We saw Plan B and Eliza Doolittle perform live at the El Rey Theatre on Tuesday, April 19, 2011. This was our second live in-person concert of the year but not just our second live concert. Just like the previous live in-person concert of OMD in March (see earlier review) we saw several live webcasts on the days nearly right before. This time we saw webcasts of performances at the annual Coachella festival on the previous Friday through Sunday. We saw Tame Impala, Big Audio Dynamite, Jimmy Eat World, Fistful of Mercy, and The Strokes. My wife also saw Elbow, Scissor Sisters, and Duran Duran. This was a more convenient and inexpensive way to see concerts, though sometimes there were technical difficulties with the sound or picture starting and stopping. We especially had difficulties with the Fistful of Mercy concert.
Plan B and Eliza Doolittle also performed at Coachella. We first heard Plan B’s music on Jonesy’s Jukebox and then my wife got his CD released in 2010: The Defamation of Strickland Banks. This was his second album. His first album was primarily rap but for the second one he took on the role of a soul singer wrongly accused of a crime. It’s great angry, redemptive soul music mixed in with a bit of rapping. He’s from England and we read in an article that he didn’t plan to tame down his accent for the American tour.
After seeing her name as the opening act we did some more research on Eliza Doolittle. She is very new to the music scene and also very young in her early 20s. Her real name is Eliza Caird and she’s the daughter of Frances Ruffelle who originated the role of Eponine in the first London and Broadway productions of Les Misérables back in the mid-1980s. We saw a few of her videos online such as those for “Skinny Genes,” “Mr. Medicine,” and “Pack Up.” They were light, fun songs heavy on traditional pop vocals and music. “Pack Up” seems to have some New Orleans jazz sound to it. Further research revealed that Phil Thornalley helped produce her self-titled debut album and he co-wrote one of the songs, “Go Home.” I knew his name because he was a member of The Cure back in the early 1980s. He played on the song “Lovecats” and, I believe, on the album The Top that included the single “Caterpillar.” He later played with Johnny Hates Jazz and produced music for Natalie Imbruglia and, more recently, Pixie Lott among others.
Eliza Doolittle’s new album wasn’t released in the U.S. until the day of the concert, April 19, 2011. That day we downloaded it for $5.99 along with a couple more Plan B songs. It included more fun, catchy retro-sounding tracks. One track, “Missing” had a sample from the Fleetwoods’ 1959 doo-wop/R&B hit “Come Softly to Me.” It was the sung part: “Dahm dahm, dahm do dahm, ooby do…” More research revealed that the original Fleetwoods were from Olympia, Washington.
We bought the concert tickets online and printed them several weeks before the concert. I hadn’t been to a concert at the El Rey since we saw Pavement there in 1999. Before that I went there with some friends and saw Pete Droge, Steve Folk (sp?), John Doe, and Glen Phillips in 1998. I used to live very close to the El Rey, just a few blocks away on Detroit Street north of Wilshire Blvd. and just south of 6th Street. I lived there from 1998 to 2001.
On the day of the concert we first had an early dinner at IHOP on Citrus Avenue in Covina. My wife had the limited time chicken and waffles and I had the new Philly cheesesteak without the cheese. We left IHOP at 5:55 p.m. and took the 10 west staying on the 10 where most of it split off to become the 101. We hit a bit of traffic between downtown L.A. and the 110 but otherwise it was fairly smooth. We exited at La Brea Avenue, drove north to Wilshire and turned left. At the intersection of Wilshire and La Brea my wife noticed that the restaurant just north of there, Luna Park was still around. We last ate there in May 2004. Just south of the intersection we noticed that the dance club Leonardo’s was still around. We drove west on Wilshire past my old street, Detroit, and Cloverdale and turned right on Cochran. From there we made almost an immediate left into the parking structure, actually a fairly tall narrow building with fewer parking spaces per floor than expected. Parking cost $10 and we parked on floor P2. After parking we took the elevator down to the street level or lobby (L).
We walked farther west along Wilshire, passed the Staples store, crossed Dunsmuir, passed the Korean cultural center that used to be an IHOP and, before that, a kosher Chinese restaurant back when I lived in the area. Just past it we found the El Rey with its neon signs. We queued up at the short queue to get in. It was 6:50 p.m., ten minutes before the doors were scheduled to open according to our tickets. It was cool outside. The thermometer in our car had said it was just below 70 degrees. It was also clear and sunny in the Miracle Mile area, unlike the overcast sky back home. At the intersection of Wilshire and Burnside to the west we saw a sign for El Rey parking for $8. The sign pointed south of Wilshire. Several more people queued up behind us. The crowd was mostly Caucasian women with some men as part of couples and a few others who came on their own. There were also a few Asians, African-Americans, and at least one Indian couple. Most of the others seemed younger than us, but not too much younger. An El Rey employee came down the queue putting on wrist bands needed to buy alcohol. He didn’t card either of us though he did card some women behind us. It was an all-ages show.
At 7:01 they started letting people in. On the way in my wife saw a staff member whose T-shirt had the names Sahara, Outdoor, Mojave, and Gobi on it. These were the names of the Coachella stages. Security consisted of a bag check. The interior of the El Rey Theatre actually looked much like I remembered it. It had red walls, side floors, and ceiling. Lighting was dim from large crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceiling and smaller lamps on the walls. The floors were slightly higher along the sides with curved rails. There were tables in these sections back when I saw Glen Phillips et al. in 1998. This time there were no tables, only high-backed dining-style chairs along the walls. We immediately found places to sit along the left wall in about the middle. The stage was covered by a red curtain with the words “L.A. Weekly presents El Rey Theatre” projected onto it. I had overheard someone say that Eliza Doolittle was scheduled to play between 8:00-8:30 and Plan B would come out on stage at 9:00 p.m. Over the speakers they played retro-sounding music such as the song “I Put a Spell on You.” My wife got some Plan B pieces of flair for $5. There were attendants in the restrooms.
It never really seemed very crowded during the time we waited. People stood on the floor in front of the stage while others sat on the chairs like us. Many ordered drinks from the bar in the back. We noticed the people didn’t just enter from the back but also from the exits to the side of the stage. Some were dressed up in suits and ties and we wondered if they were with one of the bands. By 7:55 p.m. it was a bit more crowded but it still didn’t seem quite half full. At 7:58 p.m. an El Rey staffer told us over the P.A. system to note the exits nearest to us and to report any suspicious activity to the staff.
At 8:02 p.m. the lights dimmed, the canned music stopped, and the curtains opened to Eliza Doolittle and her band. She seemed shorter than she looked in her music videos and younger, like a teenager. She had long curly brown hair and wore a white shirt and short denim shorts with some long ribbons hanging from her right side. Her band consisted of an acoustic guitar player, a keyboard player, a drummer who looked to be of African descent, and an upright bass player. The first song they played had a silly-sounding rhythm provided by the keyboard, I believe. The song was “Moneybox,” the first track off her album. After Eliza Doolittle started playing we noticed that more people stood on the floor in front of the stage and it didn’t seem so uncrowded. Before the next song the guitar player picked up a ukulele and after Eliza said, “Hit it, Charleston!” they launched into her single “Skinny Genes,” another silly and more lively song where Eliza’s English accent is very apparent as in most of the others. At one point the bass player spun around his upright bass.
After they finished Eliza said, “This next song is called ‘Go Home’ but we’re not going anywhere!” This was the song on her album co-written by Phil Thornalley. It seemed to have a ballroom dance beat, though also a louder rhythm than the studio version. At the end she said loudly, “Cha cha cha.” The next song, “Nobody” started out more quietly but got louder for the chorus and again had a louder rhythm than the studio version. The bass player switched to an electric bass for this one. She described how the next song was about wanting to be younger, not as in wanting to be a teenager, but wanting to be three. She asked if there were any three-year-olds in attendance and no one answered. She then mentioned that the drummer, Dexter Hercules, was only 19 years old, though he had the drumming skills of someone much older. She described how he wasn’t able to get into a bar due to his age. The keyboard player picked up a violin and they performed “Back to Front,” a sadder and more philosophical song than the others. It got louder more than halfway through.
Eliza described the next song as “about moving on.” It was “Rollerblades” that’s actually a slower song than the title seems to indicate. Before the next song Eliza Doolittle had to tie her shoelace and complained about it getting undone. The next song began with the keyboard player playing notes. I believe the guitarist had also gone electric by this time and then joined in. He was soon followed by the bass and drum. This wasn’t a song on the album and not one we had heard before. It was an angrier, more serious and soulful song than her usual light and silly ones. It included the lyrics “always find something wrong,” “run away from me, baby,” and “putting up with my s*** too long.” My wife later learned that it was Kanye West’s song “Runaway.”
Before the next song Eliza said she was “happy to be in dreamland.” They then performed “Pack Up,” another single off the album whose video we had seen. The studio version had an African-American man with a gravelly voice help sing the chorus. Eliza sang all the vocal parts for this live version. The guitarist and bassist did help sing background parts for this song and other songs. They finished the song and Eliza said, “Thank you very much. We have one more song.” It was the loud, fun song “Mr. Medicine,” another single off the album. She and the others sang the last chorus a capella. They left the stage to much applause at 8:37 p.m.
After Eliza Doolittle finished the place seemed much more crowded. During her last few songs El Rey employees were busy keeping people from stepping outside some lines on the floor to keep designated walkways clear. Later we learned that they also didn’t allow standing on the chairs or sitting on top of the chair backs. We looked up at the balcony and saw some chairs and tables but not people. This was the café at the El Rey that we had heard about. We heard some cheering near us and Eliza Doolittle walked right in front of us toward the area near the merch counter. She was talking to several people who I weren’t sure if they were fans or people she knew. I walked up to ask her to autograph one of our tickets and waited for her to finish talking to a guy. But then he started introducing more people to her. There didn’t seem to be a formal meet and greet. She walked back in the other direction, talked to more people and took photos with them including the bossy blond woman who had earlier asked us to save her seat. This was not very satisfying fan interaction for us.
As we waited for the headliner the place got even more crowded though fewer people sat along the walls. More stood behind the rails blocking our view of the stage. After 9 p.m. the lights dimmed and the curtains opened to a guy in a black shirt, pants, vest and tie. He said, “What’s going on, L.A.?” in what sounded like an American accent and then started making sound effects and rhythms with his voice and mouth. This wasn’t Plan B, but an opening act not mentioned on the bill. He made loud screeching noise one time, what sounded like a horn playing the Godfather theme at another time. He then did that along with blasting rhythm. His sound effects included the sounds and voices of Transformers. I wasn’t very into his act but the crowd seemed to love it. He sang the chorus of “I like to move it-move it” back and forth with the crowd and they clapped loudly when he finished.
By this point it was 9:20 and Plan B came on stage. He wore a white long-sleeve shirt, black vest, gold tie (I believe), and black pants. His band also wore vests and ties or jackets or black evening dresses for the female background singers. The band consisted of two guitarists, a bass player, and the female African-American (or African-English?) backup singers who stood on the left side of the stage where we couldn’t see them. We did see some people walk toward the middle of the floor so that they could see the background singers better. Plan B began the set with “Writing’s on the Wall” from his album The Defamation of Strickland Banks, the source of most of the songs performed. He followed it with “Free,” an even more defiant song. During the next song, “Welcome to Hell” the two guitarists stood together and swayed in unison.
In his (surprisingly) understandable English accent, Plan B said, “Let’s pick up the pace.” They performed the angriest song so far, “The Recluse.” It ended with Plan B and the guitarists jumping up and down and getting very rowdy. They slowed down for the next song that was more of an R&B turn, “Love Goes Down.” Plan B described the next song as “about smoking weed” and said it was written not by him but by a Scottish guy whose name I didn’t catch. I didn’t recognize it. It was louder and faster than the Strickland Banks songs though just as angry. I found the lyrics hard to understand though they included the lines “Kiss my lips again and again” and “Oh my God.” It ended with organ music. We would later learn that this song was “Coming Up Easy” by Paolo Nutini. The next song, “Prayin’” was back to Strickland Banks and was loud but not as fast. They did play very fast by the end.
Before the next song, Plan B said something about “All good things come to an end.” It seemed too early to talk about the end because he had only performed seven songs. He performed the Strickland Banks song “What You Gonna Do,” a faster song that had him rapping towards the end. After that song he got everyone to snap their fingers as he performed “She Said” that also included rapping. I think at one point he spun around as did some of the guitarists. They finished the song, Plan B said, “Thank you and good night,” and they all left the stage. It was 9:58 p.m. They had performed nine songs, the same set length as Eliza Doolittle. There was much cheering and Plan B and the band returned almost immediately. One of the background singers sang some verses of “Who’s Loving You.” Plan B continued the Motown medley with “The Tracks of My Tears” and “Lean on Me.” He asked a woman in front her name and then sang the chorus of “My Girl” to her. He sang a verse and chorus of “Stand by Me” and ended the medley with Seal’s “Kiss from a Rose.”
The sound effects guy returned and helped out on a rock-rapping version of “Kiss from a Rose.” Plan B described the next song as one we “probably hadn’t heard before.” He said it was the punk version of the song “Pieces” that my wife later learned was his collaboration with a DJ duo called Chase & Status. It started out quietly but quickly progressed into rock-rap with the sound effects guy helping out. Lyrics included “I remember when I used to feel something” and “Little pieces on the floor.” Part of the crowd in front of the stage looked like an old fashion mosh pit. It was back to Strickland Banks for the next and final song, the equally loud and rockin’ “Stay Too Long” that got us all clapping early on. Later Plan B and the band got very angry and rowdy on stage. By the end they seemed to be fighting each other especially Plan B and one of the guitarists. They finished, left the stage to loud cheering and the canned music came back on signifying that there would be no more encores.
I didn’t catch the time that we left the venue but we had very little trouble leaving the parking structure and there wasn’t much traffic on the 10. At one point on the way a cop car behind us turned on its siren. When we slowed down he said to “keep going.” We arrived home at 11:05 p.m. since we had decided to “Go Home” rather than “Stay Too Long.”
We saw Plan B and Eliza Doolittle perform live at the El Rey Theatre on Tuesday, April 19, 2011. This was our second live in-person concert of the year but not just our second live concert. Just like the previous live in-person concert of OMD in March (see earlier review) we saw several live webcasts on the days nearly right before. This time we saw webcasts of performances at the annual Coachella festival on the previous Friday through Sunday. We saw Tame Impala, Big Audio Dynamite, Jimmy Eat World, Fistful of Mercy, and The Strokes. My wife also saw Elbow, Scissor Sisters, and Duran Duran. This was a more convenient and inexpensive way to see concerts, though sometimes there were technical difficulties with the sound or picture starting and stopping. We especially had difficulties with the Fistful of Mercy concert.
Plan B and Eliza Doolittle also performed at Coachella. We first heard Plan B’s music on Jonesy’s Jukebox and then my wife got his CD released in 2010: The Defamation of Strickland Banks. This was his second album. His first album was primarily rap but for the second one he took on the role of a soul singer wrongly accused of a crime. It’s great angry, redemptive soul music mixed in with a bit of rapping. He’s from England and we read in an article that he didn’t plan to tame down his accent for the American tour.
After seeing her name as the opening act we did some more research on Eliza Doolittle. She is very new to the music scene and also very young in her early 20s. Her real name is Eliza Caird and she’s the daughter of Frances Ruffelle who originated the role of Eponine in the first London and Broadway productions of Les Misérables back in the mid-1980s. We saw a few of her videos online such as those for “Skinny Genes,” “Mr. Medicine,” and “Pack Up.” They were light, fun songs heavy on traditional pop vocals and music. “Pack Up” seems to have some New Orleans jazz sound to it. Further research revealed that Phil Thornalley helped produce her self-titled debut album and he co-wrote one of the songs, “Go Home.” I knew his name because he was a member of The Cure back in the early 1980s. He played on the song “Lovecats” and, I believe, on the album The Top that included the single “Caterpillar.” He later played with Johnny Hates Jazz and produced music for Natalie Imbruglia and, more recently, Pixie Lott among others.
Eliza Doolittle’s new album wasn’t released in the U.S. until the day of the concert, April 19, 2011. That day we downloaded it for $5.99 along with a couple more Plan B songs. It included more fun, catchy retro-sounding tracks. One track, “Missing” had a sample from the Fleetwoods’ 1959 doo-wop/R&B hit “Come Softly to Me.” It was the sung part: “Dahm dahm, dahm do dahm, ooby do…” More research revealed that the original Fleetwoods were from Olympia, Washington.
We bought the concert tickets online and printed them several weeks before the concert. I hadn’t been to a concert at the El Rey since we saw Pavement there in 1999. Before that I went there with some friends and saw Pete Droge, Steve Folk (sp?), John Doe, and Glen Phillips in 1998. I used to live very close to the El Rey, just a few blocks away on Detroit Street north of Wilshire Blvd. and just south of 6th Street. I lived there from 1998 to 2001.
On the day of the concert we first had an early dinner at IHOP on Citrus Avenue in Covina. My wife had the limited time chicken and waffles and I had the new Philly cheesesteak without the cheese. We left IHOP at 5:55 p.m. and took the 10 west staying on the 10 where most of it split off to become the 101. We hit a bit of traffic between downtown L.A. and the 110 but otherwise it was fairly smooth. We exited at La Brea Avenue, drove north to Wilshire and turned left. At the intersection of Wilshire and La Brea my wife noticed that the restaurant just north of there, Luna Park was still around. We last ate there in May 2004. Just south of the intersection we noticed that the dance club Leonardo’s was still around. We drove west on Wilshire past my old street, Detroit, and Cloverdale and turned right on Cochran. From there we made almost an immediate left into the parking structure, actually a fairly tall narrow building with fewer parking spaces per floor than expected. Parking cost $10 and we parked on floor P2. After parking we took the elevator down to the street level or lobby (L).
We walked farther west along Wilshire, passed the Staples store, crossed Dunsmuir, passed the Korean cultural center that used to be an IHOP and, before that, a kosher Chinese restaurant back when I lived in the area. Just past it we found the El Rey with its neon signs. We queued up at the short queue to get in. It was 6:50 p.m., ten minutes before the doors were scheduled to open according to our tickets. It was cool outside. The thermometer in our car had said it was just below 70 degrees. It was also clear and sunny in the Miracle Mile area, unlike the overcast sky back home. At the intersection of Wilshire and Burnside to the west we saw a sign for El Rey parking for $8. The sign pointed south of Wilshire. Several more people queued up behind us. The crowd was mostly Caucasian women with some men as part of couples and a few others who came on their own. There were also a few Asians, African-Americans, and at least one Indian couple. Most of the others seemed younger than us, but not too much younger. An El Rey employee came down the queue putting on wrist bands needed to buy alcohol. He didn’t card either of us though he did card some women behind us. It was an all-ages show.
At 7:01 they started letting people in. On the way in my wife saw a staff member whose T-shirt had the names Sahara, Outdoor, Mojave, and Gobi on it. These were the names of the Coachella stages. Security consisted of a bag check. The interior of the El Rey Theatre actually looked much like I remembered it. It had red walls, side floors, and ceiling. Lighting was dim from large crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceiling and smaller lamps on the walls. The floors were slightly higher along the sides with curved rails. There were tables in these sections back when I saw Glen Phillips et al. in 1998. This time there were no tables, only high-backed dining-style chairs along the walls. We immediately found places to sit along the left wall in about the middle. The stage was covered by a red curtain with the words “L.A. Weekly presents El Rey Theatre” projected onto it. I had overheard someone say that Eliza Doolittle was scheduled to play between 8:00-8:30 and Plan B would come out on stage at 9:00 p.m. Over the speakers they played retro-sounding music such as the song “I Put a Spell on You.” My wife got some Plan B pieces of flair for $5. There were attendants in the restrooms.
It never really seemed very crowded during the time we waited. People stood on the floor in front of the stage while others sat on the chairs like us. Many ordered drinks from the bar in the back. We noticed the people didn’t just enter from the back but also from the exits to the side of the stage. Some were dressed up in suits and ties and we wondered if they were with one of the bands. By 7:55 p.m. it was a bit more crowded but it still didn’t seem quite half full. At 7:58 p.m. an El Rey staffer told us over the P.A. system to note the exits nearest to us and to report any suspicious activity to the staff.
At 8:02 p.m. the lights dimmed, the canned music stopped, and the curtains opened to Eliza Doolittle and her band. She seemed shorter than she looked in her music videos and younger, like a teenager. She had long curly brown hair and wore a white shirt and short denim shorts with some long ribbons hanging from her right side. Her band consisted of an acoustic guitar player, a keyboard player, a drummer who looked to be of African descent, and an upright bass player. The first song they played had a silly-sounding rhythm provided by the keyboard, I believe. The song was “Moneybox,” the first track off her album. After Eliza Doolittle started playing we noticed that more people stood on the floor in front of the stage and it didn’t seem so uncrowded. Before the next song the guitar player picked up a ukulele and after Eliza said, “Hit it, Charleston!” they launched into her single “Skinny Genes,” another silly and more lively song where Eliza’s English accent is very apparent as in most of the others. At one point the bass player spun around his upright bass.
After they finished Eliza said, “This next song is called ‘Go Home’ but we’re not going anywhere!” This was the song on her album co-written by Phil Thornalley. It seemed to have a ballroom dance beat, though also a louder rhythm than the studio version. At the end she said loudly, “Cha cha cha.” The next song, “Nobody” started out more quietly but got louder for the chorus and again had a louder rhythm than the studio version. The bass player switched to an electric bass for this one. She described how the next song was about wanting to be younger, not as in wanting to be a teenager, but wanting to be three. She asked if there were any three-year-olds in attendance and no one answered. She then mentioned that the drummer, Dexter Hercules, was only 19 years old, though he had the drumming skills of someone much older. She described how he wasn’t able to get into a bar due to his age. The keyboard player picked up a violin and they performed “Back to Front,” a sadder and more philosophical song than the others. It got louder more than halfway through.
Eliza described the next song as “about moving on.” It was “Rollerblades” that’s actually a slower song than the title seems to indicate. Before the next song Eliza Doolittle had to tie her shoelace and complained about it getting undone. The next song began with the keyboard player playing notes. I believe the guitarist had also gone electric by this time and then joined in. He was soon followed by the bass and drum. This wasn’t a song on the album and not one we had heard before. It was an angrier, more serious and soulful song than her usual light and silly ones. It included the lyrics “always find something wrong,” “run away from me, baby,” and “putting up with my s*** too long.” My wife later learned that it was Kanye West’s song “Runaway.”
Before the next song Eliza said she was “happy to be in dreamland.” They then performed “Pack Up,” another single off the album whose video we had seen. The studio version had an African-American man with a gravelly voice help sing the chorus. Eliza sang all the vocal parts for this live version. The guitarist and bassist did help sing background parts for this song and other songs. They finished the song and Eliza said, “Thank you very much. We have one more song.” It was the loud, fun song “Mr. Medicine,” another single off the album. She and the others sang the last chorus a capella. They left the stage to much applause at 8:37 p.m.
After Eliza Doolittle finished the place seemed much more crowded. During her last few songs El Rey employees were busy keeping people from stepping outside some lines on the floor to keep designated walkways clear. Later we learned that they also didn’t allow standing on the chairs or sitting on top of the chair backs. We looked up at the balcony and saw some chairs and tables but not people. This was the café at the El Rey that we had heard about. We heard some cheering near us and Eliza Doolittle walked right in front of us toward the area near the merch counter. She was talking to several people who I weren’t sure if they were fans or people she knew. I walked up to ask her to autograph one of our tickets and waited for her to finish talking to a guy. But then he started introducing more people to her. There didn’t seem to be a formal meet and greet. She walked back in the other direction, talked to more people and took photos with them including the bossy blond woman who had earlier asked us to save her seat. This was not very satisfying fan interaction for us.
As we waited for the headliner the place got even more crowded though fewer people sat along the walls. More stood behind the rails blocking our view of the stage. After 9 p.m. the lights dimmed and the curtains opened to a guy in a black shirt, pants, vest and tie. He said, “What’s going on, L.A.?” in what sounded like an American accent and then started making sound effects and rhythms with his voice and mouth. This wasn’t Plan B, but an opening act not mentioned on the bill. He made loud screeching noise one time, what sounded like a horn playing the Godfather theme at another time. He then did that along with blasting rhythm. His sound effects included the sounds and voices of Transformers. I wasn’t very into his act but the crowd seemed to love it. He sang the chorus of “I like to move it-move it” back and forth with the crowd and they clapped loudly when he finished.
By this point it was 9:20 and Plan B came on stage. He wore a white long-sleeve shirt, black vest, gold tie (I believe), and black pants. His band also wore vests and ties or jackets and ties or black evening dresses for the female background singers. The band consisted of two guitarists, a bass player, and the female African-American (or African-English?) backup singers who stood on the left side of the stage where we couldn’t see them. We did see some people walk toward the middle of the floor so that they could see the background singers better. Plan B began the set with “Writing’s on the Wall” from his album The Defamation of Strickland Banks, the source of most of the songs performed. He followed it with “Free,” an even more defiant song. During the next song, “Welcome to Hell” the two guitarists stood together and swayed in unison.
In his (surprisingly) understandable English accent, Plan B said, “Let’s pick up the pace.” They performed the angriest song so far, “The Recluse.” It ended with Plan B and the guitarists jumping up and down and getting very rowdy. They slowed down for the next song that was more of an R&B turn, “Love Goes Down.” Plan B described the next song as “about smoking weed” and said it was written not by him but by a Scottish guy whose name I didn’t catch. I didn’t recognize it. It was louder and faster than the Strickland Banks songs though just as angry. I found the lyrics hard to understand though they included the lines “Kiss my lips again and again” and “Oh my God.” It ended with organ music. We would later learn that this song was “Coming Up Easy” by Paolo Nutini. The next song, “Prayin’” was back to Strickland Banks and was loud but not as fast. They did play very fast by the end.
Before the next song, Plan B said something about “All good things come to an end.” It seemed too early to talk about the end because he had only performed seven songs. He performed the Strickland Banks song “What You Gonna Do,” a faster song that had him rapping towards the end. After that song he got everyone to snap their fingers as he performed “She Said” that also included rapping. I think at one point he spun around as did some of the guitarists. They finished the song, Plan B said, “Thank you and good night,” and they all left the stage. It was 9:58 p.m. They had performed nine songs, the same set length as Eliza Doolittle. There was much cheering and Plan B and the band returned almost immediately. One of the background singers sang some verses of “Who’s Loving You.” Plan B continued the Motown medley with “The Tracks of My Tears” and “Lean on Me.” He asked a woman in front her name and then sang the chorus of “My Girl” to her. He sang a verse and chorus of “Stand by Me” and ended the medley with Seal’s “Kiss from a Rose.”
The sound effects guy returned and helped out on a rock-rapping version of “Kiss from a Rose.” Plan B described the next song as one we “probably hadn’t heard before.” He said it was the punk version of the song “Pieces” that my wife later learned was his collaboration with a DJ duo called Chase & Status. It started out quietly but quickly progressed into rock-rap with the sound effects guy helping out. Lyrics included “I remember when I used to feel something” and “Little pieces on the floor.” Part of the crowd in front of the stage looked like an old fashion mosh pit. It was back to Strickland Banks for the next and final song, the equally loud and rockin’ “Stay Too Long” that got us all clapping early on. Later Plan B and the band got very angry and rowdy on stage. By the end they seemed to be fighting each other especially Plan B and one of the guitarists. They finished, left the stage to loud cheering and the canned music came back on signifying that there would be no more encores.
I didn’t catch the time that we left the venue but we had very little trouble leaving the parking structure and there wasn’t much traffic on the 10. At one point on the way a cop car behind us turned on its siren. When we slowed down he said to “keep going.” We arrived home at 11:05 p.m. since we had decided to “Go Home” rather than “Stay Too Long.”
Comments