The Joint at Hard Rock Hotel

Yup, this is my Pete Yorn concert review. Personally, the experience was almost the same as the Sugar Ray concert (my camera was taken away before I went inside, dammit!) but otherwise, it's the best $54.45 I've ever spent.

This was my first time inside Hard Rock Hotel so obviously, I was lost. It only took me few minutes to find the actual place, The Joint. The velvet rope led the way... Hehe. Anyways, the security guards were asking if I had any cameras on me and I innocently said "no". And I was on my way...

The place is built like a club, I guess, cuz it had the bars, table and seats and a pit below the stage (Notice the background? This is exactly how The Joint looks like on the inside. Rock and Roll, indeed). I think I was the youngest there o_O Although it was supposed to start at 8:00, nothing really happened til 45 minutes later. L.A. band Year of the Rabbit performed first as the opening act. And DAMN, they were good! And FUCKING LOUD! I was near the speakers so my poor lil eardrums were rendered helpless. These dudes were awesome and performed incredible songs. I wish I bought their CD earlier at the merchandise section. Instead, I bought a $25 Pete Yorn shirt. Yes, $25 for a shirt. They also gave out free DVDs called "Attack Of The Killer Rock Sounds", containing videos of a few popular bands (like The Ataris, Incubus, Audioslave, Good Charlotte and System of a Down) and a few not so well known bands (like The Choral, The Raveonettes, Vendetta Red, and Memento).

After what seemed like forever for the band equipent to set up, Pete Yorn and his band "Dirty Bird" finally came on stage at 10:15 pm. "What's up, Las Vegas?" he shouted. Pete sounds SO different in person. I mean, when he sings he has a low voice but when he performs live, his voice is actually higher. On an interesting note, he said he's been wanting to perform at The Joint for 5 years. Pete kicked things off with "For Nancy" (Cos It Already Is), his supposed theme song. He performed quite a number of his songs from both of his CDs, 'Musicforthemorningafter' and 'Day I Forgot'. He performed 3 new songs; His cover for The Ramones' "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend", "Dancer In The Sky" (his tribute to Jeff Buckley) and... well, I forgot the third one. I actually found myself happily singing along and dancing to his songs, which was the same with the other people. I was also snapping pictures away with my digi-cam and my disposable camera (my back-up cam in case my digi-cam would get confiscated).

Here's the sucky part. The security guard gave me a fair warning to not take any more pics, so I stopped. A few minutes later, I turned on my digi-cam to check if I got any pics. It showed NOTHING! It showed only 1 pic of Year of the Rabbit and 1 pic of Pete, both in blurry quality and hardly recognizeable! To make things worse, the same guard escorted me outside the place cuz he thought I was gonna take another pic. I had to surrender my digi-cam to the front desk. Grr. So I returned and lost my place. I had to stand a lil farther from my spot but I can still see him. I resumed singing along to his songs... and trying to use my back-up cam without that pesky guard seeing me. Pete's last song was "Murray" and he went down from the stage into the front row of the audience. GAH! I was rushing to the front but I stopped cuz he was still outta reach. He was shaking their hands and the girls were grabbing his hair and his shirt (dammit!).

I left the place deaf and angry cuz my digi-cam didn't take any good pics and my disposable camera wasn't used that much. But it was an awesome experience. WAY better than Sugar Ray's concert. Eeeehh... concerts are awesome. But it's even better if you're not by yourself.

Here are a few pics, the first 2 being the only actual concert pics. The rest are merchandise.

"Come back home for another year..."