Phish, Alpine Valley, 6/30 & 7/1/12

Okay, I think I'm ready to talk about these shows.

To a non-Phish fan, or even a casual Phish fan, I'm sure these shows were fun. I enjoyed a few moments of them, here and there. But to someone who has seen this band a lot (and I consider myself a borderline fan of that department -- these shows were my 23rd and 24th times seeing Phish), these shows were a let-down before they even happened.

The band played two shows at Verizon Wireless, no, First Bank, no...ummm... screw it, Deer Creek in Indianapolis prior to Alpine Valley. And they were some of the choicest setlists the band has laid down, in my opinion, since 1999 or 2000. Bust-outs of old-school Phish originals (McGrupp, Tela, Sanity, and David Bowie, which was first on my "gotta have it" list this year) and ultra-rare cover songs like Velvet Underground's Cool It Down AND Sweet Jane (only the second time played each, and first since Halloween 1998), and the ultimate knife in the back, Blues Image's Ride Captain Ride, which I've been quietly chasing since 1998, at Deer Creek actually had me considering that I should sell my tickets to the first night at Alpine Valley. Typically, when Phish throws down some magic, the next show is a phone-in. While I wouldn't call either Alpine Valley show a phoned-in show, there's just no way that they could have been even comparable to the Deer Creek shows. I mean, I'm still steaming over Ride Captain Ride...I've missed it by one show at least two or three times now, and even missed it a few times at shows I should have been at, but didn't attend for whatever reason.

That all being said, the shows were still decently fun. They played a few originals that I was still excited to hear, like The Sloth, Reba, Runaway Jim, 2001, Maze, a cover of Talking Heads' Crosseyed and Painless, Let it Loose by the Rolling Stones, and, perhaps the highlight of the two shows, the 1-2 opening punch of Bob Marley's Soul Shakedown Party and Velvet Underground's Lonesome Cowboy Bill on Sunday night. It's quite possible that they'll never play Lonesome Cowboy Bill again, as, like the VU covers at Deer Creek, it hadn't been played since it's original bust-out on 10/31/98. 

Beyond the aforementioned original and cover-song highlights, the Alpine Valley shows were average at best, unfortunately. The critical side of my mind gets disappointed when I think about it, but after some reasoning and self-condolences, I tell that critical voice to shut the fuck up and just enjoy the shows for what they are -- a few nights to kick back with good friends, old acquaintences, and crunchy, hetty jamz.

Euro 2012: the commentary

(Note: this was originally penned on June 28, and not finished until Mid-July.) The title isn't meant to imply that we're discussing my commentary in this post...I want to bring attention to the sheer brilliance of the call brought on by perhaps my favorite announcers of any sport, ever: Adrian Healey and Ian Darke.

That's not to say that any of the other worldly futbol announcers aren't as good. They're all good. Listening to the call of a Euro 2012 match, or any major match, is so.damn.enjoyable.

These guys not only know what they're talking about. They're natural linguists. In the commentator bios I found, I discovered that all of them are at least bilingual. Then again, I suppose that in England or anywhere else in Europe, it's common to classify yourself as multilingual. Fact: people who speak more languages have a more firm grasp on vocabulary, and generally kick ass at speaking and describing things. Toss in an English accent, and I'm really, really starting to hate Phil Simms.

I also love the terminology used for sports that I have never heard in any other arena. Being "unlucky" is the term for banking one off the crossbar, or suffering a foul without gaining anything for it. In baseball, a homerun is "robbed" from a hitter -- there is no luck involved. Certainly no luck in American football -- a kicker who misses a 45-yard field goal to put the team ahead as the clock expires is not "unlucky" -- he is a scape goat for the team's failure to dominate, and thusly shamed forever. (See: Martin Gramatica) In basketball, you're layin' bricks from 3-Point Land, but you're certainly not "unlucky." Perhaps you could actually be unlucky in curling, but that's about the only instance I could think of.

They also seem to discuss the individuals' decisions much more than, say, the NFL or MLB. European futbol fans seem more apt to blame, and in some instances, crucify players for a single poor decision that they made on a corner kick or missed header. In the NFL, we are aware of the bad players but simply don't draft them in fantasy leagues and try to hide their lack of skills by blanketing it on the general defensive or offensive deficiency. In the MLB, you can get away with sucking for a long, long time without getting benched. Hell, Rickie "Don't Call Me Dick" Weeks is batting .183 for half a season and still finds unquestioned daily starting time. You don't hear Rock commenting on Rickie's poor decisions. If anything, it's that he's more unlucky and getting robbed in the field, or not seeing pitches that well. Excuses.

Maybe it's the accents. Foreign terms and concepts. Some other X-factor. But I think half the reason why I get completely sucked into World Cup, Olympics, and Euro 2012 is the superb quality of commentary.

I'm melting...melting...

I'm pretty sure I haven't ever experienced heat of this magnitude in Wisconsin before. The weather guys say that 1988 was pretty bad, and I do remember various stretches from my youth when it was ungodly hot outside...but in more recent adult memory, this summer takes the cake. In fact, my family has been quoting Robin Williams from "Good Morning, Vietnam!" for the past two weeks.

Since June 30, when I came to Milwaukee for summer vacation and various concerts, Brewers games, and other 414-fun, I don't think it's dipped into the 70s during daylight hours. I went to Phish on June 30 and July 1 (review still forthcoming), and I thought those days were hot...I think the mercury hit the low 90s on those days. That would be refreshing after the past two weeks.

It started getting unbearable on July 2-3...on the 3rd, I had plans to hit the mid-afternoon Brewers game at 3 and then head to Summerfest for Tiesto. It was hot. Damn hot.

On July 5, it was even worse -- luckily we were able to trade our 3rd base line Brewers tickets (which would have been directly in the sweltering sun) to the 1st base side, which was only 102 in the shade. I had to take a few trips to the concourse to visit the giant ceiling fans for relief. Even though it cooled off a bit over the weekend (only in the low-90s), the humidity intensified over Monday and Tuesday to deliver what might have been the worst heat of July yet...today we broke records in Milwaukee, topping 103 degrees.

I went disc golfing this morning at Brown Deer Park...it was 90 degrees when I started at 9 am, and 95 when I finished at 10:30. By this afternoon, it was ridiculous...how do people live in this weather in the south? I know it's all relative -- southerners would ask how we Wisconsinites bear the sub-zero temps in January and February. (And December and March, to a lesser extent.) I'd much rather put on layers and layers of clothing instead of trying to strip down to less than the birthday suit. Which still leaves you hot and sweaty when it's 100+ degrees. As long as the AC is rocking, I guess I can bear the heat. Fingers crossed for no rolling blackouts.

Summerfest. Paul Oakenfold. 7-6-2012, Miller Lite Oasis

After seeing Tiesto on the big stage not three days prior, I knew I'd find Paul Oakenfold vastly superior or pathetically inferior to the super-huge European club god. And while I'm not going to admit that Paul Oakenfold is necessarily a better DJ than Tiesto, I certainly enjoyed his show more.

No contest, Oakenfold ripped the Miller Lite Oasis apart on this obscenely muggy Friday night. While suffering from a stripped down stage show and, frankly, rapist-esque looks and points at the crowd, his beats just shook the joint. He aptly mixed a few American classics into his set, including Seven Nation Army by The White Stripes, Scar Tissue by Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Lenny Kravitz's Are You Gonna Go My Way, among a few others I'm sure I'm forgetting.

Much like Tiesto, he'd build a beat around a common song, whether it from the aforementioned list, or a few that touched on the cheesy, generic female-vocalist-from-Europe verses that plagued Teisto's set on Tuesday. But the beats...oh, the beats. Oakenfold's drops were about as heavy as I've experienced in recent concert-going memory ("recent" meaning...post-2005). It was clear from the geto-go that I would clearly be adhering to a sober version of Ali G's "dancing like a prick" theory. Pretty much every beat put out by Oakenfold was, well, sweet-ass music to this guy's ears.

Style of music: Oakenfold by a full length over Tiesto.

Oakenfold did score some unwanted super-creepy points with his stage presence, though. He rarely emerged from behind his tables, which wasn't too bad, but when he did, it was as if he didn't quite know what to do with himself. A clap-clap here, and then I'll go to the other side, clap-clap over there, annnnnd, OK, I'm going back behind my tables.

Even creepier was "the point." There are many times when, during a DJ's set, the DJ doesn't have anything to do. The tunes are moving, your next beat is cued up and ready to go, and you've got 30 seconds to kind of...enjoy the moment. Oakenfold had this bad habit of holding onto his knobs for most of that time, and giving the crowd a creepy look. I just couldn't get on board with that -- it only allowed everyone to see how much time he wasted not doing anything. A few times, he'd realize, "Oh crap, I have about 43 seconds left until I actually have to turn these knobs, I'd better do something." So, instead, he'd give that creepy look to the audience again and point. Really awkwardly, just at one random person in the crowd. I think his intention was to point and emote the idea, "Here it comes, you're gonna love this." It ended up making him look like the guy who invented the idea of rape vans.

Style of stage-presence:  Oakenfold, if you're into watching a DJ make you feel really awkward, even among  a sea of 5,000 people.

Absolute creepiness aside, his set was just really spectacular. For a free stage that wasn't crowded at all on a Friday night, this one gets award for "happy unexpected moment from Summerfest 2012." (See De La Soul 7/9/11 for last year's recipient.) I will have to upload the videos at a later date when I get back to my "home" computer, my iPad will not allow me to load videos.

Summerfest 7/3/12: Tiësto & Steve Aoki @ Marcus Amphitheater

After an already hot Brewers game (temperature of 97 in the sun while hanging out in the parking lot), my companion and I made it to the Marcus Amphitheater for Tiësto. I had never seen him before, and I generally like to support acts that don't suck that Summerfest brings in. Tiësto was definitely enough of a draw to earn my extra dollar for the Marcus ticket.  The tickets came out to $28/each, thanks to a web deal that indicated to me that the show was selling terribly.

Sold terribly it did indeed. Most of the second yellow section of the Marcus went unfilled. Only the center five green bench seating sections were occupied. There was plenty of lawn space off to the sides, until, during Steve Aoki, security opened up the gates between bench seating and lawn, thusly making the whole place feel even more empty.

Steve Aoki was the first full set we got there in time to see, and although I had heard he's pretty good, I left only liking about half of his material. Some of his set included stuff that had a harder, grindier sound to it, or was straight up dubstep, which is fun for about four seconds. He was quite lively on stage, making laps a few times, and throwing half-sheet cakes into the crowd (perhaps from Metro Market?) on two separate occasions. The highlight of Aoki's set were, unfortunately, the 9:30 Big Bang fireworks, and a fun, bouncy remix of Kid CuDi's "Pursuit of Happiness."

Tiësto, on the other hand, is a few steps higher on production and professional scale. Lights, a pretty killer LED screen backdrop, and dry ice shooters (like anti-pyrotechnics?) added enough eye candy so Tiësto didn't have to resort to silly laps and gimmicks on stage.

The music was mostly a hit, although I did find Tiësto's routine to become overly formulaic at a few times. He'd play a song with Euro-ish lyrics in the background, build it, drop the bass, then repeat two or three times. Most of the cycles were hits, or badly needed breaks from some hot beats. A rare song in the mix did drag and had me thinking, "Get to the workin' overtime part!"  He dabbled on a few catchy European DJ remixes that I couldn't quite place, and also the hit of the summer that no band or DJ can possibly resist playing, Gotye's "Somebody That I Used To Know."

Tiësto's productions, however, were pretty spot on. Without having to say so much as a word, Tiësto was able to rile fans into a frenzy with animated projections on the screen behind him, and also below, covering the stage from about three feet and lower.  At times, the projections were amazing complements to the music. At others, they were the main attraction.

Tiësto provided enough of a bouncy, Euro club atmosphere in a large American shed to make everyone care enough that it was probably less than 50% full. Seeing as how his tour is called "Club Life," I'd say he was pretty spot on.  Oh, and PS, these bucket-drummers that play outside of Summerfest for donations are incredible.