Originally Posted by Raskolnikov
I was lucky enough to get into the Los Angeles show at the Roxy - the last night of the tour. 4.24.99.
It was RIGHT when Ticketmaster started selling tickets online, but also in the days of very primitive internet. Don't think we still had dial up AOL, but we may have. It was slow. But, that was the route I chose to take to try and get tickets. I remember it freezing up (some things never change?) and after a few minutes of failing, assuming that it was over and cranking the F5 key out of desperation/teenage angst. Well, somehow, it worked. It moved, I had two tickets in my cart.
Show was on a Saturday night. Took my best buddy from high school - I was a junior at the time - which I'm so glad I did and not the random chick I was pursuing. Didn't have a driver's license yet, so my parents radically were willing to take us. They dropped us off and then later swung back by to drop off a bag of McDonalds. I remember being embarrassed at the time, but man - in hindsight, huge props to my parents for entertaining such nonsense. Driving to downtown LA on a Saturday night, and hanging out for 4 hours while we went to the show? That's the kind of parent I'm gonna be to my kids someday.
While we were in line, some guy offered me $1000 for my ticket. I proudly turned it down - my friend waffled, but ended up not taking it. There was a majorrrr energy in the air, as this was still the height of SP: and now, Jimmy was back - buzz was anew.
Queens of the Stone Age opened - fully unknown to me (and most?) at the time. They played stuff off of their debut album, which is a super accessible and straight forward rock album: worth lookin' up. We were about 4 rows back, and one of the guitarists filled his mouth with something and blew a fireball off his cigarette lighter, which was pretty rad.
The SP set is tough to put into words - but due to the exclusivity of being there, the band being back together, lots of new songs, the small room, me being at the height of SP fandom - the show will always be tops for me.
I've seen some great concerts since, but that one will always be at the top of the heap. First four songs were of course utterly unreal. Loved the Machina stuff. Loved how freaking loud it was, and how "my" band was RIGHT there, slaying it. Just felt like the four of them were back together and that SP was going to take over the whole damn world with their next album, and I was right there at the forefront of it all.
Pretty sure there's another Netphorian around here who was also there that night?
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