Ween Night 2 - House of Blues

My second night of Ween in three days was at the House of Blues in Dallas. I’d throw them a link, but since they wouldn’t let me bring my camera to the show they can suck it. Matter of fact, from here on out they shall be referred to as “the venue”. The venue is fairly new so this was my first trip there. It’s nice, but security seemed a little overimpressed with themselves. I heard there were bathroom attendants, which is kind of cool, but I never set foot in there so I didn’t get to experience that.

I got there about an hour before the doors were scheduled to open. Even without the camera I wanted to be as close as possible. There were some people in front of me, but not too many. They finally let us in about 15 minutes late. It felt great to get back into an air conditioned space! Through some sort of connections, I surmise, there were already people along most of the barrier up front. I headed over toward the right though and found a spot over on the far right side of the stage. Oddly enough social JC showed up that night, so I talked to the girl who was standing next to me. All I had to say was “Have you been to any of the other Texas shows?” and she was off and running. She and her friends had been to all of them! That’s hardcore. She even bought me a beer. I guess sometimes it pays off to be social.

Overall I thought it was a great show, but I didn’t think it was the best Ween show I have been to. If I would have had any say about it I’d have voted for fewer repeats from Thursday, but that’s a minor complaint. The sound was really bass-heavy, and it was hard to understand Deaner when he spoke into his mic (although when he sang it was OK). Pretty good sound overall, although I thought the sound at Stubb’s was a little better, which is surprising for an outdoor venue. The Deaner-sung stuff absolutely destroyed, especially “I Got to Put the Hammer Down” and “Awesome Sound”. Deaner broke a guitar string during “Awesome Sound” and had to switch out guitars in the middle of the song. Not to mention that a drum had to be replaced during Claude’s drum solo in “Waving My D*** In the Wind”, and he didn’t miss a beat (heh). One oddity was that they played one of their new songs, “Fiesta”, twice. It was the first song they played as well as the first song of the encore. I’m guessing maybe they needed a song they could play without Gener because he didn’t come out with the rest of the band at the beginning of the encore. I don’t know, maybe it was just a screw-up. For me the highlights were “Awesome Sound”, “Hammer”, “What Deaner Was Talkin’ About”, “Big Jilm”, “Homo Rainbow”, and “Buenas Tardes Amigo”. Not to mention that the show closed with a 30 minute(!) version of LMLYP that included amazing bass and drum solos.

One good thing about the Ween is that you get great value for your concert dollar. This show was 2 hours and 55 minutes! The Austin show I went to was 2:45. This is why most other concerts seem so damn short to me.

I have seen people bitching on the Ween forum about the Dallas show. “The band was tired”, “The crowd sucked”, blah, blah, blah. These people don’t know what they’re talking about. The crowd was going nuts and sang along to every single song. Hell, listen to the torrent – the crowd is almost as loud as Gener. And the band didn’t sound tired even though they had every excuse to since this was the fourth show in four days. I think part of this is that a lot of people hate Dallas (understandable sometimes) as well as the fact that the night before in Austin was an epic show. You know that long setlist from my Austin post? On night two they played a setlist just as long with not a single duplication from the previous night, including one of my all-time favorite songs that I have never seen live – “Fluffy”. That’s something like 66 songs over 2 days! It killed me that I couldn’t be there on Friday, but I had a previous commitment that was set in stone. At least I’ve got the audio. Dallas was more of a standard setlist, but it was still a great show. Oh, and I bet that 2/3s if not more of that audience was at Stubb’s too, so a lot of the people in this “terrible” crowd were part of the “great” crowd too. I guess the poor babies were tired. Hell, there was even a guy who crowd surfed and ended up on the stage at the end of “Powder Blue”. What did we have to do, burn the damn place down?

After the show I lingered trying to get a setlist. No luck there. I almost got a drumstick. The roadie threw it towards the row of people at the front of the barricade. I anticipated that it would bounce off of their hands, which it did, and it hit a guy looking the other way and then hit the floor. I shamelessly dived onto the floor and grabbed it with both hands. Right after I did, this girl also grabbed on with both hands. We both stood up and I was unsuccessful in wrestling it away from from her. We were in a Mexican standoff - both holding on to the drumstick with two hands. She claimed that she had it first (which was total BS). These guys standing around said "Let her have it". I was pretty much screwed. What was I was going to do, punch her? So I let her have it (the drumstick). There's always next time I guess.

Setlist:
Fiesta
Take Me Away
Transdermal Celebration
Waving My Dick In The Wind
Mr. Richard Smoker
Slow Down Boy
Bananas & Blow
Spinal Meningitis
Voodoo Lady
The Party
Buckingham Green
Zoloft
Gabrielle
Touch My Tooter
Stallion Pt 5
Put the Hammer Down
Awesome Sound
The HIV Song
The Mollusk
What Deaner Was Talking About
Piss Up A Rope
Booze Me Up and Get Me High
Big Jilm
Sweet Texas Fire
Mister, Would You Please Help My Pony?
I’ll Be Your Jonny On The Spot
Homo Rainbow
Buenas Tardes Amigo

Encore:
Fiesta
Powder Blue
Ocean Man
LMLYP

If you want to hear The Ween for yourself, here are links to the torrent downloads:

Houston (I'm taking this one down, the sound quality sucks!)
Austin Night 1
Austin Night 2
Dallas