Two very different shows the last two nights. Up first was Megadeth at Nation. It’d been a while since I’d seen a show with my buddy Eric, who I used to own a record store with. He’s a metalhead and I’m not much of one, so we don’t intersect much. But I’ve always liked Megadeth – Dave Mustaine has a unique sound, that’s not growly, like other metal bands (the opener, Exodus, was a prime example). We met up at the Vienna Metro, and he drove in to DC. The show was at Nation, which I hadn’t been to since 1996 when it was called the Capital Ballroom (I’ve only seen two shows there, Collective Soul and Ozzy). Not too much had changed, it’s still a converted warehouse in a not so great part of town, but they had added a balcony.
Exodus was ok, but I was glad we only saw part of their set. The crowd was there for Megadeth, and when Dave walked on stage, it got pretty loud. They played four or five off the new CD, and the rest of the songs were the classics: “Peace Sells”, “Hangar 18”, “Sweating Bullets”, “Holy Wars”, and “Symphony Of Destruction” were highlights. The current Megadeth lineup is all new guys besides Dave, but they did a great job.
After Eric dropped me off at the Metro to get my car, he got stopped by a cop for “exiting the lot incorrectly”. Unfortunately it turned out he was driving on a suspended license (he’d taken a test to get points taken off and the license reinstated, but it hadn’t gone through), and they impounded his truck. It took 45 minutes for that to finish, then I drove him home, not getting to bed until 2:30 (apparently he got his truck back yesterday).
Last night, Jill and I went to the Party For Life at the Clarendon Grill, a benefit for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and the National Mental Health Association. The main reason was Steven Page from the Barenaked Ladies was playing a solo acoustic set. We got there when it started at 6. I was expecting a long line, but it was empty when we got inside. “Uh-oh” we thought, and we soon discovered the night was scheduled to go ’til 11. Thankfully with admission we got appetizers and two drinks – we quickly filled up on appetizers. They had various fundraising efforts going on, including a raffle and a silent auction. We bought tickets to the raffle, but didn’t win anything. The silent auction was very tempting. I put bids down on a Nissan Pavilion box for a night, tix to the Redskins/Giants game (with passes to the radio booth), and the ‘ultimate’ BNL package (Airplane tix, backstage passes to one of their holiday shows, and a hotel room), but all of them got too rich for my blood (that last one went for $3000).
At 9:30, Steve finally went on. It was pretty packed as the crowd had grown (it was sold out, after all). He played for nearly an hour, breaking out new ones (“never heard before unless you’ve been in my home”) “I’ve Stopped Listening” and “That’s All”, along with the classics like “Old Apartment” and “Brian Wilson”. Very cool to be sitting at a bar 15 feet away watching him play. After they finished the auctions, the audience brought him back for “Jane”, which Jill and I danced to. We went straight home, as Jill worked day shift today so we can get going early tomorrow.