Post by siner on Mar 3, 2022 14:57:34 GMT -5
Ambassador Theatre, Dublin, 23 November 2004
We all went, a load of friends and colleagues. Drinks and spliffs. Great old theatre, former cinema. I saw The Empire Strikes Back & Return of the Jedi there. Saw Lanegan with QOTSA there on SFTD tour 2002. Fuck yeah. I've some photos from that show.
But 2004. Bubblegum era. High tide mark, which had been building with the double shot of Field Songs and QOTSA. But still, Lanegan was fairly niche, right? Shelley was touring with him, tho I'd no idea who she was apart from hot tattooed singer. My male gaze, OK? This gig was around the third or fourth time Lanegan had played in Dublin since 2001 (cracking gig in Whelan's with Gene Trautmann, Mike Johnson, Dave Catching and Bret Netson). Like Jeff Buckley, David Gray and many others before, Ireland embraced Lanegan as one of their own. And dare I say, for many years I bragged to anyone that if my partner ever could make it with Mark Lanegan, then she had my full blessing, for he t'would ne'er have me... lol.
I recall a very low-key Nick Oliveri on rhythm guitar who joined during the tour. Think it was just after he got canned from QOTSA. I imagine Lanegan wanted to give the dude something to do and get out of LA a while (tho there was originally another guitarist, Michael _____(?) who left the tour...).
The Ambassador was a dark venue with a big balcony with seats, and a cleared sloping floor down to the raised stage with red curtains. We got fairly close to the front, centre, alongside the usual friendly Irish Lanegan fans. Just a great wide range of people and ages. Cool heads, digging the tunes. Ask any artist who knows: Irish audiences have been traditionally known as some of the best crowds in the world. I've seen many bands receive a huge wave of adoration, turn to themselves and say "shit, let's up our game for these guys!".
The Irish crowd were hip to the Dark Mark stage persona that Lanegan ably affected. We digged it. We like that dark evil shit. But being cheeky fuckers too, we also wanted to make Mark break character and laugh, which we did at some point in-between a song. One of us yelled out something funny, something very "Dublin", and Mark cracked a big grin, turning his head down and away so we couldn't see him giggle. "Aha! Gotcha Lanegan! Not so tough now! WE LOVE YOU!" kinda stuff. Good fun. Good gig. Making Lanegan laugh. Yup.
Anyone of the Irish gang on here remember Mark laughing? x
I must have been standing beside you for this gig. I think I have terrible disposable camera pictures from this gig stashed away somewhere. I don't remember seeing him laughing but I do remember him getting that lovely Irish teasing by the crowd. My favourite memory was at the gutter twins in the academy where Greg dulli took the piss out of me and Mark was laughing at him and me
youtu.be/ZEJZYdG_oZs