Posted by On August 2nd, 2003 I went to Rochester to see the great Ween live in concert. I think this was a little side trip from my gig on the road with nero; I arrived in town with my friend (and nero member from way, way back) Steve. We parked close to the venue and were happily surprised to run into some western Ontario friends as we walked to the venue.
Water Street was a large-ish double-venue bar that I had recently visited for the first time when nero opened for The Slip there in the smaller of the two rooms. The Ween show was in the bigger room, though it still only held…I don’t know…maybe 550 people?
Regardless it sure seemed like a sold out show. When the band started (with their brilliant atonal instrumental masterpiece Ice Castles) I was smack dab in the middle of the floor crushed in with other eager, happy fans and I never moved for the whole show.
I stood riveted during The Golden Eel and Buckingham Green, I rocked on the spot for Take Me Away and Voodoo Lady, I danced a groove into the floor during Bananas and Blow and Roses Are Free. I didn’t leave my spot to go to the bathroom and I didn’t even belly up to the bar for a drink, not even once (which probably helped keep me out of the bathroom). Instead, I remained there in the middle of the packed floor and took that entire show right in the face, and it felt really, really good. More highlights: Baby Bitch, You F***ed Up and Piss Up A Rope with runner up prizes going to Mutilated Lips, Dr. Rock, and a new one called Someday (I assume; “Someday…You’ll hear me sing a love song. Someday…I’ll find someone to care about” and so on). Their cover of Ohio was nothing short of brilliant.
There’s just nothing that gets me like live Ween gets me. I just love the way Dean plays guitar, and when you see the band live you really get to hear just how good of a singer Gene is. It helps me understand m’lady’s obsession with live Phish.
Early in the show people started yelling out requests and I got it in me that I should scream for Cold Blows The Wind. Sure it’s a slow ballad shanty but I like the song a lot and I had never heard the band play it before. For some reason I was too shy to yell it out and though I tried to muster the courage to holler my request a dozen times I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.
Apparently the next night in Maine someone in the crowd actually did call out for Cold Blows The Wind. “Wow, nobody has ever asked for that one before,” Gener reportedly stated (or something to that effect).
“We’ve never played that one live before but here you go!” And they played it. Damn!
The same thing happened to me when I didn’t yell out to Kreskin that it was my cat’s name that was psychically getting into his brain. Even harder to take was the time I somehow didn’t yell out, “I’ll get on stage and play with you Les!” when Les Paul (yes, the Les Paul) asked the guy at the table next to me if he wanted to get up and jam and the guy said “no, I’m not much of a guitar player.”
These are all great lifetime regrets (okay, not so much the Cold Blows The Wind one, but it would have been cool to have been the first person to have requested it) and I hope I have learned from them.
(Curious coincidence: There are quite a few concerts I’ve attended that – for one reason or another – do not have an accompanying ticket stub. Losing my ticket stub is generally not one of these reasons, though it has happened on very rare occasions [like, maybe five or six times ever]. Two of these occasions have been Ween ticket stubs; this one and one from exactly four years to the day earlier, on August 2nd, 1999.)
Todd Man Out 