Weezer at the Allstate Arena 10/02/08
I went to see Weezer at the Allstate Arnea back in October. It was an aweome concert! Here's my report on that.
Weezer at The Allstate Arena
10/02/08
I arrived at the Allstate Arena a little bit before the first band took the state. Because I decided to look at merchindise and get a pretzel before going in, I missed seeing the first part of Tokyo Poliece Club’s set. What I did see, however, I really liked. They seem like a cool band. I also noticed that one of the band members was wearing a Radiohead t-shirt like one of the ones I got at Lollapalooza this year.
The crowd was an interesting mix. There were a lot of people that I would guess were somewhere around my age or at least somewherei n there twenties, but then there were also a bunch of little boys. I thought that was nice, there always seem to be some Weezer fans in the 1q-13 year old range, which is about how old I was when got into them. I believe I was about 11.
Anyhow, I had gotten my ticket through a presale an wound up with a floor seat, which kind of made me nervous at first because the All State Arena is huge and the only time I was in a Weezer pit (1996) it was really rough. I was able to get a spot in about the third row, on the right side of the stage. I was stunned at how close I was able to get. The closest I’ve ever been at a Weezer concert. This was also my first time going to see Weezer on my own. Previously I’d been with different friends, but this time the friend who I was going to g with wasn’t able to make it.
Between Tokyo Police Club and the second band, Angels and Airwaves, a guy who was about my age arrived with his girlfriend. They went and stood near to these two little boys and the guy struck up a conversation with them about how he was their age when he first saw Weezer, and he was asking them about what their favorite songs are and albums, and then they got into telling them what to sort of expect from the show like pointing out the speakers and saying that it’d be pretty loud in this area, and that when Weezer come on stage there will be a rush forward but to just hold on to the rails. He asked them if they knew the Weezer b-side “Suzanne” and they said they hadn’t, he asked if they knew the movie Mallrats (which it’s from) and when they said they didn’t, he recommended it to them. He also talked to them about the black sessions and told them to go look for them online when they got home. He also suggested that they see Rushmore. One of the boys wanted to know if they’d be playing anything off of Rivers’ solo album, “Alone” and the guy said that they couldn’t due to record label stuff. It was just overall adorable to see this bridging of generations of fans. It made me smile, and I think that there were other conversations like that going on elsewhere in the audience.
Through the conversation that I overheard between the guy and the little boys I learned that Tom from Blink 182 was the front man for Angels and Airwaves. This made me more excited about that band, as I’m a fan of Blink 182 and had not really seen them play live. I say “not really” because I did sort of hear some of their set at Warped Tour 99, but didn’t see them, and don’t remember much of their set beyond an amusing cover of TLC’s “Waterfalls”. Angels and Airwaves were really good and they put on a good show. Tom talked about being in Chicago when he was 18 or something and driving through a huge snowstorm. He also talked about having a crush on his friend’s sister when they were about 12 or something like that. I think he said some other stuff but I don’ remember what. They had some cool llghts for their show and at one point Tom put on these glasses that had green lasers shoot from them over the audience.
Weezer came onstage wearing these white spacesuit type things and opened with “My Name is Jonas” during which I think Scott and Brian each took a verse, Scott definitely did. Then Rivers came I for the chorus and he did the later verse, think. For a lot of the songs that night different band members sang the lead part of the song, which was pretty interesting. The second song was “Pink Triangle” and then they played. Although “Perfect Situation” may have been before that. Scott sang lead on that one. After those first three songs they took off their white suits to reveal they were wearing matching red track suits.
I think that “Say it Ain’t So” played somewhere around then. That was really incredible. I’m not sure what made that performance extra special to me, but it was amazing. Then came “Suzanne” which was cool to hear live and it would have been surprising had the guy not told the boys about their playing it, before the concert. I think that Brian sang lead on that? Next was “Keep Fishin’ “ I found it interesting that they played some songs from Maladroit this time around. Last time I saw them was right before the release of Make Believe and they played nothing of f of Maladroit.
Rivers was a lot more talkative than I remember him being at other concerts, which was cool. He was also speaking multiple languages. He said to us at one point, “Hola, me llamo Rivers,” and then he said in Japanese what translates to something like “We play alternative rock music”. He went back to Spanish again later when he asked us, “Como estas chicas y chicos?” it was amusing.
Steve told us a story about a guy being there who took him to his first Weezer concert back in 1993. He said that they guy told him there was this band that he had to hear who were really heavy and had good melodies, and “he was right, he was right.” Then he sang "King”. That was followed by “Pork and Beans”, and then Rivers got a headset or the next song. While he was getting the thing set up, he said how uncool headsets are normally, but that “tonight it’s gonna be cool”. He told us that it would only be for one song, and then he asked us how it looked, the majority of people I think yelled something like “dorky!” but I think some may have yelled “cool!” Rivers then went on to say that “I can walk around and sing at the same time! The definition of dope, the definition of Ill, the definition of Rivers Cuomo -” and then they played “Dreamin’”.
Next came “Dope Nose”, and then Brian was give the wrong introduced the members of the band - “Everyone this is Scotty Bear, and on the electric drums is Patty Bear, and on the electric guitar, from Knoxville, Tennessee is Brian Bear. My name is Papa Bear, we are the Care Bears!”!” That intro went straight into “Trouble Maker” and during the “arts and crafts” part of the song Rivers came over to the right side of the stage and started jumping on a trampoline.
Rivers left the stage after that and Pat came up front with a guitar. He talked to us about how cool it is that our two teams (baseball teams Cubs and Sox) could play each other in the World Series, which got some boos, and the he said “Cubs suck!” which got half boos and half cheers, and then he tried “Go Cubs!” same response, “and then same, he tried once more with “Sox Suck? Go Sox?” which also met with a completely half and half response. He started laughing about that, and then said something about if the Red Sox can win the World Series, so can our teams. He played is song “Automatic” from the Red Album, and that had the drummer from Angels and Airwaves playing on drums. When Rivers came back on stage he pointed out that it was the drummer from Angels and Airwaves and said something about how that gave him an idea, he always wondered what a Weezer song sung by Tom DeLonge would sound like, so they brought him on stage and then Tom sang most of the lead part of “Undone (the Sweater Song)” which was really pretty cool.
Then they played “El Scorrcho”, which I think someone else sang, someone else meaning not Rivers. Pat came back up front after that and Rivers sat down at a different drum kit near the right side of the stage. Pat told us about how they know the brothers Gallagher and they were going to do this song for Noel because he’d gotten in a fight and broke some ribs or something during that song at some concert in Canada, and so they covered Oasis’ “What’s the Story Morning Glory” and that was really awesome. I’d never heard an Oasis song performed live (except for maybe at this local teen club thing I went to when was 12-14 where teens with bands or that played instruments could perform, that was awesome, but off topic). It was also neat to see/hear Rivers on drums.
They finished with “The Greatest Man That Ever Lived” for which Rivers wore a cowboy hat at the beginning.
Everyone went off stage for a bit, but then came back for the hootenanny portion of the show during which they had 30 Weezer fan join them on stage. This had been worked out prior to the concert, s it wasn’t random. A local radio station arranged this with Weezer. All the fans played instruments ranging from guitars to French horn, accordion, tuba, clarinet, etc. Rivers talked to a girl who said that she was from Kenosha, WI to which the crowd booed a little, and Rivers commented on us being harsh or something. He and/or one of the other guys in the band said something like, “that’s a real place?” lol. Rivers asked her to play a little bit on her clarinet and she did. They talked to a guy from St. Louis originally, who moved to Chicago recently and whose wife is from Chicago (that got some cheers) and then he was like “go Sox!” which got boos and cheers. He played a little solo bit on his instrument too and then Rivers said, “I think I know who’s getting the solos!”
First everyone played “Island in the Sun” and Rivers made the audience do all the “hip hips”. That sounded really cool with all the different instrument sounds, and sure enough he gave one of those people a solo. Then Rivers was like, “Let’s do Beverly Hills!” and he enlisted the audience to break up by gender in helping out with this song. He told the guys to sing the “Beverly Hills, that’s where I want to be!” part in their manliest voices. The guys practiced that couple of times, and then Rivers told the girls to sing the “Gimme Gimme” part in their most girly voice and really exaggerate it. After we did our part he said, “okay, well that sounded like a bunch of bird, but okay.” We kept cracking up with that. Then we did the song and it sounded a little weird, but it was fun.
The band shook the fans hands as they all walked off stage after they were done playing. Everyone seemed to have a lot of fun with that.
They had us wait a while before the encore, and then someone came on stage and set up a stool with a record player on top of it. Karl, the webmaster for Weezer, came on stage and put a record on playing “Heart Songs”. When the song was almost finished, Weezer came back on stage wearing slightly different outfits, like Scott was dressed in sort of boxing attire, and they stood there a minute, and then Rivers kicked over the stool right after the part where they reference Nirvana. Then the band played a really good cover of Nirvana’s “Sliver”. I think that might be the most Weezerish Nirvana song, content wise. They finished the night with “Buddy Holly”.
After the band was done playing they gathered together and took a bow, and then they signed a poster that either they had on the stage or that someone threw on it, and then tossed it back to the audience. They all waved and then left the stage.
It was an amazing concert. Definitely one of the best I’ve been to this year, and the best Weezer concert I’ve ever been to.
Weezer at The Allstate Arena
10/02/08
I arrived at the Allstate Arena a little bit before the first band took the state. Because I decided to look at merchindise and get a pretzel before going in, I missed seeing the first part of Tokyo Poliece Club’s set. What I did see, however, I really liked. They seem like a cool band. I also noticed that one of the band members was wearing a Radiohead t-shirt like one of the ones I got at Lollapalooza this year.
The crowd was an interesting mix. There were a lot of people that I would guess were somewhere around my age or at least somewherei n there twenties, but then there were also a bunch of little boys. I thought that was nice, there always seem to be some Weezer fans in the 1q-13 year old range, which is about how old I was when got into them. I believe I was about 11.
Anyhow, I had gotten my ticket through a presale an wound up with a floor seat, which kind of made me nervous at first because the All State Arena is huge and the only time I was in a Weezer pit (1996) it was really rough. I was able to get a spot in about the third row, on the right side of the stage. I was stunned at how close I was able to get. The closest I’ve ever been at a Weezer concert. This was also my first time going to see Weezer on my own. Previously I’d been with different friends, but this time the friend who I was going to g with wasn’t able to make it.
Between Tokyo Police Club and the second band, Angels and Airwaves, a guy who was about my age arrived with his girlfriend. They went and stood near to these two little boys and the guy struck up a conversation with them about how he was their age when he first saw Weezer, and he was asking them about what their favorite songs are and albums, and then they got into telling them what to sort of expect from the show like pointing out the speakers and saying that it’d be pretty loud in this area, and that when Weezer come on stage there will be a rush forward but to just hold on to the rails. He asked them if they knew the Weezer b-side “Suzanne” and they said they hadn’t, he asked if they knew the movie Mallrats (which it’s from) and when they said they didn’t, he recommended it to them. He also talked to them about the black sessions and told them to go look for them online when they got home. He also suggested that they see Rushmore. One of the boys wanted to know if they’d be playing anything off of Rivers’ solo album, “Alone” and the guy said that they couldn’t due to record label stuff. It was just overall adorable to see this bridging of generations of fans. It made me smile, and I think that there were other conversations like that going on elsewhere in the audience.
Through the conversation that I overheard between the guy and the little boys I learned that Tom from Blink 182 was the front man for Angels and Airwaves. This made me more excited about that band, as I’m a fan of Blink 182 and had not really seen them play live. I say “not really” because I did sort of hear some of their set at Warped Tour 99, but didn’t see them, and don’t remember much of their set beyond an amusing cover of TLC’s “Waterfalls”. Angels and Airwaves were really good and they put on a good show. Tom talked about being in Chicago when he was 18 or something and driving through a huge snowstorm. He also talked about having a crush on his friend’s sister when they were about 12 or something like that. I think he said some other stuff but I don’ remember what. They had some cool llghts for their show and at one point Tom put on these glasses that had green lasers shoot from them over the audience.
Weezer came onstage wearing these white spacesuit type things and opened with “My Name is Jonas” during which I think Scott and Brian each took a verse, Scott definitely did. Then Rivers came I for the chorus and he did the later verse, think. For a lot of the songs that night different band members sang the lead part of the song, which was pretty interesting. The second song was “Pink Triangle” and then they played. Although “Perfect Situation” may have been before that. Scott sang lead on that one. After those first three songs they took off their white suits to reveal they were wearing matching red track suits.
I think that “Say it Ain’t So” played somewhere around then. That was really incredible. I’m not sure what made that performance extra special to me, but it was amazing. Then came “Suzanne” which was cool to hear live and it would have been surprising had the guy not told the boys about their playing it, before the concert. I think that Brian sang lead on that? Next was “Keep Fishin’ “ I found it interesting that they played some songs from Maladroit this time around. Last time I saw them was right before the release of Make Believe and they played nothing of f of Maladroit.
Rivers was a lot more talkative than I remember him being at other concerts, which was cool. He was also speaking multiple languages. He said to us at one point, “Hola, me llamo Rivers,” and then he said in Japanese what translates to something like “We play alternative rock music”. He went back to Spanish again later when he asked us, “Como estas chicas y chicos?” it was amusing.
Steve told us a story about a guy being there who took him to his first Weezer concert back in 1993. He said that they guy told him there was this band that he had to hear who were really heavy and had good melodies, and “he was right, he was right.” Then he sang "King”. That was followed by “Pork and Beans”, and then Rivers got a headset or the next song. While he was getting the thing set up, he said how uncool headsets are normally, but that “tonight it’s gonna be cool”. He told us that it would only be for one song, and then he asked us how it looked, the majority of people I think yelled something like “dorky!” but I think some may have yelled “cool!” Rivers then went on to say that “I can walk around and sing at the same time! The definition of dope, the definition of Ill, the definition of Rivers Cuomo -” and then they played “Dreamin’”.
Next came “Dope Nose”, and then Brian was give the wrong introduced the members of the band - “Everyone this is Scotty Bear, and on the electric drums is Patty Bear, and on the electric guitar, from Knoxville, Tennessee is Brian Bear. My name is Papa Bear, we are the Care Bears!”!” That intro went straight into “Trouble Maker” and during the “arts and crafts” part of the song Rivers came over to the right side of the stage and started jumping on a trampoline.
Rivers left the stage after that and Pat came up front with a guitar. He talked to us about how cool it is that our two teams (baseball teams Cubs and Sox) could play each other in the World Series, which got some boos, and the he said “Cubs suck!” which got half boos and half cheers, and then he tried “Go Cubs!” same response, “and then same, he tried once more with “Sox Suck? Go Sox?” which also met with a completely half and half response. He started laughing about that, and then said something about if the Red Sox can win the World Series, so can our teams. He played is song “Automatic” from the Red Album, and that had the drummer from Angels and Airwaves playing on drums. When Rivers came back on stage he pointed out that it was the drummer from Angels and Airwaves and said something about how that gave him an idea, he always wondered what a Weezer song sung by Tom DeLonge would sound like, so they brought him on stage and then Tom sang most of the lead part of “Undone (the Sweater Song)” which was really pretty cool.
Then they played “El Scorrcho”, which I think someone else sang, someone else meaning not Rivers. Pat came back up front after that and Rivers sat down at a different drum kit near the right side of the stage. Pat told us about how they know the brothers Gallagher and they were going to do this song for Noel because he’d gotten in a fight and broke some ribs or something during that song at some concert in Canada, and so they covered Oasis’ “What’s the Story Morning Glory” and that was really awesome. I’d never heard an Oasis song performed live (except for maybe at this local teen club thing I went to when was 12-14 where teens with bands or that played instruments could perform, that was awesome, but off topic). It was also neat to see/hear Rivers on drums.
They finished with “The Greatest Man That Ever Lived” for which Rivers wore a cowboy hat at the beginning.
Everyone went off stage for a bit, but then came back for the hootenanny portion of the show during which they had 30 Weezer fan join them on stage. This had been worked out prior to the concert, s it wasn’t random. A local radio station arranged this with Weezer. All the fans played instruments ranging from guitars to French horn, accordion, tuba, clarinet, etc. Rivers talked to a girl who said that she was from Kenosha, WI to which the crowd booed a little, and Rivers commented on us being harsh or something. He and/or one of the other guys in the band said something like, “that’s a real place?” lol. Rivers asked her to play a little bit on her clarinet and she did. They talked to a guy from St. Louis originally, who moved to Chicago recently and whose wife is from Chicago (that got some cheers) and then he was like “go Sox!” which got boos and cheers. He played a little solo bit on his instrument too and then Rivers said, “I think I know who’s getting the solos!”
First everyone played “Island in the Sun” and Rivers made the audience do all the “hip hips”. That sounded really cool with all the different instrument sounds, and sure enough he gave one of those people a solo. Then Rivers was like, “Let’s do Beverly Hills!” and he enlisted the audience to break up by gender in helping out with this song. He told the guys to sing the “Beverly Hills, that’s where I want to be!” part in their manliest voices. The guys practiced that couple of times, and then Rivers told the girls to sing the “Gimme Gimme” part in their most girly voice and really exaggerate it. After we did our part he said, “okay, well that sounded like a bunch of bird, but okay.” We kept cracking up with that. Then we did the song and it sounded a little weird, but it was fun.
The band shook the fans hands as they all walked off stage after they were done playing. Everyone seemed to have a lot of fun with that.
They had us wait a while before the encore, and then someone came on stage and set up a stool with a record player on top of it. Karl, the webmaster for Weezer, came on stage and put a record on playing “Heart Songs”. When the song was almost finished, Weezer came back on stage wearing slightly different outfits, like Scott was dressed in sort of boxing attire, and they stood there a minute, and then Rivers kicked over the stool right after the part where they reference Nirvana. Then the band played a really good cover of Nirvana’s “Sliver”. I think that might be the most Weezerish Nirvana song, content wise. They finished the night with “Buddy Holly”.
After the band was done playing they gathered together and took a bow, and then they signed a poster that either they had on the stage or that someone threw on it, and then tossed it back to the audience. They all waved and then left the stage.
It was an amazing concert. Definitely one of the best I’ve been to this year, and the best Weezer concert I’ve ever been to.