).Crash + Burn
Ribbons
Train/Det
Flood I
Marian
Alice
Giving Ground
Corrosion
Anaconda
Susanne
Summer
Dominion
Floorshow
On The Wire
Romeo Down
Flood II
Something Fast
Vision Thing
Lucretia
Top Nite Out
Temple
I'm assuming this is also the setlist for Portland, inasmuch as it says 'Portland' in teensie little letters after 'Temple'...
The venue: El Corazón is...very small. With a barrier up, it's smaller still. So it was very, very full. I'm guessing the room capacity couldn't be much over 500, or people wouldn't be able to breathe. It was an all-ages show, so there were quite a few younglings, but they were mostly well-behaved. (I'm used to dealing with them at shows where they are most definitely not well-behaved at all...) There was a noticeable preponderance of black, but not all that much that was identifiably 'goth', particularly as compared with 2006. I'm not sure if it was a reaction against that tour, or if it was the lack of publicity. Someone who saw me with the setlist afterward asked if he could look at it; turned out he wanted to see what he'd missed, as he literally hadn't heard about it until tonight and got there after the show had started.
Smoke: Imagine it. That tiny room. The stage is only about 3-3.5 feet off the floor. So I'm...what, maybe 10 feet from Von at most? And there were times when he couldn't be seen. Nor Chris nor Ben. Nobody complained, though
Vocals: Variable. Sometimes he came through loud and clear. Sometimes he got a little mumbly. Early on, someone yelled 'Turn up the vocals!', but it was obvious cluelessness on his part. Whilst Romance's vocalist might have been 'heard' somewhat more, it certainly wasn't 'better' - you couldn't understand a word of it. It's my personal theory that there are people who expect a live show to sound 'just like the record'. They are idiots
Old material: You couldn't hear Von at all on Vision Thing, because every adolescent male in the audience was yelling the lyrics at the top of his lungs. I think they just like an excuse to say 'motherfucker'. Everything off Floodland and VT went over exceptionally well - no surprise there. Not that many seemed as familiar with anything older (weird - you think they'd at least have stumbled over Alice by now...). It was the truncated version of Floorshow - rats!
I'm wondering if they hadn't really worked that one much, though, as I'm not sure what he was singing for the second half of the first verse, other than it didn't sound as if he were extemporising, and it certainly wasn't The Lyrics As I Know Them. Perhaps he needs a little more time to brush up on that one...New(er)(ish)/unreleased material: Mostly received well, although because things like Summer and On The Wire are more nuanced, it seemed a bit harder for the crowd to engage. Top Nite Out, on the other hand, worked a charm
No banter - definitely not in a talkative mood, although not otherwise pissy, either. Some altercations with recalcitrant lights: one of them appeared to have fallen in love with Chris - got stuck there and refused to move - so he gave it a good swift kick. Didn't help much, though. Another at one point went wandering off course, and he just stood there staring down at the path of the light as it went its merry way. Eventually just shrugged it off, planted himself where it ended up (and his foot on the monitor) and carried on til things got back to normal.
Now, about my memory: I do not recall Something Fast being played. Possibly that was when the security guard climbed over me to 86 the yabbo who'd been giving us all grief most of the night. (I'm not going into detail about his bad behaviour; suffice it to say I was forced to tell the guy to shut the f**k up more than once, and also to, um, vigorously defend my position on the barrier against his incursions.) But the setlist is otherwise, in fact, as I recall it, so they don't have to send me to the home just yet...unless someone else actually remembers hearing it
That's the best I can manage for the moment - I need to go fall down now...
Also, being right front and centre, I was not paying a great deal of attention to what was going on behind me unless it interfered with my listening pleasure 