They Might be Giants (with Frente) - Stanford, Palo Alto, California - May 15, 1994

This was another really great They Might be Giants show at a great venue. After we went to see them at Stanford I found myself wishing I had known about more shows there.

I seem to remember we got a bit lost trying to find the campus. Palo Alto is a strange place actually, if you make the wrong turn on the freeway you go from really beautiful ritzy homes and fancy shops to murder central. For some reason I always remember the news story about someone who stopped at a gas station to ask for help in East Palo Alto and was murdered within minutes. Ok, it is not that bad.

The regular part of Palo Alto is really quite nice. The McDonalds there carried cappuccino. I am not sure I have ever seen that again until I went to a test market Mc Café in Raleigh last year.

Frente opened the show. As far as I know, the only thing they ever did was a great cover of New Order’s Bizarre Love Triangle. I vaguely remember that during the show.

I also remember some crazy dancing people there, were obviously having a very good time, looking stoned out of their minds.

TMBG put on a great show as usual, and we had a great time dancing, people-watching and enjoying the bay area sunshine.

Depeche Mode (with Stabbing Westward) - Cal Expo, Sacramento, California - May 12, 1994

Six months in between shows, and we wound up going to see Depeche Mode again, this time at Cal Expo, the preferred Sacramento outside venue.

I thought it was odd that Depeche was touring again so soon. What is more odd though, is that they were supporting a new album, Songs of Faith and Devotion Live. My friends and I were kind of mixed on whether or not we liked the first SOFAD. CF liked it right away. PCH I don’t think ever liked it. I didn’t like it much at first, but it kind of grew on me after a while. Whether or not you liked the original though, I think you would have to agree that the live version less than a year later was a blatant money-making scheme. There was nothing really new on the album at all, not like their earlier live double cd, 101. It was simply all the songs from SOFAD, in the same order, played live. I thought it was so lame that I almost didn’t want to go and see the supporting tour. Yeah, right.

The song I remember most about this show was an amazing live version of “I want you now,” from Music for the Masses. It wasn’t ever really that popular a song, but they did a really great live version of it (I think they did it at the November show as well, but I seem to remember it here for some reason.

Stabbing Westward opened, and I remember them kind of sucking, looking like heroin junkies for the most part (not unlike Dave Gahan, who must have weighed 100 pounds soaking wet at this time). Later I remember them being heralded as one of the coolest bands at the time. I guess I must have missed something.

I was just looking at the depeche mode site again, and while the discography is mostly offline (!) – they do have some neat features, like all of their lyrics and a listing of all their past tours. I guess this was the “Exotic” tour. Who knew?

Depeche Mode (with The The) - Arco Arena, Sacramento, California - November 14, 1993

This was my first time to see Depeche Mode in a seated environment, in Sacramento’s Arco Arena. I guess it wasn’t exactly the time of year to have a concert outdoors at Cal Expo.

I don’t remember anything special about us buying tickets for this show – I am not sure if I bought them or PCH did. I think we just bought them at the Wherehouse, the typical Reno ticketbastard outlet. We certainly didn’t line up on the day of sale or anything. But, for some reason, we got really nice seats.

We didn’t even realize how good our tickets were until we were on our way to Sacramento that day to see the show. We saw some other people going to the same show in another car on the freeway. I am not sure how it started, but we started writing signs and holding them up to each other as we drove to communicate.

At one point, we were exchanging details about where we were sitting, and after I held up the note that said where our seats were, the girls in the other car gave us a crazy look, then one of them held up a sign that said: “who did you sleep with to get those seats.”

Turns out we were on the floor in Row C. And we didn’t have to sleep with anyone to get there.

The The opened, and this time they got through their whole set. They were quite good, I often forget about them but they are a pretty great band really. I might even like their cowboy stuff now. Unfortunately nothing comes up on iTunes.

Depeche Mode were fabulous as usual. Nothing else unusual to report.

Tears for Fears (with Live) - Event Center, SJSU - San Jose, California - November 7, 1993

Now seeing these two shows together and looking at the proximity of the dates, we must have stayed over, because I don’t remember doing another crazy go to Sacramento, drive home, then drive to San Jose the next day kind of thing. Funny I didn’t remember the two concerts together this way at all.

I am also not confident about the opening act. I know that I saw Live in this arena – but I originally thought it was part of the PIL show a couple of years prior.

I do have one very concrete memory of this show, which is the only one I will share.

Tears for Fears started out as Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith. In their early videos for Shout and Everybody Wants to Rule the World, back in 1984 or so, it looked like Curt Smith was really the front man, and I think they did that because he was better looking. Maybe that pissed off Roland, or for whatever unknown reason, Curt left the band. So at this point when we saw them, it was just Roland with a backing band of some other guys.

I don’t know if the guy was pissed off, having a bad day, or what, but after the show was over, which was quite good, by the way, we all expected him to come out for an encore. After prolonged waiting, he finally came out, and instead of singing something everyone wanted to hear, he did an acapella wail of Radiohead’s Creep. I quite like Radiohead now, but at the time, I had absolutely no use for them, and it was all about this song that I absolutely hated. Some girls near us actually left, shrieking and covering their ears. After he finished, he dropped the microphone and walked off the stage.

Ocean Blue - The Cattle Club, Sacramento, California - November 6, 1993

Ocean Blue are one of those bands that I always forget about, but when I hear their music, it always makes me feel happy in some small way. I have to admit I only have a couple of albums, and it is the first one that AM introduced me too that is always closest to my heart.

They are a group of friends from Herschey, Pennsylvania, that put together a group and got lucky, with the Indie set anyway. Upon doing a web search, I was surprised to find they are still together and just put out another album in 2004.

I don’t remember exactly, but we probably found out they were playing by seeing a flyer at the Beat or at Tower Records in Sacramento – regular haunts of ours for music. This is the only show I ever saw at the Cattle Club – which is probably too bad. I distinctly remember seeing flyers all the time for Cake playing there, and never bothered at the time to go check it out, or even listen to a CD. I just thought they were a local band who would never go anywhere. I finally saw Cake 11 years later at Austin City Limits. But I get ahead of myself.

I remember the Cattle Club as small and kind of skanky in that lovable music club kind of way. The ceiling was low, which made us seem all the more closer to the band. I don’t remember a huge crowd either, so it was an easy, intimate way to see a show. Combine it with a trip to the Beat, and November weather much better than Reno, it made for a nice evening.