ShellE Productions

Tonight we went to The Warfield and saw Slash (featuring Myles Kennedy). We bought tickets that were decent third row Upper Loge on Slash’s side of the stage. We were right in front of the speakers, which was cool because it was an extra loud show.

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The past week was a busy one. We worked full time plus saw a bunch of cool shows. One three band night at the Rickshaw Stop, Guts and Buttons at Tartine, Ben Sollee and Fossil Fool at another Rickshaw (Bagworks) and some tasty food in the city as well.

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I’ve completed all of the quests as DeathSpank, hero to the downtrodden, and after an epic battle with Lord Von Prong that turned out not so epic, I’m here with one last date with Destiny… to provide a review of the game.
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We had a weekend of good food, fun concerts and hanging out with friends. It was a great way to celebrate Michele’s birthday. This entry talks about such things as seeing three shows (MC Hammer, Lily Storm at The Bowls and The Sweet Revenge) in one day and having a great food adventure on the other.
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We went into the city Tuesday night to The Fillmore to see Billy Idol in concert.

The adventure included a bootleg tee shirt conspiracy theorist, a rocking two hour show and dancing with the devil?
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Tonight was a great evening visiting Berkeley.

We started out at the newly opened Saturn Cafe on Allston Way, having dinner with a friend. Then we headed a few miles away to Cedar Street and saw a great concert with Monica Pasqual and Noe Venable and awesome guests.

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This weekend was extremely full of fun and good times.

With a birthday dinner gathering for a friend, an afterparty with Rock Band, and an impromptu house concert on Saturday, visiting friends with a new baby while our XBoxes were repaired on Sunday, we did a lot of the things we really like.

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Today started out with me watching a cool YouTube copy of an Adidas commercial that ran during the World Cup. It starred Daft Punk, Noel Gallagher, Snoop Dogg and some other people that I didn’t recognize in the Mos Eisley Cantina. Pretty cool stuff.

This afternoon, we went to San Carlos and saw The Sweet Revenge play acoustic at Clooney’s Pub. We got there and there were zero band members there. Eventually James showed up. We tried to coax him into a solo gig but decided to go get food across the street instead. We got some mango chicken, some pork dumplings, some fried bananas and some steamed rice from New Canton Restaurant. While we waited for our food to cook, the rest of the band showed up. We got our food and headed back to Clooney’s but discovered that they gave us no utensils to eat with. My wife went back and got some chopsticks for us and got us a couple of cokes at the bar.

The Sweet Revenge played after a DJ who spun R&B and Reggae all afternoon and pretty much took up all of the space that they should have had to set up. Instead, they set up in front of him with four stools. Gabe sat next to Clint next to Chris next to James with Erick playing a drum and a cowbell behind them. It was the first time we had ever seen them play acoustic before. They said that they had rehearsed and run through all of the songs before and had promptly forgotten the arrangements.

No matter, they still put on a really fun show. The venue was a boisterous bar with a barbecue going on out on the patio. They asked the band to mention the tri tip and the band did. Clint got distracted by some MMA vs NFL show that was playing on the television and Erick went a bit crazy with the cowbell at one point. After finishing up their regular set, Gabe mentioned to Clint that they should play Every Rose Has It’s Thorn, the Poison song. Clint looked up the lyrics and Chris and James walked away. They played a pretty competent cover for no rehearsal and the first time playing it ever. Chris even came back and did some cowbell accompaniment near the midpoint of the song.

It was an intimate show, that felt like a house concert in someone’s living room, but was a pub concert instead.

We came home for a brief intermission. Then we headed back out and saw The Famous, Dead Country and The Toadies at Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco.

The Famous are a Hank Williams III inspired local band, whose set didn’t really interest me. They played a very strange cover of Purple Rain near the end of their set which was unique to say the least.

Dead Country are a band from Los Angeles who play very radio friendly rock songs with a bit of pop sensibility and a lot of repetition. If I were to describe another band that they resemble, I would say early Everclear. Their set was a bit better than The Famous and they at least held my interest throughout their hour on stage.

The Toadies were the band we paid to see. I had really only heard one of their songs over and over on the radio. The band was a lot more grunge than I expected, reminding me at points of Nirvana, Bad Religion, The Pixies, AC/DC and The Beatles. Oddly enough, in their encore they covered The Beatles and apparently a bit of Bell Biv Devoe.

The Toadies put on a pretty great rock show, on par with Local H, another loud and somewhat angry band. The fans were rowdy and one mosher fell at one point and got up with a bloodied face. I’m not big on that kind of roughness, but we got out unscathed and had a pretty good time.

Overall, the show of the weekend for me was The Sweet Revenge at Clooney’s. A small gig with a really cool band playing slightly different takes of their songs and not afraid to make a mess of some of them.

It was a fun weekend, but now it is time to put it to rest and head back to work for the week.

Back on August 21, 1997, I visited Star Lake Ampitheatre in Burgettstown, PA and saw several really good bands put on a show. I had purchased extremely cheap tickets to the show, which featured Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Soul Coughing, Toad the Wet Sprocket and Neil Young with Crazy Horse.

I hadn’t seen Toad the Wet Sprocket since then, but they’ve broken up and gotten back together several times. We saw Glen Phillips solo in Portland and Seattle a few years back when Vienna Teng opened for him and my wife had never seen Toad before.

So we took the opportunity to visit a “newly remodeled” venue in downtown Napa called the Uptown, which is a theater comparable to the Aladdin in Portland and much better than the Mystic in Petaluma.

We also got to spend some time with a friend who shares the lead singer’s name.
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For the past eight years or so, one San Francisco Financial District location near where I spend my work days has been a lunchtime staple and a post-work happy hour meetingplace. That local bar and grill is shutting down on Friday after more than 25 years in its current location. Why? To make way for part of the new Transbay Terminal. To pay tribute to a place that won’t be there anymore within the next few days, I stopped by this evening. The city gave the owners a hefty sum to move to a better location with actual parking. That is good for them but where am I going to get a tasty bacon guacamole burger and steak fries at lunch time now?

In other news, during my actual lunch break, I ate at Sunrise Deli, who proclaim themselves as serving “the best Falafel in the city”. I ordered a lamb shawerma but they had samples of their Falafel. Even though I really don’t care for fava beans or chickpeas, I tried it and it really was one of the best culinary experiences that I have had. Extremely good. So much that next time I am planning to skip the meat and get an avocado falafel sandwich when I eat there.

I am meeting my wife in the east bay and picking up her grandmother at Oakland International Airport now. I am hoping to try some new eatery while we are out here. We shall see.
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We ended up eating at Zachary’s pizza in Oakland. The line for a table was a bit dizzying and overwhelming but the system of them giving you an estimated wait time followed by you ordering your pizza and it cooking while you wait for a table to become available worked well.

We had a large Italian chicken sausage pizza deep dish Chicago style and brought half of it home. Great pizza from a restaurant that seems to deserve the over 100 best pizza titles it has received over the years.