one lonely success

Last night was the band’s first stop in CA for the Summer 2003 Tour. The Home Depot Center in Carson, CA played host to the guys and their myriad of loyal fans. We arrived at the Home Depot Center around 6:30pm and found that our Warehouse Member Parking Passes came in quite handy. These little passes saved us $15 in parking cost and got us into the premium parking area. Nice touch, Warehouse Ticketing.

Follow the link for the rest of the review…

First impressions of the Home Depot Center was that it was a very nice, clean and convenient venue. Parking was a breeze and the grounds were first class. The stadium also plays host to the Los Angeles Galaxy MLS team and earlier this summer hosted a Heavyweight Championship boxing match with Lennox Lewis. Pretty Cool.

Our tickets for this show were on the floor in section B-2. We thought these tix were going to be awesome, however, the seating chart was very deceptive and we found ourselves with average seats. To make matters worse, we were right behind the sound guys, so our view seemed a bit obstructed. However, once Dave came out and everyone stood up, the view wasn’t bad at all.

The guys took the stage around 8:30 and opened with Everyday. The live version of Everyday really has some unique qualities. What followed was a very broad sampling of the band’s material over the past 10 years. Classics like Warehouse & Recently were intermingled with recent favorites like Diggin’ a Ditch and Grey Street. The sound at Home Depot was awesome and we had no problem hearing each member’s contributions. Dave seemed particularly energetic and animated and this pervaded itself through each number.

Set List:

Everyday
Grey Street
Granny
One Sweet World
Satellite
Two Step
If I Had It All
Recently
Crush
Loving Wings (New Solo Song)
Where Are You Going
Warehouse
Ants Marching
Watchtower
__________________

Digging a Ditch
Stay

As you can see, this was an awesome set list and combined Two Step, Ants Marching, Warehouse and All Along the Watchtower. Wow.

The only negative aspect of the show was the staff at the Home Depot Center! These people were in NO hurry! We noticed it first while waiting in the ticket line and then again at the food & drink line. All of the staff was just moving in slo-mo. Come to find out, this was the very FIRST concert ever held at the HDC Venue. It all makes sense now. Maybe you can take 10 mins filling a drink order at a Los Angeles Galaxy game, but this is DMB people!

To make matters worse, the staff in charge of seating were way too paranoid. Once we were on the floor and walking to our seats, we would be stopped by ticketing staff wanting to check out tickets. Not out of the ordinary in itself, but these people wanted to check our tix like every 20 feet! Very annoying. I should preface this by saying that in order to get onto the floor you had to be given special wristband. So, everyone walking around in the floor area was wearing a neon orange bracelet that should have put the staff’s minds at ease. Oh well, as I said, this was their first concert experience and their newness really showed.

All-in-all this was a great show enjoyed with great friends. The setlist and pics from the show will be up soon. Now off to night #2!