1st Lollapalooza
Harriet Island, St. Paul, MN. 1991
Jane’s Addiction, Siouxsie and the Banshees, the Violent Femmes, NIN, and Henry Rollins all rolled into one. Actually all I remember is Jane’s Addiction and Siouxsie, but I was right up front stage left, dancing the whole time and my mind was blown.
Grateful Dead
Compton Terrace. Tempe, AZ. 1992
This was epic just getting to the show. My friend drove all night long from MN down the middle states. They closed I-40 at Albuquerque due to inclement weather. We inched through the city and turned south. The snow was really, really intense. We shouldn’t have been on the road at all. On 60W, I got sideswiped by a car that was driving way too fast and tried to pass me. He knocked off my driver’s side mirror. A few hours later, I drove off the road. We had to improvise to dig ourselves out. We pulled into the Phoenix metro area early morning on Saturday, December 5th in the early morning to bright sunshine. It all just seemed surreal.
Tori Amos
Barrymore Theater. Madison, WI. 1994
From the Under the Pink Tour. Tori is the only person I’ve ever waited in line all night to get tickets for ever. She was looking right at me - or so it felt. I remember walking home with Steve Ranney to the housing co-operative and being completely blissed out by the experience of the concert. I think we were having verbal orgasms.
Ani Difranco
Champoeg State Park, Oregon. 1997
Ani was my heroine from her 1st album to sometime soon after Little Plastic Castles. In 1997, I had just moved to Portland, OR. I didn’t drive or know anyone yet. I put up a “Ride Wanted” sign at the women’s bookstore on Hawthorne. Some hot girl in a Mustang convertible picked me & my camping gear up. I went off to camp with lesbians for the weekend. I was incredibly shy, but the concert was awesome.
Elliot Smith
La Luna. Portland, OR. 1998
This was a quintessential Portland experience of the time. It was raining out and I remember feeling incredibly & inexplicably sad.
Tricky
Plan B? Portland, OR. 1998?
Maxinquaye was often on repeat at home at the time. Pre-Millenium Tension was out. It was a small club. Smoky - back when bars were dark and thick with smoke. Tricky was energetic, calling up a huge range of emotions. I was entranced.
Brendon Perry & Kristin Hersch
Crystal Ballroom. Portland, OR. 1999
I never saw Dead Can Dance, but I did get to see this show!
I also saw Kristin Hersch right before this in a Borders Bookstore. That was intimate – imagine as many people peering around bookshelves as it was possible to get in one store to see a woman and her guitar.
Rasputina
Wow Hall. Eugene, OR. 2004
I first went to work that day in Portland with my camping gear, took several busses including the Amtrak bus to Eugene to end up at Steve and Rayn’s house. We went to the concert before setting up camp for the Society for Creative Anachronism’s Memorial Day weekend event. My tent went up with the daylight about 24 hours after the whole adventure started. I love the cello rock and wouldn’t have missed it for the world.
March Fourth Marching Band
Kaosmosis. Bossanova Ballroom. Portland, OR. 2005-ish?
Which Kaosmosis event to name? They were all epic in their own ways.
Soriah, Blixa and Jarboe
The Old Church. Portland, OR. 2006
Intimate. Haunting. Beautiful.
The whole experience was a one off – you really had to be there.
Massive Attack
Paramount Theater. Seattle, WA. 2006
With Tricky. It was just all kinds of awesome. Thanks to Anabel for getting me there.
Dresden Dolls
Crystal Ballroom. October 15th. 2006
Amanda Fucking Palmer rocks the house for my birthday show.
Solovox
Top of the Mobile Groove Bomb. Baja, Mexico. NYE 2006-2007
I jumped through a Burning Door and celebrated the New Year on the beach in Mexico with some of the most amazing humans on the planet. The suck knob was off for sure.
Time Based Art in the Fountains
Ira Keller and assorted Fountains. Portland, OR. 2008
As part of PICA’s Time Based Art Festival this was a truly unique performance.
The “Indian Summer” was weather perfect for this performance. People were dancing interpretively in the fountains. There were interactive elements of participating with the performances along the way in various parks and fountains. I saw a woman playing a piano IN the Lovejoy Fountain.
PDX Bridge Party
Hawthorne Bridge. Portland, OR. 2010
Wherein Solovox and the Mobile Groove Bomb crew very quickly discover we’ve got more funk than this old bridge can handle.
