Watching No Doubt on American Idol last night reminded me of the time that I saw them in concert. It was while I was living in Honolulu, and they were a pretty solid "B." But their opening acts were The Vandals (excellent), the Cherry Poppin' Daddies (meh--and yes, it was really that long ago), and Madness. Madness was evidently there because they were so influential to No Doubt, etc., etc. In fact, they may have even been part of a double billing.
This was not good because it made Madness the third opening act, and the excitement from the Vandals set had long since been dispersed by the Cherry Poppin' Daddies, and the mosh pit was growing restless. (Also, Gator had been arrested briefly during the second act, which is a really good story for another time.) So when Madness came on and did "Our House" pretty much right off the bat, the crowd realized that we were now in for 45 minutes of their new stuff, and the mood started to get a little ugly. About 5 songs in, they just started chanting "Our House" over and over. (Yes, I believe Gator was involved in that too.)
I know, I know. Madness is really big in Europe and they have bunches of hit records, and so on. This would help if I were European. But I'm not. Instead, I was a bored American wondering why they couldn't just come on and play "Our House" three times (and maybe "One Step Beyond"), and then get off the damned stage. Don't tell me that I would really enjoy their new music if I just listened to it. I did listen to it--in a crowd of increasingly annoyed Samoans and inebriated military guys. It was ugly. It wasn't my worst concert experience (that was probably the time that I went to a dry Greenday concert--that was a very angry crowd), but it was about as close as I've been to a live version of that thing where your obscure music friend makes you sit and listen to B-side after B-side so that you can appreciate his musical influences.
RSS Feed
