Look at that fucking nerd. Not Rivers Cuomo…I mean me. (DC, 2000)
In the summer of 2000, as a fresh-faced seventeen-year-old, I took a job in New York City at a medical office. Four or five days a week for two months I was commuting to Chelsea, exploring Lower Manhattan on my lunch breaks, and generally feeling like a real adult. I was also a huge fucking nerd when I was in high school. My youthful Brit-Pop phase transitioned quite nicely into an American “geek rock” phase, where bands like Weezer, Nerf Herder, Nada Surf and Ozma and their catchy melodies and oddball lyrics dominated my musical tastes. So when Weezer announced their first US tour in three years my friends and I made damn sure that we had tickets to the first night in New York and the second night in New Jersey. But I went above and beyond my friends, telling my boss that my last day of work would be the day before Weezer’s tour started. Then I started buying concert tickets (and train tickets) to follow the band up and down the coast. It was a week of Weezer shows. It was a nerd’s dream come true.
That first show, August 23rd at Irving Plaza, was a total blur. I remember “My Name Is Jonas” and the crowd going absolutely insane, and then I remember leaving the venue coated in sweat and grinning ear to ear. Early the next morning Ian picked Matt and I up and we drove down to Asbury Park. We sat outside the Stone Pony for seven or eight hours. We brought guitars and played Weezer songs. Patrick Wilson and Mikey Welsh even brought us out the band’s deli tray for lunch. The opening band, called Dynamite Hack, hung out and played Weezer songs with us. I kept going. A few days later I was in alone in Washington, DC to see the band at the 9:30 Club. The Dynamite Hack guys remembered me and let me on their tour bus to hang out while the new friends I’d made standing in line that morning held my spot. After the show, for the first and only time that entire week, Rivers hung out with the crowd after the show, took pictures and signed autographs. The next morning I took a train to Philly and saw the show at the Theater of Living Arts. I don’t remember anything about that show. I wax exhausted.
This recording doesn’t sound great, but I appreciate it because it’s from a time period I once considered to be the pinnacle of my concertgoing career. Part of the allure of that Summer 2000 tour was the opportunity to hear new songs. The band played a number of them during that week, but unfortunately none of them wound up on the band’s 2001 Weezer green album. And that album sucked. And then I went to college and my music tastes changed drastically. And so that’s my history as a Weezer fan. Too bad, a close family friend married Weezer’s current bassist Scott Shriner. Still, my old bedroom in New Jersey has a lockbox in my closet filled with relics from that week of Weezer in 2000, from autographed t-shirts to concert stubs, setlists and photos. Oh yeah, and recordings of all the shows I saw. Like this one.
Tomorrow will conclude this week of live recordings of shows I saw in my teen and college years. I’ll try to make the last show an absurd one for you.
Weezer
Theater Of Living Arts; Philadelphia, PA
August 29th, 2000
MegaUpload DL Link
01. My Name Is Jonas
02. El Scorcho
03. No One Else
04. In The Garage
05. Why Bother
06. Mad Kow
07. Too Late To Try
08. O-Girl
09. Superstar
10. No Other One
11. Say It Ain’t So
12. Tired Of Sex
13. Undone (The Sweater Song)
14. You Gave Your Love To My Softly
15. Only In Dreams
16. Buddy Holly
17. Surf Wax America
