90s Live Now - #4.5 that dog. (night 2)

Well, don't I feel like a schmuck? After boldly announcing that Weezer would be the special surprise opening act for this evening's sold out that. dog reunion show (and thus experiencing a huge spike in readership), I will now have to eat my words, as Mime Crime and Princess were tonight's warm-up acts. Just like it says on the special commemorative poster. That'll teach me to ever trust a merch guy.

In my defense, all the pieces fit for a surprise Weezer set. They were known contemporaries and collaborators with that dog., the poster reads Princess & Mime Crime as the openers, which could easily be taken for a code name like Goat Punishment (the fictitious moniker Weezer used circa 2000 while playing out as a Nirvana and Oasis cover band), plus, as mentioned before, the merch guy told me that Weezer was strongly rumored to open and he should know, right?

But enough about the lack of Weezer. The aptly-named Mime Crime are a rock band made up of clowns who pantomime the motions of an exciting group. It was funny for one "song", when I thought it was a joke and Weezer was about to play. Then they played 4 or 5 more "songs" and it became the polar opposite of what I had hoped. Then came Princess, another aptly-named group, as it featured two female lead singers (one of whom was SNL-alum Maya Rudolph) doing a short set of Prince covers, including "Darling Nikki", "When You Were Mine" and "Controversy." Sadly, no "Batdance" but you can't get everything you want in life. Especially Weezer.

But I was there to see that dog. and after a few more minutes, they came on, once again introduced by Ali Rushfield. The set was mostly the same as Friday night's show, and there was less of a rabid energy this evening, but more of a respectful excitement. Perhaps because it was a Sunday evening and everyone was partied out, or perhaps these were the true fans, the ones that had stuck it out those oh-so-many years.

 rachel haden, tony maxwell, anna waronker

The big difference in tonight's set was the inclusion (after so many shouted requests on Friday) of "Hawthorne" from Retreat From the Sun and probably my favorite that dog. song of all time. Fun fact about "Hawthorne": the song was written about Steve McDonald, bass player of Redd Kross and his hometown of Hawthorne, CA. Years later, he and Anna married and "Hawthorne" is their child's favorite song, though he changes the "trying to find your parents' house" line to "trying to find Grandma's house." Adorable!

Tonight's show had the band displaying the same gregarious energy as on Friday, but with a bit more confidence and polish, only to be expected after shaking off the cobwebs. Anna even had several guitar changes and I learned something new this weekend - almost none of their songs are in a standard guitar tuning. Which makes a lot of sense in retrospect.

 anna and petra haden, my crush of 15 years

Here's the setlist for tonight. I'm trying to get it up on Setlist.fm, but the site isn't working for me, so feel free to post:

Old Timer
Jump
Ms. Wrong
Long Island
Being With You
Raina
Lip Gloss
She Looks At Me
Grunge Couple
Did You Ever
Retreat From the Sun
Silently
Zodiac
Minneapolis
Gagged and Tied
He's Kissing Christian
Michael Jordan

(1st encore)
Punk Rock Girl
Never Say Never
In the Back of My Mind
Hawthorne
Westside Angst
Angel

(2nd encore)
This Boy

That's the last 90s show for a while, though The Lemonheads are playing It's a Shame About Ray in it's entirety at the El Rey in October if anyone wants to spot me some cash.

Whatever.