Cloaca Melodia

The Queen, Wilmington, DE.... Part of the NonCommvention.    Thurston Moore (of Sonic Youth fame)  

Brown Theater, Louisville, KY.... Despite being a big Westerberg/Replacements fan (ever since first tracking through the Let It Be album working at the college radio station during Spring Break 1985), I ended up missing much of Westerberg's set. It was a radio convention, and being what they are, I was dining at a restaurant without a car to get me back to the show in time. Once I arrived at the Brown Theater, I made my way inside and opened the door to the theater itself--only to catch Westerberg already onstage. I only saw his blistering version of "Alex Chilton," which concluded with him whipping around, smashing his electric guitar on the amp stack, and striding offstage to thunderous cheers from the stunned audience. That's about all of the factual info I know firsthand (except that when I was heading out to dinner, Westerberg was standing outside the hotel on the South 4th Street sidewalk, talking with a few people and clutching a baseball bat--likely a Louisvi...

Point State Park, Pittsburgh, PA sorry, Mike has not yet written about this show... add your own comments if you were also there!

Downing Stadium, Randall's Island, New York, NY..... Lollapalooza 5. This was my third and final Lolla show, and I feel like I caught the ideal ones: '91, '92, and this year.  The main memories that stick with me from this show were Cypress Hill's giant bong prop and Beck doing everything in his power to make his performance of "Loser" a crappy experience. (In fact, his overall set was pretty blah, in stark contrast to every later time I saw hm live. I had a chance to tactfully ask him about what changed, and he told me he had a realization that his fans were paying hard-earned dollars to see him and that it might be their one and only time seeing him live so he had better put on a good show. Good for him!) In the weeks leading up to the show, drama was enveloping this tour. In Washington state on the 4th of July, there was an incident between Hole frontwoman Courtney Love and Bikini Kill singer Kathleen Hanna (which led to assault charges against Lo...

Brendan Byrne Arena, E. Rutherford, NJ.... It was a couple years before Neil was bestowed the "Godfather of Grunge" moniker, but this tour made clear he had an affinity with noisy, scruffy bands of younger vintage. A great show all around. It was my first time seeing Neil, so I was pretty psyched. He had snapped out of his weird '80s era with a vengeance on 1989's Freedom and 1990's Ragged Glory albums. I was pretty blown away with how hard he rocked at the show. My most vivid memory of the concert was a giant microphone with a yellow ribbon on it getting a lot of applause (due to the Gulf War being still in progress at the time). The opening acts were pretty memorable as well. I was struck with how low-slung Mike Ness played his guitar. And during Sonic Youth's feedback-drenched finale, Thurston Moore used his guitar as a bridge between the front of the stage and a security barrier and he carefully shimmied across it, all the while spewing caterwauling nois...