Beck, Cage, Spoon, Bean.
TL;DR
Impossible Burger
Lights
Fire
Songs
Evacuation/Water Inflitration
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Was an interesting night at MPP Thursday night for a 4 act bill on weeknight.
We had 2nd row seated-pit tickets and FWB VIP deck passes. This made it really easy to come and go from our seats to get food, drink and WC. Also, got some great close-up pics of Beck/Matt from Cage when they came over close to our seats. @jdgconcertgramz on instagram.
Sunflower Bean went on at 6pm. The parking lot for which I had a pass was set to open at 6pm, so I reserved a spot in an earlier-opening lot and headed over to MPP, parked and walked over in time to catch the show. They played for maybe 25 minutes? I like SB, saw them at WTMD event, and now this. I would like to see a headlining (DC9 or equivalent?) show.
Why does this show carry 4 bands when it could probably be Beck and Cage and still sell 92% of the seats?
After a short break, Spoon played at 6:40. 11 song set included John Lennon cover (Isolation). My girlfriend loves Spoon as do I. Joe thinks that they are boring.
After Spoon, we got food: the aforementioned Impossible Burger and a Pizza. Both were way better than expected. While we were eating up there on the VIP deck, a staffer offered everyone happy-endings came around and warned us that lightning was headed our way and to stay alert.
We left the VIP in time to catch Cage's 3rd song. The stage was on fire. Actual fire. This band tours with a 3-tier stage, elaborate lights, pyrotechnics and a wonderfully unhinged front-man. The songs are catchy (though a little same-same sounding to me), but the show is insane. Masks (including but not limited to phantom of the opera type and fencing/beek-keeper type) hats, duct tape, and more. He basically wore 6 costumes onstage, and peeled them off one by one. But after a few songs the singer re-announced the lightning threat and said that they would play one more song and then clear out for awhile.
At around 8:35pm they finished their 7th song, and then walked off and an MPP staffer came out and made the evacuation announcement. All lawn and skylawn had to go to their cars. By that time the rain was pouring down and lightning and thunder were continuous. The staffer said that they would allow folks from the lawns back into the pavillion at 9:15pm.
The rain got so bad that most people on the sides and near the rear of the pavillion got soaked. Water cascaded down the steps into the pit area. Water pooled, and the crew warned us pit-folk to stay out of the standing water due to electrical equipment potentially zapping us.
The pavillion folk were doing the wave and singing the 7 nation army chant, and generally being well-behaved.
By around 9:10 the crew was soundchecking Cage's guitars, and i think that they resumed around 9:20. They played 9 more songs. There were crazy lights, lasers, intense fogmachine, more fire on stage, more costume changes and janky dancing.
At the last song the singer (by now dressed only in old-school gym shorts, flesh-colored leggings, and sneakers) finished the song by wading into the crowd and traversing the pavillion and onto the lawn and then back into the pavillion while the Queen song (We are the Champions) played. That was around 10pm.
After that Beck took forever to come out, and started his set at around 10:35pm with Loser. His set was fine, mostly songs I really like, some cool lights, screens, mirrored beach-balls distributed in the crowd, but honestly, I was very tired and stressed from the rain/lightning event, the heat, and a long-week. I thought he would play for around 1/2 hour because of what I thought was an ironclad 11pm curfew (and that would have been fine for me), but he played until 11:35pm, ending with intense confetti-canon (right after we fled the pit to get a head-start on getting our cars).
I did see a lot of the IMP management team (no-seth), and everyone seemed fine, happy, no sullen-ness on display.
I recommend the Impossible Burger for sure.
