And all I have to say to that is, “It was worth the wait!”  To be honest, I was so young at this show that I vaguely remember details.  I know the stage had a bunch of televisions on it.  I know the band played the songs, Rock The Casbah, London Calling, and Should I Stay or Should I Go.  I know I got goosebumps when I walked into the then MECCA Auditorium, where years later I would graduate from the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee.  To be honest I do remember a lot about the night.

Much like the 5th concert, my brother took me to this show, and I do not think I could ever thank him enough for it.  By my recollection it was my first concert ever and I was still in grade school at St. Thomas Aquinas.  This last fact is the main reason I remember this concert and why it stands as one of the best concerts I will ever go to.  That is besides the fact that Joe Strummer and The Clash were all-out fecking fabulous!

Back then the thing to do was to buy a tour shirt to show off.  Not only buy it but wear it the next day in school!  I eyed up a bunch of them and decided on one.  I thought it was the best shirt and, man, my friends are going to be jealous when I walk into class wearing it.  But when we got to our seats, my brother said, “Are you sure you want that shirt?”

“Of course,” I replied.  “Why?  What is wrong with it?”  I looked it over.  It looked awesome.  It was the perfect shirt to flaunt that I went to see The Clash…In Milwaukee…On a school night.  My brother looked at me and said, “They’re not going to let you wear that at school.”  What was my brother thinking?  Of course they are.  It is just a concert shirt and our catholic school did not have any dress code aside from the no jeans policy.

“It is just that it says ‘Go Straight To Hell’ on it.  They won’t let you wear that at St. Thomas.”  And with that, my bubble was burst.  He was right.  I was not going to get into school, into a catholic school, with a shirt with ‘Go Straight To Hell’ emblazoned on it.  Thwarted by satan himself.  Excellent move, Mr. Beelzebub!  Good show, sir.

But what was I going to do.  I wanted to wear my Clash shirt to school the next day.  I had to!  I told everyone I was going.  So my brother being the loving, caring brother he was…He knew you had to wear your badge the next day…took me back to the T-shirt vendor.  I explained to him my predicament and asked if I could exchange my unfortunate purchase for a different one.  The nice man, probably going against the rules, let me exchange it for one with no swearing on it.  With that, we went back to our seats and waited as The Clash took the stage.  By the end of the night, my throat was raw.  But I did not care because I was going to show up at school the next day with my pride and joy…my bragging rights.

My brother has taken me to some of my best concerts.  When you are in the eighth grade, your older brother usually pesters you and would rather you not follow him anywhere, especially to a show like The Clash.  Thankfully mine was a bit more gracious.  Oh, he pestered me, picked on me, made me cry.  But I can forgive him because I got to see…That’s right…The Clash!  I went to school the next day a proud man.  I cannot remember if it really had the affect on the lads I thought it would.  To tell you the truth, who cares.  That shirt lasted me a long time.  And I still have the memory.  So here is to all our first concerts!  To all our best concerts ever!

Cheers!

the confucian, Clash Lovin’ brewer

Brewed Beverage of Choice:  A Pint of Bison Organic Farmhouse Ale

To say being a skateboarder in my hometown during the 80s made me an outsider is an understatement.  Nowhere was this more evident than in the music we skate punks listened to.  Bands like the Dead Kennedys, The Minutemen, Minor Threat, and Social Distortion could be found in my collection as well as all my friends.  The reaction of classmates when you tell them the name of the band you are listening to was priceless:  the puzzled look as if you were speaking a different language.  It was inevitably followed by, “Who?”

One of the bands that grabbed my attention rose from the ashes of Minor Threat to form Fugazi.  It was their social-political commentaries that spoke directly to a budding socialist,  Native American historian such as myself.  I still have a hard time explaining to people why I find the band so spell-binding.  But, alas, it would be 10 or so years from my first introduction to them in the song, “Waiting Room,” before I would get the pleasure of seeing them live.  Every time they came to Milwaukee, I was working.  But in 1995, it was my time despite my having to drive 80 miles north to Green Bay to see the concert.  Why?  Because I was working the day they were in Milwaukee.

So the day finally came.  None of my friends could go or wanted to go with me so I had to make the journey on my own.  On the night of the show, I dropped my mom off from work and borrowed her car for the trip.  Normally I would not listen to the albums of the band I am going to see on the night of the show.  But in this case I made an exception and blasted them all the way up.  I was on my way to heaven.

When I arrived in Green Bay, I had goosebumps.  Roadtrips are amazing creatures especially when it involves something as nostalgic as this was to me.  After driving around town for a bit I finally found the venue, parked the car, and in I went.  The opening act tonight was Lungfish, a band I was not familiar with, but found them tantalizing enough to become a casual fan.  After their set, I went into the beer garden and had me a pint whilst waiting for the boys.  The electricity in the room got greater with every passing minute, and with little time left before Fugazi came on, I made my way closer to the stage.

Little did I know that the spot I would pick was directly in front of lead guitarist/vocalist Ian Mackaye.  I still have a shrine to him magneted to my kitchen fridge.  And then I saw them!  They made their way out to their instruments, plugged them in, and without hesitation cranked into “Bed for the Scraping.”  Behind me a mosh pit started pushing us in the front up against the stage.  Remarkably and unexpectedly the music stopped confusing the moshing crew behind me.  And next you heard Ian, “I am sorry, folks.  There is no moshing at the show.”  This was met with a ramble of boos, which was met with Ian’s exclamation, “Boo?  Boo?  If you don’t like it, you can get the fuck out!”  That was met with cheers.  The loudest coming from the 5′ nil-inch woman standing directly in front of me.  Who knew this punk girl could scream so loud.

The concert lasted about and hour and a half with Fugazi’s Ian and Brendan Canty belting out all their tunes.  It amazed me that Ian still has a voice after all these years.  His gruff screams are quite recognizable to any skater from the 1980s.  After they finished up and exited the stage, I made my way to the car.  The goosebumps I had upon arrival were still there.  I got in the car, turned on the ignition, and, yep, put Fugazi on the tape player.  It was, after all, a long solo ride home.  By the end of the ride, my voice sounded like Ian’s.  It was well worth the 10 year wait to see the band that still remains one of my favourites.

Prost!

the confucian (80s skate punk) brewer

Brewed Beverage of Choice:  A Pint of Fullers ESB

You may think it difficult to beat Bruce Springsteen and U2 for most memorable concerts.  You may, but you would be wrong in my book.  I was still in high school for Springsteen and barely 21 for the U2 concert.  It seemed like something was missing.  That something emerged as a road trip to a concert at the Metro in Chicago.  I had not been in Chicago a lot since 1990, but there was no passing this trip up.  How in the world could I miss Radiohead?

There was one little problem with our plan as we piled into the car and headed south on I94 - none of us had tickets to a sold out show.  This minor detail was not going to stop us from getting into the Metro to see one of the best live acts I would see in my lifetime.  The whole ride down, my friends and I plotted our way of getting tickets and how much we were willing to pay.  As a dutiful Catholic, buying tickets illegally from a scalper was one of the most “sinful” things I was going to do in my 20 some odd years of life.  Well that…and getting snuck into the bar below the Metro when I was 19 with my then girlfriend.

When we got to the Metro, there was not a scalper in sight.  We could not even find someone who looked like they were trying to unload tickets.  After about an hour, I needed a beer because the whole thing was frustrating.  There seemed to be no way of getting tickets to this show.  So we all piled into the nearest pub and grabbed the nearest pool table whilst pouring beers down our broken throats.

After about 20 minutes I noticed a man on the sidewalk who seemed to be in the process of selling some tickets to a couple of frat boys with the backwards hats.  My friend, Steve, went out and found the man.  Several minutes later Steve came back announcing that the guy had some tickets for $40 and would meet us back in the bar.  Success!  There was nothing stoppin’ us from seeing Radiohead!  Not the 90 miles between Milwaukee and Chicago.  And definitely not the fact that the show was sold out!

The lads did not disappoint!  Even though this was only their second album, they put on one of the best shows I have ever seen.  The energy of the Metro was electric!  They came out and played some songs off their album, The Bends, moved on to some of their older stuff off of Pablo Honey, and then returned to the new album and played “Fake Plastic Trees.”  Of course everyone in the room was waiting for “Creep,” which thankfully they did NOT do as an encore.  But once they ripped into the opening of the song, the crowd pulsated.  It was exciting!

With Springsteen and with U2, I was still being mentored on music by my brother and the radio.  By the time I had seen Radiohead at the Metro, I had stopped listening to the bad advice of commercial radio - except for the psychologist couch advice given to me by WMSE - and my brother had pushed me out of the nest.  Radiohead was just the beginning of a new sort of music awakening.  The lads got me back to Chicago and I had to do something as exhilarating as buying tickets from a scalper, which may not seem like a lot now, but back then it was liberating.  Coming up, a road trip to the land of Lombardi and Favre to see one of my musical idols spread the gospel of DC Punk Rock.

Prost!

the confucian brewer

Brewed Beverage of Choice:  A Cup of Panamanean Coffee from Stumptown

If you read the comment from the first part of this Top 5! you would have to agree that, yes, this does sound like we have been transported into the life of Rob Gordon in High Fidelity.  I think it is an ism for men and some women in my generation.  I tried to get help for it but sadly the medicine made me old and cranky.  And if you read that same comment you could decipher, with some mad detective skills, who edged out the Boss on this list…no pun intended.  The fourth best concert I have been to is U2 and Public Enemy at Camp Randall Stadium, Madison, Wisconsin.

I would say that this was U2, Public Enemy, and Big Audio Dynamite, but the morons I went to the show with did not understand the finer things in life.  In fact they were terrible tailgaters too.  In actuality, they were bad concert goers altogether:  talking during the show, missing a good opening act because they did not want to get there too early, and numerous other things I care not to get into at this time.  But that said, how could the Fly and the Flav not top anyone’s list?

This was the Zoo TV tour.  The tour right before Bono went bonkers!  Now the Boss had ‘em beat with the venue.  Alpine Valley beats Camp Randall Stadium anyday!  Plus we were all the way up at the top of a 60,000 seat football stadium, so the visuals were not as good.  The clock on Flav was a mere dot from where I sat…A dot on an ant wearing funny sunglasses.  But for me you do not go to a concert for the visuals.  You go for the music.  And Bono, the Edge, Chuck D, and Flava Flav did not disappoint.

At that time I was wholly familiar with all of U2’s music.  They were the next logical progression from the Police as favourite bands go.  In fact, Boy is still one of the best albums of all time.  But I was less familiar with Public Enemy because I was still one of those stubborn people who thought all Rap and Hip Hop was about guns and gangs.  I knew of a couple of Public Enemy’s songs, but never really listened to the words.  And like the Boss several years earlier, this show made me a fan.  I was just coming into my own as a socialist at the time and some of their words struck me.  Unfortunately for them I was there for the headliner.

I could say that U2 was a disappointment for all the hype I gave the show.  But that would be a lie.  With the excitement I had at the time - I would liken it to the excitement people had for the Beatles in the early 60s - there was no way they could disappoint.  They went through all their new stuff, played most of the Joshua Tree, and played enough off of Boy and War to make every fan happy.  Plus did their schtick with the huge TV and the call to President Bush (Senior not Junior.)  It was a moment I wished I could have shared with my brother who was a U2 fan once in his life.

It is hard to believe after writing this that there are 3 shows that were better than the Boss, The Edge, The Fly, and The Flav.  I know a few people that would have these folk at the top of the list.  And if I were not such a maniacal music fan, they would top mine as well.  But sadly they are only at 4 and 5.  Stay tuned.  Up next some boys from Britian invade the Windy City and I get my first, and only experience, with a scalper.

Prost!

the confucian, music-loving brewer

Brewed Beverage of Choice:  A litre of Aktien Brauerei St. Martin Dunkler Doppelbock
Whilst riding the train this morning, a thought popped into my head…I have seen a great deal of shows in my lifetime.  They continue to this day.  So with my mind working, riding the train to work, I started pulling out the ones I would put into my Top 5.  Then it came to me, I should share them with you because good times are meant to be shared.  So this here is a new topic:  Top 5!

Unfortunately compiling a list such as this, you have to leave out ones that definitely should be mentioned.  And of course these list truly mean nothing because they can be changed at any time.  They should be seen as dynamic living organisms.  And because I continue to see bands and musicians, this list is no different.  But to give you idea how packed the 5 shows are, here is a short list of the shows that did not make it:

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, Portland, Oregon
Paul Simon, Marcus Ampitheater, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
The Replacements, UWM Ballroom, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Ida, The Empty Bottle, Chicago, Illinois
Medeksi, Martin, and Wood, Crystal Ballroom, Portland, Oregon
REM and Sonic Youth, Kansas City, MO

And without further ado…Number 5 on the list of Top 5 Concerts

No. 5:  Bruce Springsteen and the E. Street Band, Alpine Valley, East Troy, Wisconsin

It is no coincidence that two of the five concerts in the Top 5 are ones that I went to with my brother.  He took me to my first show when I was in 8th grade.  I looked up to him when I was younger because he had a great taste in music.  He introduced me to the Replacements, REM, fIREHOSE, and Husker Du.  It is something special we have continued to share til this day.

In 1986 the Boss was on tour for his Born in the USA album and my brother got us tickets to go see him at Alpine Valley, a natural ampitheater about 7 miles from where I grew up.  It is also the sight of where Stevie Ray Vaughn died.  Fortunately for me, my brother did not mind hanging out with his geeky brother.  I am sure it hindered any chance of meeting a girl.  But what did I care.  I got to go see concerts I would never been able to see.

What amazes me about Springsteen is that he does not have an opening act.  AND…I cannot stress this enough…he plays for 2+ hours where most bands now will only play for 1 to 1.5 hours.  At this show, the Boss kept us all entertained for 4 hours! Of course there was an intermission.  Even the Boss has to go to the bathroom…

I was an eager but ignorant student.  Born in the USA was the extent of my knowledge of Springsteen.  There were few other songs I knew.  But when I heard Born to Run live, I was forever tattooed as a fan.  I was doe-eyed!  I was speechless.  By the intermission, I was drunk on the music.  And thanks to the overly expensive soda, I had to pee.

4 hours!  I could not believe it.  You would think an eighth grader would have gotten bored…and a minimal contact high.  But not me.  I enjoyed every note, every song.  I did not want to hear what I could get on the radio.  I wanted more songs I have never heard so they can be etched in my brain.  I wanted to go back to St. Thomas and brag that I got to see the Boss!  So I purchased a T-Shirt…Duh!  That is what you did!…And as we walked back to the car so we could sit in a line to get out, all I could think about was how feckin’ great this was.

I do not have the shirt anymore.  The ticket stub is long gone.  But I have the memory of seeing one of the best performers in the world.  Some people remember seeing Simon and Garfunkel in the Park, or the Stones, or the Beatles before they broke up.  I have Springsteen at Alpine Valley.  And to think, this one is number 5!

Prost!

the confucian brewer