Going Home: Night of the Living 90′s

After Ticketbastard sent out an email for free tickets to the 90′s throwback show, we passed up Citizen Cope for the “free” show. Of course service fees were levied. $10 for 3 tickets. I wasn’t really too concerned with Seven Mary Three, but Sponge and Marcy Playground intrigued me, especially for $3 per ticket. Arriving at Memorial Hall was like a walk down memory lane. The conversation was peppered with Remember when’s while we sat in the car finishing our beverages. The frenetic atmosphere of the entry on a concert night was nowhere to be found tonight. A few security personnel mingled about, putting up some barriers and chatting amongst themselves. As I waited in line at will call, I took the opportunity to read the quotes posted above the doors and windows of the large foyer. A building built in memory of soldiers and sailors with quotes that, ironically, seemed to lean more towards diplomatic and peaceful means of conflict resolution. Perhaps hindsight is 20/20. Tickets in hand, we waited on the front steps under the pigeon roosts. The tickets listed 7:00 p.m., but doors were still boarded shut and it was after seven. The crowd that had gathered outside wouldn’t even fill the Record Bar, Bottleneck, or other bar-sized venues around town. Apparently, free tickets were offered via the radio as well. Doors finally opened and the small group proceeded in. I chuckled when I noticed they were actually patting people down. After yielding my weapons and stash of gum, I walked past the corner reserved for band merch and noticed a single Memorial Hall security member seated at the table with a couple of items for sale. It didn’t look as if merch sales were going to be a priority this evening. The guy could have just as easily been selling free plague inoculations. I’m sure the line would have been longer. The small crowd was pretty much divided evenly amongst the seats and the floor. The group on the floor had pushed against the barriers and barely stretched four people deep. At one point I wondered whether they would just call the show or invite everyone on to the floor. The soundboard kept us entertained with favorites from the likes of Pearl Jam, Collective Soul, Live, and Offspring. Contrary to the writing on the mirror, the 90′s were a lot further away than they appeared. The place was still pretty empty when the lights went down and the stage lit up. Band members came out and donned their axes, but it wasn’t clear yet which band was going to get the opener slot. The opening notes of Wax Ecstatic screamed from the amps and Sponge’s frontman, Vinny Dombroski took the helm. The room might as well have been filled to capacity. Dombroski’s charismatic swagger had rock star written all over it. Clad in a black leather motorcycle vest and plaid western shirt, with black jeans and Terminator-style wraparound glasses, Dombroski came out with a nice touch of motor city garage attitude. Sponge’s 45 minute set sprinkled a blessing of Motown gospel over tunes like Sixteen Candles and Have You Seen Mary. Unfortunately, the highlights were diminished by efforts to rev up the crowd with singalong lyrics like “Party til ya’ drop”. repeated over and over. Did I mention over and over? Just to make sure the horse’s corpse wasn’t twitching, they led the crowd in one more round of “party til ya’ drop” before thankfully leaving the stage. Candidate number two on “Who Wants to Relive the 90′s?”, Marcy Playground, came to the stage with a simple “good evening” and launched into Poppies, the opening track from their 1997 debut album. The cautionary tale of the poppy’s history lacked the contextual backing that the heroine overdoses of two prominent 90′s front men, Cobaine and Hoon provided, but sounded just as fresh as the original recording. John Wozniak’s vocals were clean and concise over the crunchy guitar licks. His two bandmates in the rhythm section kept things tight as well. Having dismissed Marcy Playground as a radio one hit wonder, I never saw them in the 90′s. However, I was quite disappointed in my dismissal of their music after their 45 minute set. Of course they treated the crowd to Sex and Candy, but they also included a number of other patent 90′s numbers that included a nice round of Wozniak versus drummer Shlomi Lavie trying to catch each other off key. Each time Lavie crashed down on the drums, Wozniak met his demands with a round of noisy guitar. Wozniak took time to thank everybody for coming and to comment on the rarity of memorial halls in America. Reminding us that many of them have been torn down and how lucky we are to have a venue that has hosted Elvis and Patsy Cline in her final performance. Wozniak’s comments hit home, as my brother in law next to me had seen Soundgarden open for Skid Row here, Nirvana, Devo, and Frank Zappa, just to name a few others that he witnessed on the stage of Memorial Hall. Wozniak closed the night with a nice treatment of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. I was pretty sure Marcy Playground’s set was the crescendo for the evening and sure enough Seven Mary Three’s opening songs reminded me of the gateway opened in the late 90′s for bands like Creed, Nickleback, et al. With the gate open, our party agreed that it was time to leave and return the glass slippers. On the way out, I noticed members of Sponge and Marcy Playground engaged in conversations with fans at the bar. Certainly not an option for bands at the height of their careers, but it was nice to see that they appeared to be enjoying themselves as much as the few hundred people that came out to see them. Walking down the hill, I turned to my wife and told her, “you can never go home honey.” Perhaps, you can never go home, but if hindsight is always 20/20 then maybe looking back isn’t such a bad idea once in awhile.

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