So this past week has been my 52nd week in San Francisco, 1 year as of June 6th. And how do I feel? Well I can’t believe it’s been a year, it doesn’t feel that long at all, but at the same time I know this place so well it’s like I’ve known it for years.

And if I’m being honest I’m quite looking forward to getting home. Quite a few of my friends have left to go back home already, so every day it’s getting harder to find people to do things with. By the time I leave there’ll be very few of my friends left so it gets quite lonely, but could be a good chance to meet new people. I’m most looking forward to going home to see old friends, family and lower monthly rent! Some days I feel like I definitely don’t want to leave, and others I miss things from home.

Speaking of friends, Cathryn and Ducky are coming to visit San Francisco this week. Will be nice to see them.

And just before I go, I’d like to make a mention of an awesome musician I came across a few months ago. His name is Goh Nakamura, he’s from SF and is an acoustic artist. I’ve had his songs stuck in my head for weeks now, so you should definitely check him out. This one song of his on Youtube (Embarcadero Blues) has over 1 million views. I would also recommend another song called El Camino which he recorded while busking. Finally, I absolutely love his cover of Just Like Heaven by The Cure. I’ve played it over an over, it’s great. He’s playing here soon so I think I will have to go see him and say hello.

So I was in Borders the other day, mainly to enjoy a magazine with a large hot Cocoa Trio (because I really hate Starbucks’ version, although it turns out Starbucks owns Seattle’s Best Coffee in Borders). I enjoy this past-time because the Cocoa Trio is flippin’ expensive, but at least I can read the entire magazine without paying for it. I see this as a good compromise - expensive beverage, cheap education. Anyway, on with the story.

I come across the new edition of Billboard magazine. I’m very surprised to see Third Day on the front cover, and after a few seconds notice that Brad’s not on there. Ah, he must’ve been somewhere else the day of the photoshoot, I think. But in the subsequent pages of the article he’s not featured anywhere. I didn’t really have the time to read the article, but I followed up on it later that night and found that he actually left the band way back in February.

How come I didn’t hear about that? I wouldn’t go as a far as saying Third Day are one of my favourite bands but they are certainly a band I continue to listen to and would buy their CD’s, so I’m quite surprised I didn’t hear about it sooner.

What’s even more interesting is the circumstances under which he left. The news article from the Third Day site stated:

“We appreciate Brad’s many contributions to the band’s career to date, including his work on our forthcoming album, but the time has come for us to follow our separate paths.”

ThirdDay.com

Ok, so if Brad decided to quit then the language would have been more like “Brad had decided that it is time for him to go his separate way”. The language tends to imply that this was a band decision, so I wonder if there’s any bad blood between them? Apparently he’s leaving to pursue a solo career, but the news article doesn’t mention that. I may just be over analyzing, and I’m sure it’s something that these guys prayed about a lot, but I would just love to know what happened and why an announcement wasn’t made before. And besides, his guitar solo face was the most entertaining part of their show.

I snapped this pic a few years ago at one of their gigs in Belfast:

In about 5 minutes, the Olympic Torch will make it’s only North American appearance in San Francisco. As you’ve probably seen on the news, the whole Torch Relay thing this time around has caused riots in several cities. Protesters are protesting against alleged human rights violations in Tibet, which China claims sovereignty over.

The police have been expecting massive riots here, since the city has both a reputation for political activism and a sizable Chinese community, so police have been out on force all morning to make sure everything goes as smoothly as possible. The planned route was supposed to begin near the ballpark and make it’s way along the Embarcadero (the city’s waterfront) before turning and coming back again. Violent clashes this morning have meant that the cops are considering changing the route of the torch relay to deviate away from protesters.

The SF Chronicle is doing a pretty good job of covering it.

Olympic officials are going to meet this week to discuss if the relay is really even worth continuing since it’s whole purpose is to promote peace. I went to grab some lunch from Safeway, near my office, and the police were sealing off everywhere like it was some sort of crime scene. I saw some protesters carrying signs but it seemed rather calm compared to what’s going on closer to the ballpark.

Here’s a piece of trivia you might not know: Do you know who started the whole Olympic Torch Relay thing? Adolf Hitler!

In other news, I am going to Guitar Center after work today to see Joe Satriani do a session on guitar playing. He’s going to play some stuff and then talk about his gear and other guitar stuff. I hope that all those who were jealous I met Satch before are now even more jealous. Ha!

I went out to see Lifehouse last night playing a sold out show at the Warfield Theater in San Francisco. I was very excited about it since Lifehouse are one of those bands that rarely leaves the US, making this a golden opportunity to see them since I may never be able to do so again. And how did it go? Well, to be honest, it wasn’t great.

I arrived after work and met Valerie (the stereotypical Lifehouse fan) at the Warfield, which is a nice venue similar in size and style to the Grand Opera House in Belfast with a capacity of about 3,000. I’d say about 75% of the attendee’s were female, and of those at least another 75% were teenagers. In fact, most of the guys that were there had the sort of facial expression that had ‘my girlfriend made me come here’ written all over it.

We missed the first support act in favour of getting some hot wings from the food bar. Took 20 minutes to get them, and they were very spicy, but stupid venue policy dictates no drinks in the main theater so I had to sit there and suffer for a quarter of an hour. Our seats were right along the back row of the upper balcony, typical of Ticketmaster who always seem to give you the crappiest seats they can offer despite choosing ‘best available’ option from their seating selection on their website (cf. Foo Fighters where I actually bought tickets in the pre-sale and still ended up upper balcony with a fantastic view of the air conditioning system). Luckily the Warfield is small enough to be able to see from every seat, but it hardly seems fair that front row of the balcony is the same price as back row and it’s just dumb luck where you get placed.

Matt Nathanson

The main support came from a chap named Matt Nathanson with his band. The sound was a little muffed and I could barely hear both his guitar or his voice but he was very good, even if I could only understand what he said when the drummer wasn’t playing. His music isn’t anything original but he’s a funny guy and sings very well, so give him a listen. He was nice enough to do a meet n greet afterwards, which dozens of starstruck girls flocked to afterwards (including my girl…he smiled, made up some lame story about living in France many years ago, and signed her ticket ‘To Vanerie’..hah!). He seemed to do a good job of getting the crowd warmed up and buzzing for the main act to follow.

Lifehouse

So Lifehouse came out about 20 minutes later and opened with a completely unknown song, that was a little lack-luster and down tempo. The Foo’s did the same thing, but then ripped into The Pretender straight after. I guess I was expecting something similar, but the second song was more familiar but not one of their best. There wasn’t even as much as a ‘How you doing San Francisco?’ until about 4 songs in, and even then it was merely that - one sentence. I’m not blasting Jason Wade - I realise he’s a shy guy and it’s not his style, but even the music was obscure. I’ve listened to Lifehouse for years, as far back as 2001 or 2002 I’m sure at the beginning of their fame and own all four of their albums, but their choice of songs was definitely poor as I had wasn’t really getting into anything they were playing. And it wasn’t just me - all the little teeny boppers pogoing in the front row were even looking a little frustrated at the lack of the big hits.

About 4 or 5 songs in came Hanging By a Moment which proved a favourite with the audience and a glimmer that maybe better was to come. It was a good performance and things picked up momentarily, even a bit of talking from Jason but nothing spectacular that you would almost expect from a band that writes such great songs. The acoustic guitar came out and they played You and Me which got almost everybody to set their cameras and cellphones to record. Other songs included First Time, Spin and Simon, but that’s about it for the hits. Everything else was the more obscure songs that typically make the end of an album, when only the hardcore are still listening. I waited in anticipation of Out of Breath, Come Back Down, Breathing and of course Everything. Without doubt, Everything is one of their best known songs and their best in my opinion. But even the encore didn’t feature Everything, or even Storm which is another awesome song (that they re-recorded for their last album!). They played another song that I’d never heard and that was it, they were gone and everyone piled out. It was a strict hour and a half performance and despite a huge cheering crowd at the end, I couldn’t help but feel more than a little disappointed. And I think most people were the same. The two girls sitting beside us were totally excited at the start and were heckling throughout the first few numbers, but midway through the set I spotted one of them dozing off. The couple to my other side barely cracked a smile all night.

Verdict

It’s sad when a band you really admire let you down. I remember seeing REM in Belfast and being really disappointed, too. Perhaps the recent experience of seeing a full show like the Foo Fighters was an unfair benchmark to compare this gig too, but usually I prefer the smaller gigs. I still think that best shows I’ve ever attended have been the ones that fly under the radar - like The Answer at the Empire in 2005, Foy Vance at the Old Museum Arts Center in 2004, and Biffy Clyro in the Nerve Centre way back in 2004 too. Luckily Lifehouse tickets weren’t terribly expensive (with fees, think it was around $35) but they are one band I won’t hurry back to see, which is a shame. Do yourself a favour and go see Matt Nathanson instead.

I like challenging myself, and I like learning new things.

For example, yesterday I did the thing with my friends where you try to list as many US states as you can in 10 minutes. Overall, I won - I managed to get 47. Last time I did this was in school and I think I got maybe 30. So clearly I’m learning. For those interested, I forgot Indiana, Kentucky and Wisconsin.

So in the spirit of testing myself, I have went back to school as it were on Gerry, my trusty acoustic guitar which I brought with me from home. It’s almost full circle for Gerry - I brought him to San Francisco from Broughshane, and I bought it used in Londonderry, and the guy I bought it from got it in Canada, where Seagulls are made.

In the coming months I will be equipping myself with the simply outstanding Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier (really, the Triple is simply too rocktastically loud for the size of ‘arenas’ we play) and so this Holy Grail of amps deserves only the finest music to be played through it. Thus, I have embarked on a series of learning, teaching myself classic rock guitar solos.

I’ve set the bar quite high and have made a start on what is considered one of rock n roll’s greatest guitar solos of all time - Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin. So far, I’ve managed to get the first few bars down, including that tricky little run just after the first note. It’s good practice for me because along the way I hope to improve my sloppy technique and tighten up my playing for when I get back to Ireland and begin playing with the band again.

Here’s a short list of what will be on my learning agenda for the next while:

• Stairway to Heaven - Led Zeppelin
• More than a Feeling - Boston
• Crazy Train - Ozzy Osbourne
• Sweet Child O Mine - Guns n’ Roses
• Eruption - Van Halen

Yes, I realise the last one is a tad ambitious, but really I only hope to be able to play the famous arpeggio section to Eruption. Thus far, I’ve got Hotel California more or less correct, which is one of my favourite solos.

Maybe I should teach guitar for extra cash. Hmm…

Foo Fighters

I went with the girlfriend to see the Foo Fighters on Saturday night at the Oakland Arena, about 20 minutes outside San Francisco. We had to walk from the BART station to the Arena and it was absolutely pouring with rain. Over at the Coliseum there was a monster truck rally, and I was so thankful we weren’t going to it, standing outside in the cold and wet.

Prior to the gig, I had met Valerie at the Powell BART station in downtown SF. When I met her she was doing a ‘free stress test’. I knew what was going on immediately. Scientologists. They do these ‘free stress tests’ which seems quite convincing but basically they hook you up to an e-meter and try to convince you that dianetics is fact. They’re quite cunning people, these Scientologits - there’s no mention of Scientology at all, the only clue is the books they sell are all by, you guessed it, L. Ron Hubbard.

Valerie was quite entertained by the guy talking her through her stress test. I’ll admit, he was a very nice guy and was totally non-threatening and he didn’t even mention his cult religion but afterwards when I told Val who he was and what he was doing, she seemed fairly shocked.

Anyway, we took our seats at the Foo’s gig and unfortunately we had rather rubbish seats way at the top tier near the far end of the arena. We slipped past security and found better seats much closer to the stage on the bottom row and hoped that we didn’t get caught on, and luckily after a few [convincingly acted] misunderstandings with seating the gig began.

The opening act were Hello Stranger, who weren’t bad actually, but nothing special. Up afterwards was Against Me who are a little like a cross between disco and punk with Irish style punk vocals. Not bad, but their recorded stuff is a lot better than their live performance.

By the time the Foo’s came out the arena was really filling up and was absolutely heaving with people. I don’t think it was a total sell out, but there weren’t too many empty seats in the 20,000 seater arena. I took loads of photos but my lack of a decent camera (boo Connor) means that I only snapped on photo in focus the whole night, so enjoy:

They actually had two stages, the main stage and then another stage was lowered from the ceiling for a very unexpected acoustic set. You can see the acoustic stage off the to left on this photo.

I have to admit, the Foo Fighters are very impressive in concert. I hadn’t bought the new album, but luckily they didn’t play too many songs off it and there were old favourites in the set like Monkey Wrench and even Big Me. Dave Grohl is absolutely fantastic - his voice is brilliant live and how he screams every night of their tour without damaging his voice is rather amazing.

During the set they played a 15 minute version of Stacked Actors, complete with a guitar duel and Taylor Hawkins drum solo. The whole song was fantastic, and tight as a duck’s arse.

Probably the highlight of the evening was the last song they played during the acoustic set which inspired Dave to climb on top of the piano and rock out on his acoustic guitar, breaking a string.

Everlong was also awesome - started off on the acoustic stage, then all goes quiet and Dave rips a huge chord from his Mesa Boogie Triple Rectifier that, I’m guessing, caused instant pregnancy in all women in the arena. He makes a run down to the main stage and the song plays out with full band and full on Mesa face-melting distortion.

Dave is quite the songwriter. You don’t don’t expect much performance or talent from drummers (come on, just look at Phil Collins…maybe Don Henley is an exception) but this guy is one of a dying breed of rock stars. He’s got the long hair back again too, which instantly makes him cool.

Predictably, they end thier show with Best of You which is nothing short of brilliant. Excellent night all round, I head home with a happy girlfriend in tow.

Moving

I got a rude awaking on Sunday morning basically telling me I had to get out of my room. I slept in a bit and forgot I had to check out of my accommodation. I was moving back to my wonderful place on O’Farrell St but had to get out of my other place first. I quickly packed up all my stuff (took about 30 minutes, I have a lot of stuff) and moved back to O’Farrell. Very happy now. I invited some people around for house warming, ordered pizza and settled down to watch the Superbowl.

Superbowl

I’m not much of a football fan, really I was only watching the Superbowl for the adverts and the Tom Petty halftime show but the football was actually quite good. It was one of the lowest scoring matches in a long time, and the New England Patriots were almost sure to win having a perfect season, but at the last few minutes New York Giants came in and stole it from them. Was quite miffed, would have liked to see New England win it. Lucky I’m not a gambler!

The half time show was nothing spectacular, don’t think much could top Prince last year. The adverts were funny, but no racy ones like the GoDaddy ad from last year either. Although the Coca Cola one with Stewie was funny, check it out on YouTube.

Not many plans for the rest of the week. Can’t wait for Lost to start again tomorrow. Ohhhh…..