GvsB was freakin' good once again... Last time I saw them (was during the House tour, in Nov. '96 in France, I missed them last summer), they played well, but the sound was kind of messy (impossible to hear Scott's voice, we only had the backup vox from Eli...). This time, in DC, even if the set was really short - 8 songs for 35 minutes, it was intense, despite some minor problems (at the beginning of one song, was it Roxy or Vera Cruz, I can't remember, Scott's mike just went down for a couple of words), but except for that it was truly awesome.

The crowd wasn't really into it, which was a disappointment - maybe "not-that-hardcore-GvsB-fans" decided than $20 for 35 minutes was too expensive, and for this reason, the audience was in majority there for Garbage.

But, even if they might have actually cared about it, the boys didn't seem to pay a lot of attention to what was going on in the audience. They were here to play, and they rocked.

They played the best version of Bulletproof Cupid I've ever heard -- well, I've only heard 3 live versions of that song, including this one, but this was really even more awesome than the one that had been broadcasted on the French radio in Dec. '94 (Transmusicales de Rennes concert, from which the "live side" of Kill The Sex Player is an excerpt), which was already almost perfect. It resulted in a mosh around where I was, mosh that was mainly led and initiated by 15-years old kids wearing Garbage T-Shirts... Some more convert ?

The thing that I found really cool was the fact that some samples and piano loops were added into the keyboards line (for instance on Roxy), and that was a good idea - since the sound was good, the result was excellent.

GvsB proved to everybody that Freak*on*ica tracks sound even better on stage. I am not really into this record, but for instance, Exorcisto - which I almost always skip when listening to the CD - was incredibly powerful.

I don't regret my $20, even if it was so short.
--
Nick

PS. As for the Garbage show, this one was, for me, a disappointment. I am not a real fan of Garbage, but I really like some of their songs. Unfortunately, I found their sound ugly - the samples were too loud, the bass was simply overtaking everything else, and Shirley Manson's voice was messed up by the sound engineer who put too much treble on it, making it sound weirdly (which is a shame because Shirley's voice is what I like the most in Garbage). Too bad, because they actually played pretty well. But for Garbage, the quality of the sound is a really important factor. And when it's screwed up, well, the band loses a lot of its interest.