The Lemonheads (Posted Date: : 04 Oct 2008, 21:20)

The Lemonheads / Racoon

03.10.08 Gebäude 9, Köln

The Lemonheads are on the road again still promoting the collector's edition of It's A Shame About Ray, so there was nothing really to expect than the usual greatest hits set.
Support came from Dutch band Racoon whose acoustic songs seemed to fit more into a venue filled with Runrig fans. I was bored but the audience seemed to like them.
Then Evan Dando entered the stage and he seemed to be a bit worn out by the tour already. This seemed to affect his guitar playing which was rougher than usual and also his eyesight as his band mates often had to tell him which song was next though they had the biggest setlist one can imagine lying on the floor.
They began with Different Drum before playing It's A Shame About Ray nearly in its entirety. After some more songs including No Backbone the rest of the band left the stage and Evan performed some songs on its own before closing the set with an abridged version of All My Life. Then they returned for a full piece encore of three songs which brought the show to an end after about 70 minutes.
It was definitely one of the weakest Lemonheads shows I've benn seeing over the past years.

The Lemonheads (Posted Date: 15 May 2008, 23:23)

The Lemonheads / Two Gallants / Ignite

12.05.08 Strandbad Löwental, Essen

It was a sunny Whit Monday, so what better way than to spend  the evening in Essen at the 27th Pfingst-Open Air, a free festival in Essen-Werden?
We arrived at around 6 pm and headed straight to a beer stall but as it was really crowded we listened to Ignite from over there. The music is ok, good melodic hardcore punk, but the singer Zoli Teglas really got on my nerves with his commens and the band should also stop playing U2's Sunday Bloody Sunday, can't stand that song anymore.
Next up were Two Gallants from San Francisco, a duo playing sort of indie folk rock who really impressed me. I'm always surprised to hear how powerful only drums and a guitar can sound.
The Lemonheads headlined the festival and it was their only German show. Evan Dando announced their set with the words"We're going to play a record for you and it's called It's A Shame About Ray" and so they started playing it in its entirety (i.e. not including Mrs. Robinson, of course). After that there were more older songs like Stove or Down About It including a short solo part by Evan, playing three songs on his own. After The Great Big No drummer Vess Ruhtenberg threw his sticks into the crowd and they left the stage. But they returned for an encore though an early curfew allowed them only to play one more song. As Vess couldn't new drum sticks he asked the people to give his old ones back for the song and afterwards - they played No Backbone - he returned them to the guy who caught them.
So a beautiful evening ended.