{"id":627,"date":"2023-02-18T18:24:20","date_gmt":"2023-02-18T18:24:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/girlbandgeek.com\/?p=627"},"modified":"2023-02-18T18:32:26","modified_gmt":"2023-02-18T18:32:26","slug":"stereolab-at-the-fillmore-october-18-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/girlbandgeek.com\/?p=627","title":{"rendered":"Stereolab at the Fillmore – October 18, 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Stereolab at the Fillmore in October 2019<\/p><\/div>\n

Dear Reader: As I noted in my previous post, I am going to endeavor to reboot the Girlbandgeek blog. It is my tribute to the music I love, which has given me so much joy. Despite most of 2020 and all of 2021 having no live music, I have in fact seen almost 20 shows that I have not documented, some at the end of 2019 and beginning of 2020, and more since live shows started up again in 2022.<\/p>\n

As the events I will be describing happened considerably far in the past, I\u2019m going to be fairly casual about it. In some cases I may have jotted down some notes, and in others I may just have to rely on memory, and whatever I captured in my trusty iPhone. If all I have is a picture and a few impressions, I\u2019m just going to post that and move on. But at least there will be a record of the music which nourished my heart and soul in these turbulent years.<\/p>\n

The following notes are taken from my journal the day after the show:<\/p>\n

I did feel happy just being in SF, even driving, but even more so after I parked the car in the Japantown garage and entered Japan Center. I really love that place. All the Japanese people, the restaurants, and other cool stores like the stationery store, the bookstore, anime\/manga store and so on. I found Alex by our favorite Ramen place, Marufuku. We greeted each other and Alex said the wait at Marufuku was 3 hours, so we went to another smaller place which was cute and the food was tasty. I didn\u2019t get the name, but it was on the bridge and it had bunches of manga, and anime playing on multiple screens.<\/p>\n

Having finished dinner, we walked a few short blocks to the Fillmore. I unironically love the Fillmore and I always get an emotional feeling just walking into the venue. I love the little touches – top hat girl, the red delicious apples, the free posters. It\u2019s a good size – not too big – and it\u2019s inviting. I couldn\u2019t tell you what color it is – but there\u2019s some molding, chandeliers, and tons of photographs of bands and artists going back to the 60\u2019s – The Grateful Dead, Janice Joplin, the B-52s, Sleater-Kinney and on and on. We got there a little after 8pm. We got some beverages, and I decided to get in the merch line which was already pretty long. I picked up a shirt for myself and one for Vinny (which I gave them at Christmas). Alex was on board with my plan to just get as close as possible and stay there for the whole show.<\/p>\n

Opening band was Bronze. I knew nothing about them, and only figured out their name because I looked it up. They were pretty trippy. They were a three piece band with drummer, vocalist and synthesizer dude. Along the edge of the stage were placed 8 or 10 coffee makers, many visibly steaming as if full of fresh coffee. Synthesizer dude played a weird instrument that looked like an oversized game controller – or just a box with some knobs. He produced a heavy and pretty complex sound just by rotating a couple of knobs? Logically he must have had some pre-programmed tracks, and then just kind of modified them with the controller knobs, but I don\u2019t know for sure. The singer was wearing a western style sport coat and a cowboy hat. He had a good voice and a kind of distracted, David Byrne-like quality about him. They are kind of like the house band in a David Lynch film. I thought they were a good warm up for Stereolab. I don\u2019t think Alex was very into them.<\/p>\n

[Apparently I ran out of steam and didn\u2019t write much about Stereolab] Really fun show – it was so great to see the songs live. I found myself watching guitar player Tim Gane a lot. He seemed like a musical focal point and really rhythmically driving things. The whole band just sounded really good though.<\/em><\/p>\n