Sleater-Kinney Concert Review Archive / 2001-2006

Pictures contributed by Joey:

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By Deborah Karen Watt

[I know, I know. My posts are really long, but this is as much to share with you as a momento for me to remember details about the night.]

First the bad news: that guy who goes to SK shows to sexually assault women was there on Sunday. He was rubbing on one of the women in the audience, and she and her friends I guess called security in and had him detained. I’m not sure of the details and I didn’t notice it happening during the show, but she was obviously very upset by it.

Afterwards Corin and Janet were being super-nice, trying to comfort and support her. L, if you’re on this list, I hope you find the support you need to help you deal with this. Can’t the-powers-that-be keep this guy out? How shitty is that, for the band that wrote “#1 Must Have” to have a “fan” who does that to women at their own shows? Actually, they did play “#1″ this night, so I wonder if they already knew what had happened and chose that song.

I guess ladies who go to shows in the Seattle area need to stay aware that he is out there and keep themselves safe. Aargh.

On to the better news: the show was great, of course.

The last night of the first leg of the tour. This was the all-ages show, so overall the crowd was younger but smaller.

The band commented that Saturday’s 21+ crowd had been “rowdier” and though they hated to make the connection between alcohol and rowdiness… Next they played 1BT, “which you can’t dance to at all.”

Soon thereafter some dancing girls sidled in beside me and we helped to liven things up. When they came out for the encore, Carrie commented that we’d come around.

I thought they looked much happier on stage than the night before (which I kind of attributed to their prior transportation difficulties). During one song Carrie was looking into the back of the audience and smiling really big. When the song was over, she praised the dancing of Julie (presumably Butterfield) and Colleen
(presumably who does Quails merch). I guess they’ve got some moves!

Light-Rail was once again turned into a participatory song. They had Shannon Wright come back out to add some “dirty river”s and then the audience had a go at it.

Somebody threw some undies on stage, with something written on them. The band discussed this a bit “What does it say?” “I don’t know, I can’t read it from here” “I think it’s a hat” “Yeah, the new G-string kind of hat” “All we’ve gotten thrown at us this tour is underwear and dirty socks.”

I think O2 is a great first song, gets my blood flowing. Also, I love the new W&G, which goes from super-quiet to totally rocking.

I have a theory about Carrie’s new dance moves: it seems that on the older songs (eg during the encores) she pulls out a lot more of the jumps and kicks, I think because she used to sing less and had more time and freedom to roam from the mic. Corin did a bit of dancing, and during one of the older songs when everyone was jumping around, she did a kind of jogging-in-place move. It was cute, and definitely impressive in a skirt and with the big heels on her boots.

Fashion report: Janet, black. Corin, light sleeveless with a line of sparklies on the chest, jean skirt, boots. Carrie, brown velvet blazer (must have been hot!), blue jeans, black shoes.

I didn’t manage a setlist, but it started with O2, Oh!, Far Away, and included, again, all of 1BT except Prisstina. Also played were “Get Up,” “Youth Decay,” “#1,” “Turn it On,” DMO, W&G, “Joey”

The encore was “One More Hour,” “Professional”, CTD. No covers tonight.

Maybe..I’m a bit hazy on the details, but I’m not alone. Corin got confused on the encore and started playing CTD while everyone else was doing 1MH. She came back to the mic and very sheepishly said “oops, my bad.” So then Carrie mouthed the right song to her, trying to hide it from the audience. After that song, she and Janet conferred and she relayed “Professional” to Corin. At the Denver show, Corin was also confused about which encore songs they had decided on. Hmmm….

After the show I talked to the Quails a bit. It turns out that, surprise, they are not actually Ultimate players and the comment they made on stage about it was just a joke. Bummer. They are all really nice though.

Then I hung around a bit longer to see if I could fulfill my “lifelong dream” of meeting Carrie, my perennial favorite SKer. I’ve met Corin and Janet various times. It seems like they come out after shows more often than does Carrie, and like somebody mentioned, Corin is very gracious and says a sincere-sounding ‘thanks’ to whatever gushing comments people make.

So finally Carrie does come out, and I wait for her to finish talking to the friend she was with, then ask her to sign my setlist. She did, but she wasn’t particularly friendly about it. Which leads me to my question: Have other people met Carrie after a show where she was friendly and seemed into talking to fans? I wonder if it was just her mood that night, she’d hoped fans would have been gone by the time she came out, she was upset about the sexual assault
incident, any other reason..OR if she’s not as friendly as interviews would suggest. People (if anybody’s still reading this far), let’s hear your shiny, happy Carrie stories!

OK, that’s it for me until DC in a few weeks.

Oxygen
Oh!
Far Away
Get Up
One Beat
Youth Decay
Remainder
#1 Must Have
Funeral Song
Turn It On
Combat Rock
YNRNRF
Light Rail Coyote
Hollywood Ending
Words And Guitar
Sympathy
Joey
Step Aside
–
One More Hour
Professional
Call the Doctor

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By Deborah Karen Watt

Just back from a lovely weekend in the Pacific NW..

Please _somebody_ say they taped the Saturday show, and that incredible encore. My recorder, which was working fine when I left, arrived dead to Seattle :( , and now seems to be working again..

These were the last nights of the first leg of the tour. Apparently, the band had some sort of issues getting to Seattle, involving losing their van, crew, and gear, and a long cab ride to the airport. They didn’t give more details…anybody know more?

The Quails are still great. I liked Shannon Wright, but I thought either the lights needed to be brighter or that I needed a chair for her set. She has a very intense voice and presence, often barely contained by the stage. Oh, and there was one strange/cool part where she came over to the edge of the stage and was playing guitar right in front of this guy. His face came to right below her guitar, and after a few seconds he started to move closer to her crotch. She kneed him away from her, powerfully, and some other women in the audience made a few comments at him. Then she said something to him that sounded like “why are you talking?” and went back to the main stage and the guitar. Does anybody have a different interpretation of this?

The setlist follows. It was all of 1BT except Prisstina (has anybody heard this lately?), with some of the standard oldies, plus “Stay Where you Are”.
The show seemed pretty tight to me, though the band seemed to be doing less smiling than I remembered seeing in Denver. Carrie in particular seemed to be doing a lot of singing through clenched/bared teeth, looking upward, and shaking her head slightly. Seemed to me to be singing from an angry place, but who knows..

Corin messed up the verses in “Combat Rock.” She skipped the middle verse and sang the last one (”past becomes the future”) twice. Nobody seemed to notice or comment.

At one point Corin commented on some posters that were being sold at the club: “just when you think maybe the world is ready for you, gets your music, and is ready for a 3-dimensional women’s rock band, I walk into the club and they are selling posters with my face on Angelina Jolie’s body with size-DD tits….We are also selling posters that have my real body, which I happen to like..” (paraphrase)

They played “Promised Land” because this was the “mature” audience (21+) of the tour. Afterwards, we got a pop quiz to see if we knew who it was by. (I passed thanks to the help of this list..) Carrie said her dad, if he was in the audience, would know it, because she stole the record from him years back.

After the show I was hanging around and noticed a well-dressed gentleman looking (I thought) a bit confused walking across the floor. Carrie came out and gave him a big hug, along with a younger grrl, then they all went backstage. Father and sister, I pressumed? I felt intrusive watching, but I was hoping she would come back out to talk to the fans.

Fashion report: Janet, black on black, with a black belt. Corin, white/black sleeveless with a paisley design on the chest, skirt, knee-high boots. Carrie, blue/white stripped sleeveless, dark blue jeans slightly flared, black square-toed dress shoes.

Setlist

1BT
Oh!
Far Away
All Hands
O2
Remainder
Burn, Don’t Freeze
YNRNRF
Combat Rock
CTD
Light Rail
Stay Where you Are
Funeral Song
W&G
Hollywood
Sympathy
End of You
Step Aside
—–

Promised Land

Turn it on w/extended jam ending
DMO
——
<2nd Encore, baby!>
Good Things
Little Babies

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Marty Hughley of the Oregonian writes:

finally got to see SK on my/carrie’s birthday after waiting and plotting and hoping for it for five years… an awesome show! my big wish was for hollywood ending with sam on theramin, and there it was! also sounded like he was playing keyboards during the intro and backups on some of the songs people were saying there had been taped horns on, but maybe someone taller has a definitive answer on this. has he been on the whole tour? my husband’s opinion was this was the second best rock show he’s seen of all time, after hendrix.. anyway… could someone please post the set list, if you have it? too busy shaking tail to write anything down myself. thanks!!!

So the show was incredible in Portland. I wish I had enough money to see the other 2 in Seattle, but I just started working, so no luck. They played pretty much every song off of One Beat (minus Prisstina). They also played the Bruce Springsteen song. Oh! was wonderful (being one of my favorite One Beat songs
currently) and I think Sam Coomes was there–can anyone else confirm this? I was so far back in the beginning and heard back up vocals and saw some
waving, but couldn’t tell why everyone was clapping. I danced a ton and got really gross and sweaty, but had a great time! Esp. during Light Rail Coyote when we got to sing along…I used to go to school right along that dirty river. Janet told some jokes, Corin danced around, and Carrie did her scream–all in all, great night. Too bad no one but me and a few others clapped during Turn It On…stupid people.

so i was really psyched for the show, being as it was my 20th time seeing The Kinney, and i was especially excited after a great critical mass ride…however, following the two openers (both of whom were quite good, though i would’ve switched the order), a bunch of guys started pushing up to the front of an already-packed house, to the point where people were practically throwing all their weight onto the first few rows.

The folks by me turned around and asked for space, etc, but just as “oxygen” began, these guys elbowed/pushed/slammed their way forward, ostensibly starting a 10-minute mosh pit. At one point, Corin noted that seeing people being passed back in the audience was beginning to trigger some sort of mommy worrying ;) .Anyway, I’m all for jumping and dancing, but this was pretty bewildering (especially for a portland crowd), and i felt bad because i saw at least 6 people in my area alone walk out after a few songs. Things got better from there, what with birthday singing and janet messing up her joke.

They played (not in this order, sorry) all of 1bt except for prisstina, #1must have, ynrnrf, start together, get up, ctd segueing into dmo, one more hour, turn it on, w+g, and joey, and they totally rocked “promised land.” For the most part, the older songs were unbelievably tight, but some of the new ones seemed a bit less…something (this is just based on their jackpot show last
month and the july benefit).

Sorry for grousing. Despite my previous frustration, it seemed that everyone’s general feeling upon leaving was enthusiasm. I’m holding out hope for monday night’s cinerama show (the first time i’ve seen david gedge&co. in six years. yay!). I know someone on this list recommended “saturnalia” a while back, but for those of you unfamiliar with cinerama/the wedding present, check ‘em out!

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Skip posted his review of the last Fillmore show on The Hot Rock Livejournal. An excerpt:

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By Kevin Lahey

My heartfelt thanks to the several folks who gave me suggestions about how to ensure that I got tickets before they sold out. I got to go Monday AND Tuesday, and had a terrific time at each; it was really interesting to see the differences in the shows.

Tuesday was Janet’s birthday, and we got the present — they played an extra three songs in their encore. Woo hoo! They seemed, if possible, even more energetic Tuesday than Monday. They sort of exploded into the first song, and never really slowed down very much.

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Steven Rubio posted his concert review for the 9-23-02 show.

I’m glad they played Promised Land for him, as his entire blog is pretty much entirely Sleater-Kinney and Bruce Springsteen, with a little bit of the San Francisco Giants mixed in.

Funny, interesting, and hey, I didn’t write it, you can’t yell at me.

Carrie has a few references to the random problems during the SoCal section of the tour. It’s not a real diss or anything.

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Pictures of the show available here.

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By Han Q Duong

Another day, yet another Sleater-Kinney concert. OK, it’s my last one, for a long, long time. I wasn’t planning on going to the third show, but the first two were so good I figured it’d be worth a shot. Even if it was in Pomona. I don’t want to dog Pomona too much, but it’s a bit different than Los Angeles proper. Let’s leave it at that.

After an hour plus to get from Santa Monica to Pomona, we staked ground in front of the Glass House and waited. While we waited, the ladies of Sleater-Kinney probably walked past seemingly twenty times. First they went shopping, they went to shop some more, they hit the taco stand… whatever the case, it seemed like I was seeing them every ten or twenty minutes. Sarah Utter from the Bangs was also popping in and out of line talking to a friend of hers as well.

Shannon Wright opened the night first and put together the best set of the three shows I saw. The Bangs came up next and were pretty much the perfect opening act. That “opening act” comment sells them short though, as I’m sure they’d be a fine headliner as well. Their metal tinged pop punk was instantly infectious, and it was easy to start bouncing along to the tunes even on the first listen. I think Sarah was a bit under the weather, as she kept referring to her scratchy voice, and it seemed like they cut their set short by a song or two.

I don’t know when it happened exactly, but some guy peed on the floor a few rows of people behind me. There was a huge gap in the crowd, and apparently somebody just whipped it out and peed on the floor.

Sleater-Kinney came on and delivered a pretty hot set, with song selection similar to the Hollywood shows. The main difference would be the extended version of Dig Me Out that they closed the show with. It wasn’t as charged as the previous L.A. shows but it was still really fun and a great time… well, for most of us.

Towards the end of the set, the night really started to fall apart for Carrie Brownstein. First, her shoelaces came untied during a song so she had to take a quick break to retie them. Janet played some shoe tying music and Carrie joked that “Janet shows up every morning at my house to play that while I get dressed.” A little bit later someone tossed up a dirty sock on stage. This were all little incidentals, not anything major. Then it got worse.

During the main set finale of Step Aside, Carrie ran into some technical problems when she stomped her blues driver pedal for her little solo section. Instead of adding a little distortion, her guitar just hit dead air. Nothing. While Corin fought for time, Carrie tried to fix her equipment. Now, anybody that’s hooked up a chain of guitar pedals knows that when there’s a short in your wiring, it’s the most agonizing thing because there’s no way to know where the short is among the five or six cables. Carrie finally decided to plug directly into the amp… except when she yanked the cable she found out that the roadie had tied a knot with the cable to secure it to the pedal board. It’s one of those stage nightmares that you never wish on anyone, and it was heartbreaking to see it happen. They finally hooked everything up and they finished out Step Aside and Carrie worked with the guitar tech to get everything up and running again.

When they got back for the encore, Carrie got on the mike and said “Will whoever is throwing nickels up here please stop? If anything you should be throwing hundred dollar bills, and not fucking nickels.” Now… who the hell throws nickels at a band you paid to see? I mean, it’s not like Carrie half-asses it out there… what did she do to deserve change getting tossed at her? First there are people peeing on the floor and now there’s someone using Carrie as target practice. What is wrong with people these days?

They knocked out a short encore of two songs and left. I think they were planning on playing Private Idaho (they were practicing it during soundcheck) but it never got played. They had never played Pomona before, and I’m not sure they’ll be all that eager to go back.

Hopefully Carrie used up all her bad luck tonight and has flawless shows the rest of the tour.

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By Prisci

This was by far the best show I have seen this year. The band totally rocked the audience and got everyone moving to the beat. Corin told a story about meeting Robert Plant in Austin and getting his autograph. She then asked the audience if we knew who that was and everyone laughed. And later towards the end of the show Janet and Corin told a joke about complimentary peanuts, ha!

To my surprise and delight they played all of my favorite songs. I couldn’t have asked for a better show. They played (not the actual order):

Sympathy
I Wanna Be your Joey Ramone
Yr No Rock and Roll Fun
Oh!
Get Up
One Beat
Words + Guitar
Far Away
Combat Rock
One More Hour
Dig Me Out

And others that I can’t remember.

Janet on the drums took my breath away! You couldn’t look at her playing and not feel like that would be the greatest job in the world to have. Carrie on the
guitar was the most energetic of all three, jumping around the stage, then rocking hard on the guitar with Corin. Corin was awesome too, she would look at the crowd and smile. :) Her voice live is even better (if that’s possible), almost hypnotic. She can sing and sing and sing. Gave me chills specially during Oh! and Combat Rock.

I had never seen SK before and I’m soo glad I got to go! Never had more fun at a concert ever in my life!! :)

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