Are You Petrified of Being Petrified? (Guns n’ Roses, Hammerstein, Night 2/Harry and the Potters, Northsix)

They came out like gangbusters.  Then the gang busted.

I don’t know at what point the life got sucked out of this show, and am not going to pontificate, right now.  I’m both Gunned, and Rosed, out.  Much of what happened tonight also happened Friday – same leather shirt, even – so for something comprehensive read my still-expanding thesis on that one.

Axl looked and sounded tired, and was far less active than he was on Friday.  He was mixed stronger at the beginning, weaker at the end; sometimes it looked like he was pantomiming, air-singing.  Kept the sunglasses on longer.  He talked to the audience a lot more, and had a long, confusing story about having completely lost his voice; the story made it sound like this happened just yesterday – if that’s the case, good luck to you, Monday ticketholders – but the gist of the story was that somehow the panic had forced him to mend fences with Sebastian Bach, with whom he hadn’t spoken in thirteen years.

Except that Bach had been there Friday, singing the same song (“My Michelle”) he did tonight, entering with a dumb ad-libbed variant on the same unperformed song:  “After thirteen years, you’re <singing> still fucking craaaaaazeeeeee!”  Axl’s story made it sound like Bach saved his life in ‘Nam (Bach recommended a vocal coach and a throat doctor), so get used to ‘im.

When Rose first told the crowd his special guest and he hadn’t been on speaking terms for that long, the room went nuts.  Slash!  Izzy!  “Don’t get too excited,” Rose said.

We were all excited at the start.  There were three reasons I was here, tonight: 

(1)  Floor tickets.  Friday, I was up above it; tonight I was down in it.  And though that’s always a better situation, this wasn’t even vaguely comparable to last year’s NIN show.  Axl said all the right things to the fans, breaking out the old chestnut about how this crowd was so much better than the last crowd.  And the singing was ridiculously, joyously loud... for a while.  There was a little jumping, a little dancing, not so much with the crowd surfing.  Some of the energy drain came from the crowd, too; when your show’s start time is 11pm (actually, 10:56, tonight) you’re gonna get more mojo from a bunch of people entering their weekend than the bunch putting theirs to bed.  “Don’t worry,” Rose promised, “I called all your bosses... For New York this is -- what? -- an early evening show, right?"

Gotta say:  Down there you can really feel those flames.

(2)  Compare/Contrast.  Or:  Would he show up... again?  Not only did he, but he mixed it up, something I didn’t think this band was ready to do, yet.  Gone were half the new songs – unfortunately, the more interesting ones – in was “Rocket Queen.”  The piano solo was whittled down to a mere song intro, the first guitar solo turned into a duet.  Arrangements changed, too; “Knocking on Heaven’s Door” seemed a lot longer, and had a clear call-and-response section. 

Unfortunately, they kept all the other solos, and they were just as (if not more) uninteresting the second time around.  Bumblefoot’s seemed to be even longer – he even stopped and restarted on a second guitar; he let audience members up front bang on that one, then patronizingly said, “Some kickass guitar players right there!”  That bumble-foot guitar is actually a pretty neat contraption; it looks like its wings act as wah-wah bars, and fully retract into the body.

There was a weird jammy intro to “Out ta Get Me” that didn’t work at all.  There was a chat break smack in the middle of “November Rain.”  “I think we’re doing pretty alright,” Rose said, there.  By that point, they weren’t, not really.  Mickey Rourke, who was in one of the balconies near me, disappeared halfway through.

(3)  Craigslist was overflowing with GnR tix.  Some of the tiredness was mine.  It was my second concert, today, my second GnR show this weekend; there was bound to be some same-shit-different-dayness to it all.  But it certainly wasn’t just me.  Robin Finck, who wore bright red waders tonight, went into the crowd once and didn’t look back after being fished out.

*

The night ended with a moment of terror:  Axl again chucked his mic into the crowd, and chucked it RIGHT IN MY DIRECTION.  At the moment it left his hand, they cut every light in the house.

*

Set List:

(intro)

Jungle

Easy

Mr. Brownstone

Rocket Queen

Blues

Live & Let Die

(guitar duet, Fortis? & Finck)

Knocking on Heaven’s Door

Better

You Could Be Mine

(solo 1 – Finck)

Sweet Child O’ Mine (Finck really screwed up the solo on this)

Out ta Get Me

November Rain

(solo 2 – Bumblefoot)

Chinese Democracy

My Michelle

Patience

(solo 3 – Fortis)

Nightrain

Encore:

(solo 4 – Finck, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”)

Paradise City

*

One thing a whole lot different from Friday:   The DJ who killed time before the show was a real dick.  He dropped the lick from “Sweet Child O’ Mine” into the Sex Pistols’ “God Save the Queen.”  He’d break into songs and say things like, “Are you ready for Guns n’ Roses?!”  The crowd, desperate, kept readying themselves for a show that wasn’t ready to show.

*

During “Patience” I saw someone hold their lighter up.  Not their cel phone, their lighter.  It would have felt positively anachronistic if (a) it hadn’t been a concert for a band that predated cel phones and (b) I hadn’t seen a lighter held up at a concert just four hours earlier.

Harry and the Potters are a couple of nebbishy brothers who call themselves (and each other) “Harry Potter” and write sometimes-hilarious, sometimes-moving little indie pop songs as if they were the star of J.K. Rowling's book series.  Songs about love and loneliness and what happens when your Defense of the Dark Arts Teacher turns out to be not only a Giant Frog, but a Giant Frog who's also a WOMAN.  Songs called stuff like “We Save Ron’s Life, Pt. 8” and “Cornelius Fudge is an Ass” and “Voldemort Can’t Stop the Rock!”

There’s also a drummer named Ernie, who isn’t a character in any of the books, but they needed a drummer.

I first heard about the Potters from Pfork News Editor Amy Phillips’ old blog, More in the Monitor; she mentioned them again on Pitchfork in her list of the best concerts of 2005.  I’m no Potterhead fan – haven’t read any of the books, and haven’t been wild about any of the movies – but I’m game whenever anyone promises to “melt your face with the power of wizard rock.”

It’s shtick, but it’s modest, lovingly-performed shtick.  These kids are born entertainers, especially the keyboardist who, when he wasn’t leaping in the air and screaming and banging his head, was in the crowd getting people to yell “SPEW!” at the top of their lungs and from the bottom of their hearts.  Because “that’s where the most rocking things are forged.”

I’d never buy an album, but they’re about 1,000x more fun than either of the Voxtrot shows I’ve attended.  They were selling band toothbrushes!  The toothbrushes said, “Harry and the Potters Rock the Plaque Off!”  Here’s a song – no, wait, two:

Harry and the Potters – The Human Hosepipe  (mp3) (buy)

Harry and the Potters – Save Ginny Weasley  (mp3) (buy)

Head to their myspace page for additional tunes and a list of tour dates.  If you’d like to buy one of their records, you can do so here.

They’re playing the New York Public Library’s Donnell Library Center  – and the Knitting Factory Tap Bar (tix) – on July 5th.

tags: harry and the potters  guns n roses  axl rose  hammerstein ballroom  concert reviews  hammerstein  guns and roses  

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