Open and on the Road

After a lovely after opening party, during which I somehow lost my coat with my cell phone in it...yet, picked up the Artistic Director's coat with the box office in it...and did not find this out until 2:30 am, I got to complete a full weekend with a trip to Philadelphia on Sunday night. Why Philadelphia? You may ask.

Well, there is really only one thing that can make me get into a car at 8 pm on a Sunday night and drive to a city that smells like sulfur and garbage.............GOMEZ. It wasn't hard to guess right? Because of my companions tech schedule we could not leave for the City of Brotherly Love until 8pm for the show. This did have me nervous, but I was assured that the opening band wasn't going on until 9:15 - so plenty of time to get there and see most if not all of the show.

However; one incident with a fire truck on the back streets of South Philly and the band moving the start time for the opener to 8:15 made for me missing a large part of the set. But I was not disappointed because it's like 6 more Gomez songs than any of my other friends saw live on Sunday night. Plus I have discovered that the Gomez fans in Philly are a better group to see a show with than in DC.

Sorry DC, but these folks were in the right mood and mind set. Lots of screaming, singing, and dancing as opposed to the catatonic state that most Washingtonian fans bring to the 9:30 club (normally I am against dancing, but I require it at a Gomez show as I can not stop myself from doing so, and believe me I have tried.) So I'm going to the Theatre of Living Arts in the future for my Gomez viewing (I'll still see the DC shows though.)

On the happy side, the boys in the band looked and sounded better than a couple of months ago. They have really tightened up the show from what I could tell, and Ben and Tom look thinner - not sick thin, like less beer thinner. Devil Will Ride was the best I have ever heard it, and they ended the encore with both "Love is Better than a Warm Trombone" and "Whippin' Piccadilly." So over all it was worth it. For my money I would prefer they didn't play "Ghosts and Alcohol" as part of the encore - but hey...they aren't playing much off of How We Operate anyway so I guess I can give them that one.