blood on the tracks

My trip to see St. Paul (Westerberg)

So I left Thursday evening to go see Paul Westerberg for two nights in Minneapolis....home of Westerberg, Dylan, Prince, Trip Shakespeare.

I have always wanted to go there and actually see him in his hometown and with a band was too much to pass up.

We left Thursday evening and had a relatively uneventful 7 hour drive until I decided it was time to get some sleep. We stopped at a lovely Red Roof Inn and caught some shuteye.

Got up the next morning and headed for Minneapolis. Got into town and went to our this-time-I-mean-it lovely hotel.

 

Strangely enough due to Adrienne's diligence and Priceline we paid less for this 4-star hotel in downtown Minneapolis then we did for the Red Roof Inn the night before.

There was a gathering before hand for "WesterNerds" at Lee's Liquor Lounge. It was a group of people from the Men Without Ties website. I didn't really know anyone but we got to talking to a guy who lived in St Paul and knew all the history of Minneapolis and the scene.

Lee's is a great bar. Wood paneling, red lights, strong drinks. Some guy was passing out  CD's from the recent Westerberg show in London. I've never had the pleasure to be around anyone more worked up about Westerberg than me. Met Kathy the woman who runs the Westerberg site.

Now off to the show. So I have possibly the WORST seats of anyone in the whole place. I'm not exaggerating...back row of the back balcony. The guy we met at Lee's didn't have a ticket and was hanging out front of the Pantages looking for scalpers. I found a guy willing to trade my tickets in the back plus $30 for 6th row seats. Considering I bought the back row tickets for half off face value I got 6th row tickets for less than the price of two regulars.

 

The show was amazing. The band was tight...almost too tight for me. The usual Westerberg sloppiness and danger seemed to be missing a bit. Michael Bland, the ex drummer from Prince was a giant on drums. They sounded great and Westerberg was singing wonderfully.

Paul Westerberg and the Painkillers *
5 November 2004
Pantages Theater - Minneapolis, MN
* = Kevin Bowe (guitars, vocals), Jim Boquist (bass, vocals), Michael Bland (drums)

Waiting For Somebody
Final Hurrah
Kiss Me On The Bus
My Dad
AAA
Achin’ To Be
Mr Rabbit (Kevin Bowe on mandolin)
Making Me Go
Let The Bad Times Roll
As Far As I Know
Little Mascara
Valentine
High Time
new song ?? (solo electric)
Sadly Beautiful (solo acoustic 12 string)
Crackle & Drag (solo acoustic 12 string)
If Only You Were Lonely (solo acoustic 12 string)
Lookin’ Up In Heaven (acoustic w/ band)
What A Day (For A Night) (acoustic w/ band)
Love Untold (PW on electric 12 string)
I Will Dare (PW on electric 12 string)
I Think I Love You (Partridge Family cover)
Alex Chilton
Left Of The Dial

ENCORE
MPLS (PW on blues harp)
I’ll Be You
Folk Star / Jingle
Only A Hobo (Dylan cover)
Can’t Hardly Wait

At one point we got by security and up to the front of the stage...then I got depressed...

Westerberg's songs sound fairly simple at first. But watching him play that close up I realized what an amazing guitar player he is. So much nuance and idiosyncrasies. He also uses lot's of alternate tunings which made it nearly impossible to understand what the hell he was doing. I was humbled.

His solo music which I have always loved held up as well as any of the Replacements stuff. Lot's of people think the solo stuff isn't any good but they aren't listening closely enough or with too much baggage.

I left in a fairly quiet and thoughtful mood. We walked by Minneapolis legendary First Avenue club. It closed recently but hopefully it will reopen and I can visit. Here's how cool Minneapolis is...the Sunday paper on the cover had an article about the club closing as well as a blurb about the Pixies on the cover of the entertainment section. It'd be like the Dispatch having a cover story when Stache's closed. The mayor was even quoted talking about First Avenue. I can;t see Mayor Michael Coleman and I checking out the Silver Jews at Little Brothers but who knows. I did recently see him at a Halloween party.

We walked back to Lee's wanting another drink but it was a $6 cover to go back in. We walked back to the hotel and called it a night.

I got up the next AM and headed out to see Minneapolis. Adrienne wasn't feeling so hot so she stayed home. I caught a cab first to the Uptown Bar where Tommy and Bob Stinson's mother tends bar. The Replacements used to play there regularly also. They are known for their Bloody Mary's in the morning and i can safely say that I've never seen so many people drinking in the morning in my life.

 

The bummer is I lost Adrienne's camera in the back of the cab on the way over. So I lost all the pictures from Friday night. We had some great shots from the show as well.

I hit all the local record stores as well as the CC Club a regular Replacements hangout. 

The house where the cover shot of Let It Be was taken:

 

So it was on to the show Saturday night. Adrienne and I made a mad dash an hour before the show to buy her some clothes. I decided she's look good in a short short skirt and some black tights. And she did look great.

 

Tried to get better seats tonight also but the scalper wanted another $100 for front row so we went to our balcony seats. There were nimrod assholes all around talking while they played early on. It's like talking through church. I almost dragged out my asshole side and hit some heads together. Finally I decided it was time to see if we could get upfront again. The security was having none of it though but we ducked into a row with a few empty seats about 10 rows back and watched most of the show from there. The band and Westerberg were even better this night. They were looser and played much more intensely I thought.

Paul Westerberg and the Painkillers *
6 November 2004
Pantages Theater - Minneapolis, MN
* = Kevin Bowe (guitars, vocals), Jim Boquist (bass, vocals), Michael Bland (drums)

Dust My Broom (Elmore James cover)
Waiting For Somebody
Final Hurrah
Kiss Me on the Bus
My Dad
AAA (with bits of Anyway’s All Right)
Mr. Rabbit (up tempo country-rock version) (Bowe on mandolin)
Making Me Go
No Place For You
Now I Wonder
As Far As I Know
Born For Me
High Time
Little Mascara
Sky way (solo acoustic 12 string)
Things (solo acoustic 12 string)
Crackle and Drag (solo acoustic 12 string)
Lookin’ Up in Heaven (acoustic 12 string with band)
What a Day (For a Night) (acoustic 12 string with band)
Waitress in the Sky (acoustic 12 string with band)
First Glimmer (electric 12 string with band)
I Will Dare (electric 12 string with band)
I.O.U.
Never mind

ENCORE 1
MPLS (PW on blues harp) >
It’s All Over Now (Stones cover, actually originally done by Bobby Womack)
Knockin’ On Mine
Can’t Hardly Wait


ENCORE 2
Alex Chilton
Left of the Dial

Alex Chilton, IOU and Nevermind were absolutely over the top and the crowd was going crazy. Skyway acoustic was beautiful. As Far as I Know from Stereo was amazing also. I left the show dazzled and stunned. Confirmation for my contention that Westerberg is the king.

We waited outside a bit to see if he'd come out but after about 10 minutes I got tired of waiting. We stopped by the 400 Bar another former Replacements playing area. This is hanging on the wall:

 

On the way back we stopped to see if there was anyone out back of the Pantages...and sure enough there was Westerberg hanging out talking to a small handful of friends. Got him to sign my ticket and we goofed around a bit.

 

We woke up early the next morning and made the agonizingly long drive home. 13 hours......yikes. Worth every bit of it....

The Day of the Dead

"America our nation has been beaten by strangers who have turned our language inside out who have taken the clean words our fathers spoke and made them slimy and foul

their hired men sit on the judge's bench they sit back with their feet on the tables under the dome of the State House they are ignorant of our beliefs they have the dollars the guns the armed forces the power plants

they have built the electric chair and hired the executioner to throw the switch

all right we are two nations."

John Dos Passos

Ok...we lost the other day, at least on paper. I spent yesterday in total shock and despair. Ready to move out of the country, or at least to a blue state. I felt like a foreigner in my own country.

After spending a week where I did almost nothing except work to get out the vote for Kerry it was a shock and disappointment. After 13 hours in the rain Tuesday to come home and watch that...to say I felt sick to my stomach would be an understatement.

Today my resolve is back a bit. And frankly to me the gay marriage amendments passing all over is just as or more upsetting than Bush being elected. This isn't about democrat versus republican. It isn't about Bush vs. Kerry. People are all talking about reforming the Democratic Party. What do we have to do to win? Fuck the Democratic Party and fuck winning. This is bigger than all that. This is the age long battle from ignorance and superstition to reason and compassion. It's the same battle we fought to form America. The same battle to free the slaves...for civil rights...for women's right to vote.

The fight is against the same type of people. The people who are in the Taliban, the Islamic extremists, dictators, kings, communists, the bigots, the religious right. All cut from the same cloth. And it's about people who for some reason or another (usually based on some book somewhere: The Bible, Communist Manifesto, etc etc) believe they know what's right and are intent on making others live that way. It's the same mentality that won't let gays marry each other, makes women wear veils over their face, makes black people ride in the back of the bus, and lines Jews up at concentration camps. And anyone who says it's not the same mentality is full of shit. It's a matter of degree not a matter of mindset. As MLK said:

"Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal."

We have to take words back and use them. This IS about morals and values. But we need to join that debate fiercely and talk about what our morals are. We have got to stop letting the right own that debate and say what we think we need to say to compete there. Fuck traditional morals and values. This is a progressive world. The very nature of our universe is progressive. People who fight for the traditional lose. Kings fought to keep power, it was traditional. It was traditional to own slaves. We need to turn the debate to TRUE morals and freedoms. Let's drag bigotry, close mindedness, lying, selfishness, fear and greed out into the open and call it what it is. We need to take this moral debate head on. We need to take the words morals, values, faith, and freedom back. We need to stop them perverting the words of our forefathers, who created this country, for their own narrow-minded uses. We need to learn more about our country, our history and teach people the truth. Washington and Jefferson, despite the incredibly out of context quotes that conservatives drag out, did not want a theocracy. They did not want a government that was Christian. There are mountains of evidence to the contrary. We need to find that and bring it out. We need to talk about what Jesus really said. If he is going to be a focus point for values and morals then we need to stop letting those words be twisted. I'm not a Christian but there are lot's out there who are and who also believe in freedom and true values. Stop letting the right use your religion for its own fear based agenda.

This is about whether America is the land of the free or a theocracy. And right now they are winning.

But the good news is they will lose. They always do. It might take much longer than we want. Too many people have to suffer in the meantime but reason and compassion will prevail. Humanity is on a course towards reason, compassion and decency. We take steps back from time to time but we are evolving and moving forwards.

The numbers look bad according to the election. But more people voted than ever before. More people were active on the progressive front than ever before. Millions and millions truly do believe in freedom, not Bush's perverted sense of it, but true freedom.

We need to find ways to build an infrastructure like the religious right has. They have churches and the whole support communication network that entails. We need something similar. We have to look at what that culture offers people. Why they embrace it and become so fervent. What can we learn?

But it's time to stop calling this Republican or Democrat. It's not about that, and right now it's not about jobs, the economy or even Iraq. Those are all symptoms of something deeper.

People have said the soul of the nation is at stake and they are right. Bush likes to say they hate us for our freedom. That is patently wrong. He may very well believe that....but they hate us for our limiting of others freedom as well. Our sense that we always know what is best for everyone is what they hate. And why? Because we act the same as they do. The great irony is that we have created our own Taliban of sorts.

Of the women who started fighting for women's right to vote not a one of them lived to see the day where they could cast a vote. Truth, compassion, values and justice take a long time in certain cases but they will always prevail. But we have to frame the debate around those words. We need to take them back and own them. It's time for empty hate and rhetoric to stop. But we have to stop it first.

We can’t quit or go lie in a hole. Moving solves nothing….we need to lick our wounds and come back stronger and know that truth and justice are on our side. We need to be smarter. We need to stop treating this as political. There is a political component but it’s much more that that. The right has united behind a common message, we have not been so clear.

Anyways….enough of that.

I’m off to see Paul Westerberg in Minneapolis for the weekend. A chance to see something real and true in a world where that is more and more rare.