The Lightning Seeds (with The Murmurs) - The Flash Café, San Diego, California - October 18, 1994

This was the first concert I saw in San Diego, just after moving there in October of 1994. The Lightning Seeds were really a one-hit wonder band – with their catchy “Life of Riley,” and perhaps we might never have gone to see them if we weren’t so drunk on having multiple concert options within easy reach.

The Flash was the other, sort of lighter, alternative station in San Diego, kind of a more adult contemporary counterpart to 91X. I don’t know what we were more giddy about – having two decent radio station choices, or having multiple concert options to choose from. I suppose if I had been employed and/or had more money in the first place, I might have spent months going to little clubs like the Flash Café and seeing bands I had heard once on the radio or seen their name in the music store under new releases.

The Lightning Seeds (fronted by Ian Broudie – who lives on making solo albums that actually sound pretty good, at least from the website) – were fine, but the most memorable part of the concert was the Murmurs. They were two angry young women with just acoustic guitars that played some really fun and memorable songs. A particularly sweet one was “You Suck.” We felt really cool that we got to sign their guest book, a regular notebook with maybe 50 names in it. According to the web, I guess they managed to hang on until 1998 or so – with a couple of changes to their lineup.