20 years Paranoid
An eventful year keeps rolling on. The events of last night were six months in the making as I went to my latest concert, by the band Garbage. Temptation waited and it was worth every minute of my Saturday night. It was the culmination of a busy month of October which had a concert by the trumpeter Bria Skonberg at the start of the month and a performance of Olga Pericet’s latest piece, En Foque at mid month. All of this was planned out in advance to help avoid the dreaded post trip letdown that inevitably settled in on the last day of my stay in Portugal at the beginning of this month.
But the beginnings of last night’s events go back to when the album being celebrated, Version 2.0 was released in 1998. All the videos from this album,”Special” , “I Think I’m Paranoid”, “Push It” and “When I Grow Up” caught my eye. Between front woman Shirley Manson’s enchanting voice and presence and the hooks that permeate through every song thanks to fellow band members Duke, Steve and Butch, it was hard not to get hooked. “I Think I’m Paranoid” was featured in the soundtrack for the first Grand Turismo video game and it made for for good driving music, even if I didn’t get past the respective license exams. Seeing the videos for the songs “Breaking Up The Girl” from the 2001 album, Beautiful Garbage during the original movie, Daria:Is It Fall Yet? and for the song “Why Do You Love Me” from the 2005 album, Bleed Like Me kept the band hammering in my head. And then, they fell off my radar for a while.
Then on one particular afternoon in 2014, they came back to mind. It was a Friday afternoon on the last week of April. I was still a temporary employee at my job but it was the biggest moment of the year in the donation call center, Design on a Dime. The plan was for all of us in the office to visit the Metropolitan Pavilion and see the fruits of our labor at the venue. Once that was done, we visited the Chelsea store before it was renovated. I head to the back of the store and see in the music section, a used copy of Version 2.0 for a buck and buy it on the spot. A few listens to it later and they remerge on my radar.I wanted to see then live to see if the energy on record is as good in person.
I wasn’t aware that they did a similar tour for the 1995 debut self titled album in 2015 but they stopped at the Kings Theatre. The next time by was in 2017 when they embarked on a co-headlining tour, the Rage and Rapture tour with Blondie. But the show at the Beacon Theater was sold out and in retrospect, I should’ve made the effort to get a ticket for the show. Then this April, it was announced that the 20 Years Paranoid tour was coming to North America in the fall so I bought a ticket for the show, Ticketmaster difficulty be damned.I didn’t have anything else planned for this year, beyond the Portugal trip at the time of booking.
On a dark and rainy Saturday night, I made my way to Brooklyn. It was forecasted to be a nasty night with a remnants of a hurricane in our midst. But at this point, I don’t let the weather stand in the way of my enjoyment of live music. It was a long trip to the Kings Theatre in Brooklyn as I switched from the N train in Times Square to the 2 train and I took just nearly to the end of the line at Beverly Road. I would get lost trying to find the venue as I’ve never been to this part of the borough before. After about 20 minutes of walking, I finally get to Flatbush Avenue and see the marquee of the theater in my sights. As I arrived at my seat in the orchestra section, I missed most of the opening act, Rituals of Mine’s set.
Just before 9p.m., the lights went down and the band Garbage arrived on stage to open the show with the b-side, “Afterglow”. I knew it then that it would be an interesting evening. Most concerts that are wrapped up around playing an album in full do exactly that. But in this case, we got that with the album played out of its original order, plus every b-side from this album and covers of Big Star’s “Thirteen” and The Seeds “Can’t Seem to Make You Mine” as part of the main set. After an hour and a half, we thought the night was over but it was only time for the encore. Shirley would dedicate The Truck Is To Keep Breathing to all of us weirdos. Then to a rapturous applause, we found out that Blondie front woman and goddess of NYC herself, Debbie Harry was in the room. They would start into the song No Horses from their most recent album, Strange Little Birds but abandoned the song after brief issues with the in ear monitor. An audible was called by Shirley and drummer Butch Vig, leading into “#1 Crush”, from the soundtrack of Baz Luhrman’s adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. After a brief reminder of the importance of our fellow LGBTQIA brothers and sisters, it was the segueway into the final song of the night, “Cherry Lips (Go Baby Go)”, from 2001’s “Beautiful Garbage” album. Just after 11p.m., the show came to an end and I went gently into the night for the two hour trip back to my front door in Queens.
I’m not quite done with live music yet for this year. The next time round will be a doubleheader the weekend of November 16th as I’m going to see shows from my friends Adam Enright and Raquel Cion on Friday and Saturday night respectively. Life will be a cabaret, my chums. From that point, the rest of the year is a blank page. There will be more chapters written in the story that is 2018. After all, a story isn’t complete until we reach its conclusion.
