Great googly moogly that was an amazing trip, and Iron Maiden still puts on an amazing performance. As enjoyable as it was, it feels great to be back home with our furry family and our own bed.
Friday we went to the legendary Rainbow Bar & Grill in West Hollywood for the Eddie’s Dive Bar popup. (I’m a bit irritated at myself for not taking any pictures of Lemmy’s Lounge, in particular his statue…) We got the merch we were after and decided to stay for lunch – that was a mistake.
Getting a drink wasn’t so bad, just stand in the line for the bar. Getting the food, however, was an ordeal. It took ~45 minutes before our order was taken, and it was well over an additional hour before we were finally served. Management hadn’t planned on the influx of Iron Maiden fans when staffing for midday Friday.
While there, we did run into a “frenemy” I hadn’t seen since the mid-’90s. Yes, he and his partner were still twats, and I look forward to not thinking about either of them for another 30 years.
Because of the lunch delay, we were behind schedule so had to rush. A quick change at the hotel then off to the show! The plan had been to arrive an hour before doors opened but there’s that saying about “best laid plans.” LA traffic is already insane and the concert just amped that up several notches. Ultimately, we found parking and made it inside and to our seats just as Anthrax was coming out on stage.
Caught in a mosh…
I was excited to see Anthrax live again after so long. As an opener, they played a shorter set than I would have preferred, but it was still amazing. It did seem they brought the tempo down a bit, and they dropped their tuning (C#) but Joey could still hit all the necessary notes. One of my favorite bands back in the day, I hadn’t seen them live since ’91 when they opened for Iron Maiden then as well.
But it better work this time…
I wasn’t as excited to see Megadeth as the others, but my wife was. I just wish she could have seen them 10 to 15 years ago. Dave Mustaine still has the shredding skills as a guitarist, but the vocals were uncomfortably terrible. It didn’t help that the audio mix was poor as well – I wondered if they skipped the soundcheck. This time the short set was a mercy – Dave should have retired the band a few years back.
Or Iron Maiden could have cut them and given Anthrax a longer set…
Iron Maiden is gonna get you…
Holy shit, that set list and show was amazing – Iron Maiden still has it. They pulled all the songs from the “classic” era and had a hell of a performance. The only change I would have made would be squeezing The Prisoner into the set. Bruce didn’t hit all the high notes like days past, but he still has it.
I previously mentioned concern about switching from the elaborate stage set to a digital one, but it was way better than I could have imagined. And my concern was unwarranted, Eddie did make “live” appearances during a couple of the songs.
I only took a few photos – for Anthrax and Megadeth, only in their first song, and only for Iron Maiden’s “Goodnight Los Angeleees!” at the end of the show. There was a guy a couple rows in front of us who had his phone up practically the whole time. I really wanted to just knock it out of his hand and tell him to enjoy the moment. I mean, when you do that, how often do you actually go back and watch/listen?
You paid a lot of money to be there, so enjoy that moment people. I think living in a music desert has made me more appreciative of the concert experiences during the moment. It isn’t like how it was living in a city where there was something happening every night and I took that for granted. Our concerts now are planned events built around that experience, and makes them more significant.
We did end up with an escort and I got a ride out of the venue – we were waiting for the stairwells to clear out so I wouldn’t hinder the traffic too much but security was trying to clear the floor. They sent over a wheelchair and took us through the VIP lounge to the elevators to exit. It was appreciated, though I wish I had known about that option earlier, as I have more difficulty going down stairs than I do going up them.
Then came the day when the hard times began…
I dealt with a lot of pain the next day. I had been on my feet for practically the whole show and my body was unhappy about that. My buddy and his girlfriend went off to Disneyland, while my wife and I met up with a friend and his girlfriend for lunch. Another mutual friend couldn’t make it since he was in New Zealand on a shoot, but he does get up to Montana periodically.
We had the quintessential LA lunch – Mediterranean tapas. My friend is vegan, so since it was tapas I tried some of that as well and was pleasantly surprised. They often use mushrooms as a meat substitute and I love mushrooms. I even found the vegan mushroom tacos to be better than the chicken ones! Food is my love language, so I will need to experiment with some vegan cooking to be prepared when they visit.
After lunch, my wife and I went on our usual bookstore prowl. It was getting late and we were both still exhausted, but managed to hit a few nice ones. One of them also had t-shirts so we picked up another “matchy-matchy” pair of bookstore shirts to wear. After that, it was dinner (In-N-Out again) and then back to the hotel to get ready to head home the next morning.
We skipped the Anthrax show at the Roxy – as much as my brain wanted to attend, my body was raising objections. I’ll be keeping an eye on their tour schedule for a future show, however.
I ended up not sleeping at all that night – I had to be up at 2AM so by the time midnight hit and I still couldn’t sleep, I just went with it. We didn’t know how long it would take us to return our rental car and get through security but ended up with about three hours to wait.
It was a great visit, but I still hate LA. I would have planned for a different venue if I wasn’t getting the tickets for my buddy in California as well. I also prefer to explore new cities rather than returning again and again to the same one. Next time I will look at other cities first, then tell friends about the show and our plans.
Oh, we also managed to get Round Table Pizza on Thursday night for dinner, and man, do I miss that pizza! I’m going to be trying my hand at making the sauce myself. That really is the key difference that makes Round Table stand out against others.
‘Til next time, UP THE IRONS!
Song of the day: Running Free by Iron Maiden
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