Historic event: 06/21/2000

long beach @ the lava lounge
thanks to melissa christine decapolissa@hotmail.com
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Hello, this is my review of the Lava Lounge concert, one of the most amazing concerts I have ever had the joy to be a part of, and I have been going to concerts since 1992.
I'm going to start with some pre-show fun, so if it will bore you feel free to skip to the next paragraph. First of all, the Lava Lounge is hard to find. If you look them up on the internet, you will find a lava lounge in Los Angeles, which is the wrong one. They way I found it was by looking it up in the OC Weekly. I found out that if you look under "Java Lanes" then you can find the phone number in the phonebook, because Java Lanes is connected with Lava Lounge. Anyway, it was well worth looking for!
I had to work until 7pm this day, but my friend was off from work so he was kind enough to try to get tickets for me. I called the venue at about 1pm from work to find out about this, and they said tickets would go on sale at 5pm. Too bad I didn't find out about this earlier! Anyway, I called my friend's cell and left him a message, he finally got in line for tickets at 4pm. He waited until 6pm and got nothing. I guess the size of the venue is 300, so they sold 300 tickets, a certain number for 18-21 year olds, and a certain number for 21+ (they've gotta make some money on alcohol!). They also gave out like 60 "waiting list" tickets, in case they had extra space. Suffice to say my friend didn't get ANYTHING, because I heard people were there as early as 6:30am!! Also, people who arrived at 1pm didn't get anything! So much for this being a secret show! Haha. By the way, it said on the marquee "WEEZER", not "Goat Punishment".
Anyway, I didn't care that I didn't have a ticket of course, I wanted to go anyway. So I went down there at around 7:30pm. There was already a long line of ticket holders, waiting for the doors to open around 9pm. I looked at one of their tickets, it was just a green ticket that looked like monopoly money but said "Java Lanes" on it. So I wandered around the bowling alley. I saw lots of Weezer fans wandering around. Then I saw Brian Bell playing pool! I was a bit star-struck. I ran back to the car to grab my Weezer CD's and sharpie, and a camera. When I returned he graciously signed my liner notes and took a picture with me. Later, I saw some people standing by a doorway where there was a security guard in the back of the pool hall. I walked over and saw they were handing their CD to someone peeking out of the doorway to get it signed. So when the nice lady brought back their CD I asked if they could sign my liner notes, and she said sure and took them in, and a few seconds later, I had Rivers', Mikey's, and Pat's signatures. No photos though.
I hung out longer, wandering around, when I bumped into a guy I used to work with a few years ago. He happened to have a friend who was good friends with Brian and had been to a lot of Spacetwins shows. He said he would be able to get me in even though I had no ticket. Just before Weezer went onstage at around 11:15pm (Mention played first at 9pm, then Other Star People at 10pm with Jennifer Finch "L7"), the guy found me and pulled me inside, and I got a wristband, paid my $10 and was in to the show!
It was a bit of a miracle, considering I haven't talked to this friend in a couple years. What are the chances! Mention and Other Star People were visible and audible from the bowling alley because they left the back door open, but I was pretty much either stalking the members of Weezer or trying to figure out a way into the show while those two bands were playing, so I can't tell you much about them. By the way, does anyone know who is opening for Weezer at the Glass House? After I got my wristband I was allowed to come and go as I wanted. I actually had an 18-21 wristband (I am over 21) because there was no more room in the 21+ area (the closest to the stage) so I was in the 18-21 area which was roped off farther from the stage (but in such a small place I was still really close!) So I left the venue and went to the pool hall again and hung out. Finally a lot of security showed up and walked the members of Weezer over to the stage. It was really cool. I sprinted back inside just in time to see them pick up their instruments.
Ok, here is the show information, starting with a setlist: Show Begins 11:30pm
1) My Name is Jonas
2) El Scorcho
3) No One Else
4) New Song (My Brain?)
5) New Song (Preacher's Son?)
6) In the Garage
7) Why Bother?
8) New Song (Oh Girl?)
9) New Song (Dope Knows?)
10) Tired of Sex
11) Say It Ain't So
12) Undone
------------------------------- Encore
13) Buddy Holly
14) Surf Wax America
Show Ends 12:20am
Ok here are some show details. Several times during the show Rivers made the "W" with his hands. (I think they all did). The New Songs have my best guess at titles from talking to Mikey and Rivers. They were a bit cryptic, but I heard things here and there from various conversations after the show, so I am uncertain of those titles. Song #4 features the lyric "Take these brains out of my head", song #5 "But I'll never let you go cuz I've got you in my home gonna mold you into something I like", song #8 "How can you get all mad/look so sad, tears on your face", song #9 "just don't know/enjoy the show".
Mikey does a great job on singing falsetto and has a really good stage presence. (But I still miss Matt). A few minutes after the show Rivers and Mikey were in front of the venue talking to all the fans, taking photos, signing autographs. Pat and Brian exited through the back door but I was still able to say goodbye and thanks before they left. I also got photos with all of them separately. A 30-ish woman who looked like a stripper took off her clothes and had Mikey and Rivers sign her ass. Security made everyone leave.
Of course I came back a few minutes later when the crowd had left and there was Rivers talking with a few people. I just stood there and basked in his presence. Rivers then sat down and we all sat together and talked, it was incredible. I asked him if he was excited about the Warped Tour and he said he is anxious, and that everyone can only play for 30 minutes, which seems kind of crappy to me. I also said it would be interesting to see them play with Green Day (from El Scorcho: I asked you to go to the Green Day concert, you said you never heard of them) and he just laughed and said he hadn't thought about that. I left at around 2:30am. I would go to Spaceland tonight but I already had tickets for another concert (blink) long before these Weezer shows were announced. But heck, Weezer doesn't go onstage until 11:45 at the earliest, so maybe I'll go by after the other concert. :)
I'll be at Warped Tour and the Glass House as well. I hope you enjoyed this review, sorry you couldn't be at the concert (if you didn't make it)
thanks to mark pregen for this review
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well i luckily got into the weezer show last night. after sitting in miserable traffic for over an hour i arrived at spaceland at 7:30pm, and surprisingly found people lined up around the block and up the street... i was amazed how many people had shown up. .... but if that's not crazy enough they told me that the first 10 people in line got there at 11am in the morning!! seriously...what's the hell? they must be insane or something. anyhow they started letting people in around 8:45... i was surprised to find my friend jworking at the door, i had a short chat with her to find out that spaceland has a maximum capacity of 250 persons! (for some reason i thought it was a bit bigger) the first two bands that played..."white stripes" and "other star people" were horrible, as i should have expected, i walked around and said hi to a bunch of people i hadn't seen in a while. around midnight weezer slipped into the club... they pretty much had all the work cut out for them, their equipment was already set up, and karl had a complete workstation set up right next to the stage with the rack of guitars and all kinds of tools which seemed maybe a bit unnecessary. right before the guys went on i saw him write out a set list.
weezer took the stage shortly after midnight... rivers was of course back to his bowl cut and nerd glasses, brians hair was so long i could barely see his face when he started playing (not unlike johnny from radiohead), pat looked like he had just gotten off tour with supergrass, and mikey... hey he kinda looks like matt sharp (he also did is best attempt to do all of matts moves and sing his parts as well... not bad, he passed) they opened up with "jonas" and played a similar set to what i saw posted of earlier shows this week except i think they played more new songs (about 4-5) i'd have to hear them more times before i could decide if i liked them or not, some were better than others but they definately had a different sound. they were still pop songs but more rockin or "bad ass" if you will, one of them sounded like a song nirvana could have written. if they could be compared to any of weezers earlier stuff i'd say "getchoo" is the closest comparison i could think of. i stood near the right side of the stage for the first half of the set between robert zabreky from possum dixon, and who i beilieved to be was brians girlfriend. i got tired of standing and took a seat at the bar for the rest of the show.
"tired of sex" was my personal highlight.. hell i havn't listen to either of the weezer cds in over a year so it was refreshing to hear all the old songs again. pat seemed to have rewritten a lot of drum parts (either that or he went so long without playing he forgot them) most noticibly he added a lot of stuff to "el scorcho" and the intro to "undone" was so different i didn't even recognize it for the first couple of seconds. during "say it aint so" rivers forgot some of the lyrics of the verse and made a really funny face and shrugged his shoulders, as some kid in the audience reached up and gave him a high five. they ended the set and returned less than a minute later for an encore and played "surf wax america" and closed the show with "buddy holly"... i immediately left the club and found a lot of people still outside (probably people who didn't get in) and jose from ozma passing out flyers for upcoming ozma shows. there was also a band of a bunch of kids setting up right in front of the club, drum kit, amps and all. right before they started playing a guy from spaceland made them leave. at first i thought it was a cool idea but then i realized they were stupid for thinking they could get away with that (afterall spaceland is just a bar smack in the middle of a residential area, they would have pissed off a lot of people) anyhow it was a fun night, it was nice to see weezer again!!
thanks to doug for this review
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==See also==
*Super-Chrono - 2000
Category:Super-Chrono - June 2000