Last time I wrote about some of the big name artists I saw last year. Maybe Mumford & Sons and Nathaniel Rateliff don’t count as top line artists, but trust me, they’re a step above the other bands I saw. Today, we’re going from arena level to club level. But they all at least have one song that have been played on the radio.
Three of the four actually have that designation this side of 1983, too.
The first concert I saw was in a brand new facility in Sacramento. So new, in fact, that the bands were continuously listing it as “Sacramento TBD.” I started worrying that maybe they weren’t actually coming to Sacramento, and that they were just using it as a placeholder in case they wanted to add an extra stop in between the Bay Area and Portland.
Turns out this new venue just wanted to announce their entire run of shows all at once. Super fancy announcement. Even the mayor was there. They talked about how great this new venue would be. Because it’s “mid-sized” instead of “small” like Ace of Spades or Harlow’s, which have been a staple of the downtown scene for decades and have this fancy thing called “parking.”
This new venue, instead of being near restaurants and bars, is in a residential district with no parking. Allegedly it’s right by the Light Rail line, but the Sacramento Light Rail is terrible, goes nowhere, and doesn’t have any riders except the homeless. Your best option if you wanted to ride it to the show would be to park somewhere else in downtown, then ride the Light Rail the rest of the way. Of course, if everyone were to do that, they’d have to wait an hour or two after the show to ride that mile, because it didn’t appear they were running any more cars than usual and there ain’t a ton of Light Rail running at 11:00 pm.
Good ol’ Sacramento. We also scheduled our freeway closure by the ballpark during the two years that we have a major league team playing there
I ended up parking the requisite mile away, then I just left Wife and Daughter at the venue, fast-walked the mile, then came back to pick them up.
The venue itself was fine. Not enough seats. It’s mostly standing room, which would usually be my complaint about those “smaller” venues they think they’re so much better than. Daughter was only about 5 feet tall at that point, so standing in a crowd wasn’t going to do her much good. Unfortunately, the seats were all on the balcony way in the back.
Oh, and the drinks were overpriced.
Other than that… yay, Sacramento!
The 502s
We saw two bands at the new venue. Technically The 502s was the opening band, but considering we had already seen the headliner before, this band was more than half the draw. Certainly wasn’t the venue.
If you’ve never heard the 502s, do yourself a favor and go look up some videos. Unless you’re in a bad mood and want to stay that way. Every song is upbeat and can neither be sung nor listened to without grinning from ear to ear.
They’re energetic and fun. They’ve got a ukulele and a bunch of wind instruments. Maybe a kazoo in there somewhere? Many of their videos are filmed in a laundry room or on the porch or some other random small spot where they can’t fit half the members of the band. And as far as I can tell, they’re actually playing in all these videos, not just lip synching, primarily because the audio quality isn’t mixed and is kinda raw. Laundry rooms aren’t great when you’ve got ten people playing instruments.
I don’t even know how many people are in the band. And that includes after seeing them live. Each video has a different batch of people. It seems like, on the day of recording a new song or video, they just invite all their friends over. Being Gen Z, half of them don’t show up, and then they base the new song off of whatever instrumentation they have present.
The concert setup seemed the same. There were about ten of them on stage. Some I recognized from videos, some not. They had a female guitar player who sang some verses that I’m almost positive aren’t sung by a female on the official recording. But I didn’t recognize her from any of the videos. And they put saxophone in a lot more of the songs live, presumably because the saxophone player was on the stage. Maybe if we’d seen them the following night, there would’ve been oboe.
As such, the live performance was more or less what you see in the videos. The good and the bad. The singer seemed to be shouting to sing above the instruments which made it harder for him to hit some of the notes. But you forgive him because he’s jumping around and playing his banjo with such energy and vigor. I’d be winded, too.
The saxophone guy totally stole the show. Maybe just because I played sax in high school, but he clearly stood out. I can’t be the only one who thought this, because they actually let him come center stage for a few solos. Those solos became more impressive and distinguished as the concert went on. Given how fly by night the band feels, maybe they decide on the fly who’s gonna get that treatment each concert. And for ours, it was him.
The complete opposite of a certain wind instrument dude I’d see later in the year.
Lake Street Dive
This was our second time seeing Lake Street Dive. The first time was back in ’22, our first trip after Covid, when we flew to Boston to see them on their home turf. They were one of the first bands to open a new venue there, too. Guess it’s kinda their thang.
And by “we,” I mean not only me and Wife, but also Daughter. She’s eleven years old and is already seeing repeat performances. On both coasts. Plus front row at a Billy Joel concert and Taylor Swift in another country (sort of – Vancouver) and next year she’ll see Ed Sheeran. Damn. At her age I had been dragged along to a Thompson Twins concert and that was it.
The Boston venue we saw them in had many similarities with this new Sacramento one. Mostly standing room, only a few seat and they’re all around the fringes on the second floor. But the Boston ones weren’t reserved seats, and Daughter was maybe eight inches shorter then, so even though we tried our best to give her a spot to see from, each spot seemed worse than the previous one.
Reason number two why we made sure to purchase seats this time.
The people who sat next to us paid for their seats, too. Not sure why. They missed the entirety of The 502s. To be expected for an opening band. Our neighbors weren’t the only ones to hang out by the overpriced bar instead of witnessing a fun band. But, you know, the longer the seats next to you go empty, the more you hope that you’re going to have some elbow room for the next few hours. Then, wham, the a-holes show up and no more man-spreading for me.
So yeah, as soon as Lake Street Dive took the stage, a man and a woman take the spots and I’m grumpy. Fortunately they only stayed through the third song. Then left.
I’ve noticed a trend in the last few years that bands aren’t always holding their biggest hits back for the encore. In fact, they tend to ambush us with one of their top hits as the second or third song of the night. Mumford and Sons almost always has either “Little Lion Man” or “I Will Wait” as their second song. The other one goes to the encore, and they’ll usually swap them night to night.
For Lake Street Dive, “Hypotheticals” is, if not their biggest hit, at least their biggest crossover success. It’s the song that I discovered them with. And sure enough, they played it third.
After the song, the couple next to me, who again, hadn’t sat down until the first song was already starting, got up and left. I assumed they were grabbing another drink, but I joked that maybe they only knew that one song and were done.
Turns out that wasn’t a joke. They never came back. I guess that’s why you usually put your most popular song at the end. Not that I’m complaining. I watched two bands I liked and only had to sit with my legs together for three songs. But man, does it occur to these people that a band might have more than one song they like?
As for the songs and the concert, I’ll refer you back to the first time I saw them, because it was more of the same. They’re very good. You go back and forth between what’s more impressive: Rachael’s voice or Bridget’s bass playing. Or the only thing that’s more impressive, which is Akie’s belief that he’s the star everyone’s there to see.
Both Bridget and Rachael are phenomenal. So good, in fact, that you tend to forget about them. It’s an easy trap to fall in – “meh, that’s what they sound like” – but occasionally it helps to be reminded: holy crap, that’s what they sound like.
This time, I think Bridget impressed me more. Something about her playing an upright bass with the finesse and cadence of an electric. Unfortunately, I didn’t film any of her solos. The best I got is the two of them vibing off each other.
One of the songs on their recent album was called “Twenty-Five.” It’s a melancholic song about those loves we had in our early adulthood. The ones that everybody knows wouldn’t and couldn’t last, because at 25, we’re still becoming who we’ll become. But those transitionary years are important. After verses about how totally impossible the relationship would have been going forward, the refrain is “But I will always be in love with how you loved me when we were twenty-five.”
When I first heard the song, I found it interesting because they also have a song called “Seventeen.” That one keeps saying “I wish I’d met you when we were seventeen.” Before we became jaded, before we put our defenses up. You know, when all the lead was still in the pencil. “I bet we could’ve had a good time.”
I love these two songs as bookends. They were released a decade apart from each other. As with life, right? Guessing they were thirty when they wrote Seventeen, when you’re harkening back to the good old days. Hell, the lover from your mid-twenties was too recent. But by the time you get to forty, you realize those twentysomething relationships were foundational.
Can’t wait for another decade when they release “Thirty-One.” That’s about the time we finally know what we’re looking for, but are having trouble finding it in the right people. It’s like they’re turning every verse of Frank Sinatra’s “Very Good Year” into its own song. And I’m here for it.
The odd thing I found, when Rachael introduced the song, was that Bridgett wrote it. I don’t know why that surprised me. Maybe because it feels so personal when Rachael sings it. I guess I just assumed Bridgett was all bad-ass bass playing and Rachael was the emotional crooner. But it turns out their musical talents don’t predict their emotions and/or relationship history.
I just looked it up: Bridgett wrote “Seventeen,” too.
State Fair Concerts (OAR, Air Supply)
The State Fair is always quite the crap bag of bands. Sorry, did I say grab bag? I meant crap bag.
You always know how far you’ve fallen, or how far you have yet to rise, by playing at the state fair. True, it’s a step up from the county fair, but is it really? You’re still playing for an audience who didn’t have to buy a ticket and is in between watching pigs give birth.
And tomorrow, this same stage will be occupied by a Poison tribute band.
This year, I saw one of each type: Air Supply, decades removed from their height, and OAR, a one-hit wonder if you’re very kind with the definition of “Hit.”
Air Supply
This wasn’t my first time seeing Air Supply. If I were to guess, it would be four or five. It’s at least the second, possibly third, time I’ve seen them at that exact same State Farm venue. The other times were at Indian Casinos, the third part of the Fair triumvirate. County Fairs are one extreme, only catering to up-and-comers (or never-will-be’s), while Indian casinos only take the retreads, because their fans are old enough to gamble.
The first time I saw Air Supply, I invited my future wife. She said no. I took an old friend, then proceeded to get drunk and make out with her. Not bad for a backup.
So when we started dating a few months later, we had to rectify the mistake. I think that was one of the Indian casino shows.
The first time, I was blown away. Kinda figured it as a lark, a bunch of crooner songs my parents listened to when I was five years old. You know the songs: Making All out of Lost in Love. They were the Ed Sheeran of 1981 playing a State Fair.
They fucking rocked. Seriously, go listen to those songs again. They actually have a bit of drive to them. Some guitar riffs, too. And in concert, they cranked the volume, maybe sped them up a bit, and when they they sang “And I can make all the stadiums rock,” it didn’t sound like a complete fever dream.
Except that instead of making stadiums rock, it was just the cow stalls.
That was 2008. In 2025, the venue and artists might have been the same, but the result was decidedly not. Seventeen years might be a blink for a young whippersnapper like myself, but considering they started that seventeen years already a decade older than I ended it… yikes.
There’s two guys in Air Supply. The belting singer doesn’t play any instrument. He could still hit most of the belting notes, but when he wasn’t in a certain range, he couldn’t get any volume or force. And the emotion was gone. When I saw them in 2008, I was amazed how much they still punched the lyrics and made songs I’d heard for decades land differently. From docile to passionate. This time the verses were lackluster.
Then there’s the harmony guy. Don’t want to call him a back-up singer, because he’s one of the two leads and he sings a fair amount of the verses. However, he sings substantially less than 50% and he never sings any of the choruses, except as back-up. More importantly, though, he plays guitar. Most of the time. So yeah, Air Supply is a duo of the belter and the other guy.
Well, Other Guy’s voice is struggling. Raspy throughout with a range substantially less than he had in the Bush Administration. It was a little painful to listen to.
Not as bad as Eddie Money, who I also saw at the fair, and who struggled through a couple songs, gasping for air between with his hand on his knee between each phrase – “Baby hold on to me” (huff, huff) “Whatever will be will be” (gasp, wheeze) – then left the stage to let his daughter, who was trying to break into the music industry, sing a bunch of songs she’d written. Good thing I didn’t pay for a ticket, or else I’d demand my money back.
And don’t even get me started on the time I saw Eric Clapton and he let some dipshit play the majority of the guitar solos.
So yeah, my best advice for seeing Air Supply would be to check their upcoming tour dates. With a time machine.
OAR
A few days after Air Supply, I did my friend a favor by going to see a band he liked. I don’t think I had ever heard of them, except when he talked about them.
He said they were good live, so sure. Why not? It’s not like I had to pay for a ticket and it had been a full forty-eight hours since I’d last eaten a funnel cake.
In case you, like me, know nothing of the band and thought it was named after a paddling instrument, that is not the case. You pronounce every letter of the band name. Oh-Ay-Are. It might be an acronym, for all I know.
Turns out I did actually know one of their songs. The refrain on it is “Turn this car around,” although I doubt that’s the actual title. I think it was big somewhere around 2010.
Although to the fans, that must not be their big hit, because they buried it somewhere in the middle of the concert, The song that everyone went apeshit for came last. I think it referenced gambling at the beginning, or maybe a card game, and then all the fans took out playing cards and started flinging them everywhere. Up in the air, at the stage, at each other. If a card fell at your feet, you picked it up and flung it along like it’s a giant beach ball at a Dodgers game.
I was having a real “virgin at Rocky Horror” vibe. Like seriously, the crowd was all polite and calm one second, and really for the entire hour up to that second, and then wham! cards everywhere! But unlike Rocky Horror, this wasn’t one of many schticks. This was just everybody bringing a pack of playing cards to a concert and leaving them in their pockets or purses until one specific lyric, then descending into chaos like a middle school 6-7 rally.
Good thing they didn’t sing that song first or I would’ve come away with a drastically different perception of both the band and its fans.
Oh, and my friend is totally fired for not telling me this was going to happen. Nor bringing any cards. And he calls himself a fan. Pfft. He probably calls them Oar.
The other thing that jumped out was the trumpet player. This dude thought he was the main draw. He always knew when the camera was on him. Sure, he was standing behind the lead singer, so it was on him a lot, but if, say, the cross-shot went up, all of a sudden trumpet was sliding over to the singer’s side. And if lead guitar had a solo, well then, guess what, he’s gonna have a trumpet player staring at his strings.
Dude mouthed the lyrics. Dude made hand gestures. Dude stuck his tongue out and shook his head. For instance, when the lead singer sang “Turn this car around,” there was Trumpet Dude right behind him twirling his finger around in a “run the clock” motion. You know, just in case we didn’t understand the complex phrasing of turning something around.
I filmed this video for my daughter, since it’s a Taylor Swift cover, and although Trumpet Dude is relatively docile in it, you can tell he’s just champing at the bit:
Hey, does this count as seeing three bands at the State Fair? Because I’m pretty sure there was a Taylor Swift cover band on the docket.
Meh, I’ll wait a few decades and she’ll be playing the Fair herself.
The Writing Wombat 