SETLIST:
ballad of the ladyman
start together
all hands on the bad one
ironclad
get up
words & guitar
the professional
you're no rock & roll fun
was it a lie?
[explanation of the meaning of was it a lie?]
the end of you
[talking about eric clapton rumours]
milkshake & honey
one song for you
pompeii
white rabbit
#1 must have
male model
little babies
youth decay
--------------
(encore #1)
one more hour
dig me out
stay where you are
fortunate son(!)
good things
--------------
(encore #2)
turn it on
Portland was graced with gene defcon and no. 2 as openers. gene defcon reminded me of... a non-political le tigre with guys in it. or er. the b-52s combined with le tigre. something like that. no. 2 were alright although i was a wee bit disappointed they played "critical mass" right off the bat. oh well. at least they played it.
The crowd was really excited to see s-k come on the stage and people were clapping and cheering when carrie was tuning her guitar. for the beginning part of the show, the crowd was very very quiet. in between songs, everyone was essentially silent, either waiting for the band to say something... or people just had no idea what to yell out. they skipped one song early on in the set to play an older song and i think they needed to cos the crowd was just dead. it took words & guitar to get the crowd sort of worked up and it was better from there. corin's levels were also way too low especially during get up, but they improved later on in the show.
I was told that corin's explanation of "was it a lie?" was essentially the same thing she said in olympia, but it was still a good... speech(?), nonetheless. carrie was also mentioning rumours about eric clapton. what exactly the rumours were about, i had no idea but corin mentioned something about how she got what she deserved, calling carrie "brownstein". and carrie then mentioned something about like... how she didn't start any rumours about the two of them. i instantly thought of the krs ask a band a question thing where carrie jokingly said it was sometimes tough being in the band because corin and janet had just broken up.
in between the talk about "was it a lie?" and the eric clapton rumours, they played "the end of you", my favourite song live. although i was sad when carrie completely forgot to sing her lines at the end, the ones that go "no bigger spotlight than shown on the ones brave enough to live", which is actually my favourite part of the song. i knew she missed her lines and i was completely nailing them until my friend looked and me funny and i thought i mistimed them or sang the wrong part. gah. the set ended with "youth decay" and they left the stage briefly and then went into "one more hour", which a nice amount of the crowd were singing along to. then they did "dig me out" and "stay where you are" and to my delight, they did "fortunate son" by creedence clearwater revival. i was teased earlier when they were talking right before "white rabbit". i think someone was yelling for a certain song and they said the song they were going to play was from the same era. but it turned out to be "white rabbit", obviously. they also played everyone's favourite sad song, "good things" and left the stage.
The crystal ballroom decided to turn on their music once again (which always has way too much bass), which usually signifies a show is over. but no one wanted to leave and people were clapping and cheering, so they came out for one last song. and carrie said she had to drive back to olympia later in the night, so that was going to be it. i had an urge to yell for "turn it on", but um. they played it anyway, so it was all good. when they left the stage, they shook hands with people as they were walking off and it was a pretty cute and amusing sight.
A good performance, not my favourite (amoeba records, 1/7/99, san francisco) and not my least favourite (univ. of london, um. during the summer, london). and another sold out show for sleater-kinney.
As for the merchandise, there were three shirts. an orange one with a cat on it with "sleater-kinney" on the back, a blue one that said "sleater-kinney" at the top, and then with a drawing in the middle and "the bad one" printed beneath the drawing and a "show me your riffs" shirt with "sleater-kinney" on the back. there is also a set of stickers for a dollar, and two separate pin sets for two dollars each. one set is a band logo and one pin each of carrie, corin and janet. and the second set features the same band logo in the first set and what looks like one pin of a ladyman (it's a victorian woman with a moustache and goatee, so...), one pin of a swimmer and the last one is of a guy in a suit, so maybe it's supposed to be a male model? those three pins all say "the bad one" and "s-k" on them.
hum. i think janet has taken to drumming with her shoes on and corin dyed her hair red. not crayon ronald mcdonald red or anything. i only mention this because you can deny it all you want, but i know you care.
