Live Nation presents X, Los Lobos, and Elettrodomestico
the Fillmore
1805 Geary Blvd, San Francisco, CA 94109-7217 USA
8:00 PM, Friday, November 23, 2018

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2018 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2018 event list! ☸ On to the next event!

[8:03 PM lights down, band out]

1. [8:04 PM] The Next Night
2. [8:07 PM] Mail Order Bride +
3. [8:11 PM] Rabbit Stew
4. [8:16 PM] Brittle (PS)
5. [8:21 PM] Lost at Sea
6. [8:26 PM] Bliss
7. [8:30 PM] Aloha
   [set ends 8:34 PM]

• Joe Gore: kala u-bass;
• Dawn Richardson: drums;
• Pietro Straccia: guitar, lead and harmony vox;
• Jane Wiedlin: guitar, + percussion, lead and harmony vox.

[9:01 PM intro by Crack, band out, lights down; Cesar sings lead on all songs tonight]

1. [9:03 PM] Shakin' Shakin' Shakes
   [Add Josh Baca: accordion, † percussion]
2. [9:07 PM] My Baby's Gone
3. [9:17 PM] Chuco's Cumbia $†
4. [9:26 PM] Wicked Rain %
5. [9:34 PM] That Train Don't Stop Here Anymore %
   [Drop Bugs, SB; LP takes over on drums]
6. [9:47 PM] Ay Te Dejo En San Antonio * » [SB back]
7. [9:50 PM] Volver, Volver *
8. [9:54 PM] Set Me Free (Rosa Lee)
   [Cesar leads a toast to 45 years of Lobos]
9. [10:01 PM] Papa Was a Rolling Stone » I Can't Understand » CR teases Stairway to Heaven »
10. [10:08 PM] Oye Como Va %
11. [10:15 PM] La Bamba + » Good Love % » La Bamba
    [set ends 10:21 PM]

Los Lobos

• Steve Berlin: % keyboards, baritone saxophone, + percussion;
• Enrique ‘Bugs’ Gonzalez (except ): drums; Conrad Lozano: bass, harmony vox;
• Louis Perez: guitar, $ jarana, * drums, harmony vox;
• Cesar Rosas: guitar, lead and harmony vox.
  
• with special guest -
• Josh Baca: accordion, † percussion, harmony vox.

[10:57 PM lights down, Billy teases Rumble while the rest of the band comes out one by one]

1. [10:58 PM] Beyond and Back (EC)
2. [11:01 PM] In This House That I Call Home (JD)
3. [11:05 PM] Because I Do (EC)
4. [11:08 PM] It's Who You Know (JD)
5. [11:10 PM] Breathless (EC)
6. [11:12 PM] The New World (JD)
7. [11:16 PM] Year One (EC)
   [Add 5th guy, Craig Packham on acoustic guitar]
8. [11:18 PM] Dancing with Tears in My Eyes @ (JD)
   [DJ swaps to vibes; CP takes over on drums; BZ: sets his tenor sax up]
9. [11:21 PM] Come Back to Me ν$ (EC)
   [DJ back to trap set, CP on acoustic again]
10. [11:25 PM] True Love @ (JD)
    [Drop CP]
11. [11:28 PM] The Hungry Wolf (JD)
12. [11:33 PM] The World's a Mess, It's in My Kiss (EC)
    [DJ swaps to vibes; CP back to take over on drums]
13. [11:38 PM] The Unheard Music (EC)
14. [11:42 PM] I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts $ (JD)
    [drop CP; DJ back to trap set]
15. [11:50 PM] Los Angeles (JD)
16. [11:53 PM] Your Phone's Off the Hook, But You're Not (EC)
17. [11:56 PM] Nausea (EC)
18. [11:59 PM] Johnny Hit and Run Paulene (JD) »
19. [12:02 AM] Motel Room (In My Bed) (EC) »
20. [12:05 AM] Soul Kitchen
    [set ends 12:08 AM; all off, back in two; thankful yack from JD]
    
    Encore
21. [12:11 AM] The Once Over Twice (EC)
22. [12:14 AM] Devil Doll (JD)
    [show ends 12:17 AM]

X

• D.J. Bonebrake: drums, ν vibraphone;
• Exene Cervenka: lead and harmony vox;
• John Doe: bass, lead and harmony vox;
• Craig Packham: @ acoustic guitar, ν drums;
• Billy Zoom: guitar, tenor saxophone.

After second Thanksgiving dinner earlier tonight, we zipped across town to find tons of parking spots near the Fillmore – lotta folks must have headed out of town for the holiday! Made things easy for us! Couple blocks walk, wanded, patted down and ticket-scanned, then up a few flights of stairs to the sacred space of the Fillmore. Hard to conceive how much musical history has gone down inside this place!

Headed upstairs to find our buddy John had set aside a pair of seats for us in the balcony. Yay! Good to have a chair these days! I don't mind standing up to dance for the shows … it's the waiting that gets to me. Things are kinda tight in the Fillmore balconies, but everyone was friendly, and we spent the hour leading up to showtime making chit chat and swapping show tales.

Elettrodomestico opened things up just after 8 PM, and not having performed any pre-show investigation, I wasn't really prepared for them. Sorta punk. Sorta goth/glam. After awhile I recognized drummer Dawn Richardson as someone I'd seen before, though I couldn't place her at the time. Seemed like the crowd was decently respectful and the band enjoyed themselves. Guess that means we all won!

Next up were Los Lobos. A surprise to find that they weren't headlining the gig tonight, but not totally unreasonable, I guess. Got another surprise to hear that David Hidalgo was taking the night off on account of back problems. Cesar wise-cracked about it partway through the show, “Think he might be jiving?,” but despite bringing out Josh Baca of Los Texmaniacs to play accordion and sing harmony vox, Dave's absence wasn't otherwise addressed. Not sure what to say about it myself – seems like a strange omission. Anyways, the rest of the band acquited thems admirably, and while the set was a little short, it was certainly fun!

A good chunk of the audience took off after Lobos ended – seemed like a dumb decision to me, but hey, there's no accounting for personal tastes – which helped cool things down a bit, as it had grown quite steamy upstairs by the end of the Lobos set. Anyways, the stage crew seemed to need every bit of the 30 minute break in order to rearrange things for X. My guess was that they didn't want to break things down because of the second show on Saturday, so there was an extra layer of complication regarding moving things from front to back and back to front at the same time without mixing anything up.

Just before 11 PM – about 15 minutes later than expected – Billy and Craig walked out for a final check, then Billy strapped on his guitar and began to strum Rumble. Way cool! Rev it up and go! Although I was a little put out by the sound during the first few songs – the mix was markedly inferior to what we'd just heard from Lobos – things eventually improved enough for me to make out the vocals. Hard to explain why the vocals are so important to me for this band. Maybe because the words are more poetic than 99.9% of the other bands out there?

Overally, I was pretty darn happy with the set and the setlist. It was good to hear that a few tunes had been rearranged from their album incarnations – every time DJ stepped over to play vibes! – and yet unsurprising for me to hear Ting complain on our way to the car that everything sounded the same. I get that. I'd answer that it's like listening to Philip Glass: on the surface, there's not too much different to catch your ear. But look at it cross-eyed and let yourself swim deeper into the flow and you'll catch all sorts of interesting things going on. Especially with the guitar parts. Billy Zoom is a genius! And John Doe is a rock god! Good to see some of the heroes of your youth still kickin' hard forty years later!

Big thanks to Ting for the photo gallery!

Whoa! This section is incomplete for now, sorry!

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2018 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2018 event list! ☸ On to the next event!