Motörhead / Corrosion Of Conformity / Zeke
The Warfield, San Francisco
April 8, 2005
Robin bought me a ticket to the show for my b-day and I was pretty excited. I hadn't been to The Warfield in a long time. I took the BART from my house to meet Robin at 9pm. Left at 8:30pm, missed a train, had to wait till 8:59pm to catch the next one to the Civic Center. Just 2 blocks from The Warfield with a nice walk down the shadiest part of S.F., passing street people drinking beer in bags and the various XXX venues, but hell I still made it there at freaking 9:10pm!!
I walked in and Robin and I were trying to find each other via our cell phones inside The Warfield! We hooked up, got a 12oz beer for $5.50, and COC took the stage. What timing I tell you. We obviously never planned on seeing the openers (sorry Zeke and whoever the other band was)!
COC played mostly new songs and only a few of the old ones. The crowd was totally into them but, me being me, I have to comment on their weight, age, and clothes! Woody has packed on some pounds and just cut the sleeves off of a bigger jean shirt! Dude, long sleeves please!! It's not Rock to watch some unfit rocker playing with flabby triceps flapping in the wind! Pepper has grown a big and bushy beard that has some grey in it making him look like Charlton Heston in The 10 Commandments!! They did sound great and it was good to see them again after so many years. I need to buy the new CD. No James Hetfield lovefest this time around :)
An old acquaintance, Lane who used to work at Man's Ruin, was bartending and gave us 2 drinks for $5!! Woooho. Felt like I won the slots! Motörhead came on and the crowd was so much better than the last time I saw them at the Avalon Ballroom a few years back with The Dwarves and High On Fire. There was just much more energy. I was excited when they came on but, as usual, when they started playing all their new songs my beer buzz was losing its edge and I started to get tired and antsy.
They played a lot of new songs and a few classics. Sorry Lemmy, but when you introduce a song as an honor to the Ramones and then go on to say "don't use guns" when none of the band died from gun shot wounds you really need to re-write that speech! Not that the mostly black pegged leg, white gym shoe crowd even knows or cares, but I did!
They also played 'Killed By Death' where Mickey Dee did his freaking 2 day long drum solo! The boys looked good. Always the same, aging well and discovered hair dye. We left after the last song. I could not bear to hear 'Ace of Spades' for an encore.
Robin and I went out for late night sushi and I walked down to Mission Street and 5th and waited for the 14 at 1:30am!! I missed the BART. Quite a bunch of colorful characters on the bus I must say. Made it home by 1:51am and missed the rain!
A successful night! Thanks Robin!
Beer Count - 2
Sake - 3 small cups!
Submitted by Robin:
A Dudefest, to be sure. But it's always a lot of fun to see that type of crowd in all their Metal "finery"... My vodka tonics were 99% tonic, but what the hell! Lori forgot to mention the $50 hoodies at the merch table, and the utter and complete lack of any girl-friendly sizings. Their loss, man! Their loss!
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Umlaut's Motörhead Flashback:
Umlaut has tripped the light fandango with Motörhead since he was 17, but he came to the realization awhile back that he doesn't need to see them again.. However, he does have fond memories and 'Stone Dead Forever' is still one of his all-time favorite songs.
"It's been a long time, it's been a long long wait, and you caught your fingers in the Pearly Gates..."
Guns 'N Roses / Metallica / Motörhead - The Rose Bowl, Pasadena, CA - Oct. 3, 1992
The first time I'd seen Motörhead in 8 years.. A 30 minute set that concluded with Slash jamming with them on some blues rock number. BORING. Three years passed before I bothered seeing them again.. and after that it was another 8 years until my most recent Motörhead encounter in 2003.. which was only slightly less boring than 1992. Oh well, I did like Lemmy's song with Probot.
Motörhead / Mercyful Fate / Exciter - The Warfield, S.F. - Nov. 20, 1984One of THE best shows ever! This was back when The Warfield's main floor still had theater seating from its original incarnation as a movie theater. Mercyful Fate were on their debut U.S. Tour and had headlined two legendary shows only a month before in Sacramento and S.F.. During Fate's set the crowd stormed down to the front, flooding the aisles and climbing over the rows of seats to get closer. METAL! At one point I was knocked off my feet while standing in the aisle and fell across several chairs. For a second I was scared someone was going to come diving on top of me and crush my legs on the hardwood arms of the chairs. Motörhead had their bomber lighting rig and during their set some of the chairs in the front row were ripped out of the floor and thrown onstage. METAL!! I still have a clear memory of Andy Anderson climbing up onto the speaker stacks and diving off. After the show I remember wandering around down front surveying the damage. Almost the entire front row of theater chairs were either damaged or gone with only splinters of wood and bolts remaining in the floor. Because of the damage, The Warfield didn't host another Metal show again until 1987. METAL!!!
Metal Mania #13 - 1983Motörhead - The Stone, S.F. - August 13, 1983
They played 3 consecutive nights in the Bay Area (Palo Alto, Berkeley, S.F.) and I raged at two of them. At The Stone, Lemmy was hanging out at the bar. Someone dared me to go talk to him. I had heard the band weren't playing 'Overkill' on this tour. With youthful bravado I walked up to Lemmy and asked him why they weren't playing 'Overkill'. His reply was "We forgot how to play it.." Thinking back now I guess I'm lucky Lemmy simply didn't punch me for asking such a stupid question. According to a review I wrote back then, they encored with a double shot of 'Shoot You In The Back' > 'The Chase Is Better Than The Catch'. Wayne took some good photos at this gig but I can't find them right now.
Metal Mania #7 - 1982Iron Fist Tour - S.F. - June 1982
Fast Eddie had quit Motörhead only 19 days before these 2 S.F. shows (one with Krokus @ The Warfield and the next night headlining The Old Waldorf). Brian 'Thin Lizzy' Robertson was a VERY quick replacement and a friend sent me photos from the Chicago show (May 22nd @ The Aragon), which was the 2nd show with the new lineup.. I can't remember why I didn't make these gigs.. I had a car and a job. Hmmm.
Metal Mania #1 - 1981Motörhead Mauls America
by Ron Quintana
(originally published in Metal Mania #1)
Motörhead Mauls America: Mayhem Merchants Sack The States!!!!!!!!!!!!!
8:30, July 5th, Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium. The lights dim, Metalurgists charge the stage and then the eerie "Good, Bad and the Ugly" theme song gets crushed by 140 million decibels of 'Ace Of Spades'.
It's Motörhead (!) at last in America!!!!!!!!! Lemmy, Eddie, and Philthy run through some ALL-time classic HEAVY songs like 'Leaving Here', 'Capricorn', and the thundering 'Overkill'. The 'Head also blast through half the songs off of 'Ace Of Spades' because it's the only album of their's to be released here yet, but all of the TRUE HEADBANGERS HAVE THEIR OTHER ALBUMS (at least on tape) and are singing along with Lemmy.
Motörheadbangers in full gear (denim, patches, leather and spikes) show the laid-back Sabbath fans how to really enjoy Heavy Metal by Headbanging! Unfortunately, Motörhead didn't play an encore ("As a courtesy to Ozzy") and Blizzard of Ozz were a disappointment as Ozzy didn't get very crazed like he had done the day before at Day On The Green (DoG #1) in front of 50,000 people. Randy Rhoads' guitar ran rings around Fast Eddie's, but Ozzy's material is rather weak and his voice sounded strained. Barely 1,500 Metalheads made it to the half-filled Santa Cruz Civic concert and despite Bill Graham's Goons and a police station a block away it was THE heaviest night of the year. Later, we talked with Eddie and Lemmy, who were real friendly, and surprised at their popularity here (and all over America).
After the Santa Cruz show Lemmy & Co. expressed concern that the Old Waldorf's sound system wouldn't be loud enough for the 'Head, but luckily, they were able to borrow B.O.C.'s equipment from their concert the night before (AND IT STILL WASN'T LOUD ENOUGH!!!!!!!!!)
Early in the morning, 3 days later, a line began to form outside The Old Waldorf in San Francisco. It was the True Partyers! Set for an afternoon of drinking and an evening of snorting and headbanging with the World's Heaviest Band. Just before the doors were opened, Lemmy, Eddie, and Philthy came outside for some autograph signing. We asked whether they were going to play ZZ Top's 'Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers' (which they had played during their soundcheck) but Eddie said he'd screwed up on part of it, so they dropped it from their set.
Lemmy promised an hour and a half show (because they were headlining - luckily) of Rock & Roll, and they delivered with a vengeance! The Animal hammered away as Lemmy threw in lots of lead bass runs and Eddie's rapid fire riffs triggered headbanging and earthshaking on a scale reminiscent of that San Andreas Fault shift back in 1906. Lemmy and crew poured out pure molten Metal as they ripped through their set which included gems like 'Metropolis' and the atomic 'Bomber' encore.
Too bad they didn't have their huge Bomber lighting rig, but they said they'd be back in October in the States on tour again and they would have it. Right after the concert Motörhead had to drive 800 miles to Yakima for a couple of concerts in Washington state and that's where the first U.S. tour ended as they flew home the next week.
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Footnote:
What if Lemmy had died in 1980 and Bon Scott had lived?? Would humans have prevented the Cylon invasion?? Would the world not have crappy Nu Metal bands!? We can only ponder and wonder.
Yep, I've been watching the new AC/DC - Family Jewels DVD... Enough about Lemmy ANGUS!"The only band that matters..." - Tour Manager Doug (who has seen AC/DC 61 times)
