Big Bad Concert Rankings: 10-6

Everything you read here takes place in Milwaukee. Every concert was part of Summerfest. I am wearing a Summerfest shirt. I am writing this in Milwaukee. Well, Shorewood, but it’s close.

And for breaking into the Top 10 of a list I’ve been writing for almost a year now, I should feel a lot better. As you’ve read over the last few editions, it’s not the case. Moonlighting at concert venues and bars stopped entirely on March 11 and 14, respectively. Vacations were placed on the back burner of a stove that wasn’t even in my house. And there are no concrete plans to open things up anytime soon, even given the current protesting climate.

And my grandma died yesterday.

But that’s not the rough part.

The rough part is going to come later when I have to tell people that I’m fine with all of the circumstances. It’s not some bravado or acting tough. I’m just OK. And that has to be OK with everyone. I’m not overly emotional, regardless of the situation. Even at all of these shows below.

I don’t sing along to songs, even when I’m alone in my car. It’s just not something I like to do. I paid for the CD or the show to hear someone else sing, that’s the point.

I know what I sound like — a mixture of Peter Boyle from Young Frankenstein and Peyton Manning. Not palatable for holding a tune. And that’s to my own ears!

Whatever makes me OK with things has only been hardened since 2011. My dad has some issues and I’ve invested a lot of time, energy, and money keeping him upright and well, alive. It was touch and go four times in the last nine years.

My grandma was in a nursing home after a debilitating stroke for decades. Now, combine those two circumstances with working as a police reporter for Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo in 2013 and 2014 and you unwillingly build a tolerance to highly emotional states.

It’s not that I don’t feel anything, I do. It’s that I’m not overrun with the external emotions everyone else expects you to have. Plenty of things are internalized because the situation that makes you confront crime or death or fear has already been met, in some cases several times over.

It’s how I can offer some comic relief in troubling times. Be even-headed in a fight. Calm and collected during a medical emergency.

Or how a news photographer can be blinded by a rubber bullet and be back at work the next day.

Because whatever happened happened, and you can’t go back and change it. You have to move FORWARD, which incidentally, is the motto of this state housing the city I’m writing about.

I won’t forget anything that happened between me and my grandmother. Like the majority of this list, they’re good memories. Even yesterday. Maybe, had I not experienced my dad going through his dilemma the first, second, third, and fourth times things would be different. Maybe if I didn’t work the fires or tornado or other breaking news events, things would also be different.

But they all happened, and what comes next has to be OK with YOU. Because even with all of those things happening, I still enjoy my life, side from a few ne’er do wells. So, you can share condolences or say SFYL online. I’m fine with that, thank you, really. If you want to help, reach out to your nearest Native American tribe. My grandmother was half Oneida (making me and my brother 1/8) and they’re facing some truly troubling times during the pandemic. And no, my grandma didn’t have COVID-19. She was a smart, caring, and unabashedly genuine woman. After her stroke she was ‘given’ less than five years. It was 17, and that was more than OK with her family, so it has to be OK with you, too.

What we can do now is look back at some events that went above and beyond, united audiences across generations, made people smile with delight, jump for joy, scream at the top of their lungs, and act a little crazy, without breaking anything.

10. Gogol Bordello

No. 10 is a far cry from No. 112. What made this first show worth it was the entire concert season atmosphere. Summerfest in 2015 has populated this list a few times over but it was its Saturday night and Tuesday night shows that made the ultimate difference from ‘having a good summer’ to incredible memories. The BMO stage can hold a few thousand in its stadium seats and bleachers before the GA standing room fills in behind. All told, a sold out show is the equivalent of 5,000 people. Nothing to shake a stick at, for sure. I don’t know how many people were there to see Gogol Bordello because I was in the sixth row. This was on my must-see list for a solid decade since hearing Start Wearing Purple in high school (it was released a few years before. I’m not that old).

Anyway, as a fan of Andrew WK and that type of stage performance, high-energy shows always appealed to me. I love Radiohead, but I was using In Rainbows to fall asleep after midterms.

Gogol’s brand of gypsy punk, or rather, the only brand of gypsy punk I’m familiar with, is high-octane rocket fuel the band probably huffed backstage during the pre-show soundcheck. The 16-song setlist blazed by in 70 minutes. It was straight zooming by show No. 112’s standards. There was barley enough time to catch your breath after Not a Crime before the middle of the set was amped and over with. Frankly because the first 45 minutes was all window dressing for what everyone came to hear. The production crew made sure that even if anyone was unfamiliar with how the song starts, Eugene Hutz does song strumming and banter and kicks off the first couple lines. It whips into a frenzy once the stage turns purple and Sergey Ryabtsev breaks out the violin, Pedro Erazo acts as ultimate hype man, and everybody starts trying to find precise frequency of motherfucking purple. All of that before the encore. Post encore was considerably slower with an off kilter version of my personal favorite song Wanderlust King, before closers Think Locally, Fuck Globally and Sacred Darling.

Rapid, maniacal, frenzied, chaotic, and 100 percent gypsy punk. But that was only a Tuesday.

9. The Flaming Lips

Saturday was better. The jump from No. 46 to No. 9 isn’t as steep from Gogol’s placement, but the differences were just as immense. I wasn’t on the job, for one, and despite not holding a giant hamster ball or walking a unicorn through a crowd, the awe of The Flaming Lips was in full effect. Simply put, I knew what to expect from the first show and still had a pleasant time at 20 Monroe two years later. That 2015 show, however, was like living Gene Wilder’s Wonka speech in the Tunnel of Terror.

I thought The Abandoned Hospital Ship was an odd choice to start the show. Light on lyrics, long on a slow start, the song meanders to its crescendo. It’s not a ballad you groove to. If anything, this was the concert that made me stop overthinking and learn to love the setlist.

The first few minutes of the video below is from the FIRST SONG OF THE SET. Right around two minutes, the hospital ship is no longer abandoned. It became populated with confetti, confetti filled beach balls, dancing mushrooms, and at least 5,000 screaming fans, myself included.

Hint: you can see me at the 4 and 19-second marks.

Little did we all know we were going to go the distance with TFL. A couple technical and practical hiccups wouldn’t be enough to derail a fantastic show until the park closed at midnight. Do You Realize was sung a cappella with audience participation to close, and the middle was just as glorious as it was two years later. Yes, I skipped their most famous song because the closer wasn’t the most important song.

More inflatable creatures came (popped, re-inflated) and went, there was a laser light show, more confetti, and the famed hamster ball. Hospital Ship, and everything that flowed from that confetti-filled wellspring was pure magic that has only been beat by one other band.

But that’s for the next list.

8. Passion Pit

My cousin, the same one who got me a front row seat to Rise Against, kicks himself once in a while for missing this show, which read like a must-have list SNL’s Stefon would love. This show had everything — Top 40 hits, pouring rain, wet shoes, my wallet and phone wrapped up in a torn poncho, disrobing coeds,

BATMAN.

Yes, Passion Pit was about to take the stage in a downpour and nobody seemed to mind that much. I bought a poncho for three bucks that quickly ripped from the arms. So, taking stock of my phone, wallet, keys, and power pass, I did what any son of an avid MacGyver watcher did, wrap everything in the plastic and put it in my shorts pocket for safe keeping.

Drenching myself while the younger Passion Pit fans shouted “take it off” to anyone willing to shed their wet tees and embrace the rain. I was not one of them. The ringleader of this crew? A college kid in a black and yellow Batman spandex onesie. If The Flaming Lips stirred up that much emotion midway through the first song, the rallying crowd frenzied itself pre-show. Perhaps feeling that nothing less than perfect was going to cut it, Passion Pit took the stage, walked right into the rain and played the hits. Little Secrets. Banger. Lifted Up (1985). Banger. After easing into the meat of their touring setlist, the final four songs blew everyone away. The Reeling, Carried Away, Take a Walk. Sleepyhead as an encore was the cherry on top of a turtle sundae when you were younger and didn’t know what calories were.

7. Bon Jovi

I have never been to Arrowhead Stadium or CenturyLink Field so I can’t say for sure what the loudest roar ever feels like. I have worked a Jonas Brothers show, however, and those 25,000 preteens went hard. But teenage girls have nothing on middle-aged women screaming their hearts out for one man.

Oh, you think Livin’ On a Prayer is the best bar song? First song. Sort of a big deal. You Give Love a Bad Name? Second song. Modest approval. Runaway. It’s My Life. First 10 songs. And then the power ballad lull, followed by a cover of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. And as the band was finishing up the song The Last Night, you could hear the opening chords of Wanted Dead or Alive.

Tico Torres … David Bryan … Hugh McDonald … and then the band’s namesake.

Oh, and Richie Sambora.

I thought my eardrums exploded.

6. Roger Waters

The Who playing Tommy has nothing on Roger Waters playing The Dark Side of the Moon. My sophomore year roommate used to play Wish You Were Here on his acoustic guitar ad nauseam (that, and Oasis’ Wonderwall) but it was such a good tune that I didn’t mind.

Roger Waters brought 19 semi trailers with him and a giant inflatable pig, to boot. It wasn’t the production value that awed me, it was the endurance. Three hours Waters played his music for the adoring, cross-generational and multi-racial fanbase. A verifiable rainbow coalition of stoners raved into the wee hours of July 2, 2007 — my first week of my first non-work study job. What a way to enter the business.

My first experience from second-hand stoners came during Money when I realized the green haze wasn’t only coming from the stage. Nobody seemed to mind, especially my supervisors who didn’t want the hassle of kicking out … everyone, talent included. So, everyone just rolled with it. Fantastic.

He ended the night with Comfortably Numb and that’s exactly what it felt like the rest of the night, and week, and year. The half-mile walk back to the car was pure bliss. It was only after this show that I discovered we had an employee parking lot right behind the Amp. The show also solidified Time as one of my Top 5 songs of all … well, you get it.