#he did the pyrotechnics for that one chemistry scene???

[smoshidiot]

happy halloween everyone i just found out that a family member of mine worked on ghostmates?? i'm freaking tf out

[slowlystupendousdelusion]

So recently on a bit of a whim I went to see Player Kings

So I'd got a ticket for the cheap seats with restricted view up in the sky. But excitingly, I got upgraded to the stalls on the day of!

First things first, this play was long. Like check the run time on this before you go because I did not. "It's abridged, it will be fine!" ... I was in the theatre for almost 4 hours. Luckily I had been to pee before I went in because that would have been a horrific wait for the interval. Prepare your mind and bladder is all I'm saying.

[Side note about the toilets: the women's toilets are off the main foyer, are really narrow and there are only about 6 of them? Insanity. There will be a queue.]

I haven't watched Ted Lasso at all so this was the first thing I've seen Toheeb Jimoh in and he was great. I imagine it must be intimidating to act Shakespeare with Ian McKellen but he really shone and they had great chemistry. It was sort of nice to root for a more serious character without there being a tragic downfall at the end? Also he starts the play topless if that's your kinda thing.

So I decided to go see this in spite of my dismal knowledge of Shakespeare's histories as I thought this would be a good opportunity to see Ian McKellen do Shakespeare and I was at a bit of a loose end that day. I did look up the synopsis of Henry IV parts one and two beforehand and that was pretty much sufficient to be able to follow the plot successfully. I know it was an abridged version but I was surprised by how little Henry IV shows up in it. (Obviously I haven't seen any other productions to compare it to, so this could be the same in the full plays too for all I know!)

Obv Ian McKellen was great, and he was on stage for the majority of the play. I'm not being funny but I went to the matinee and we only exited the theatre at around 18:20, and the evening performance was due to start at 18:30? I cannot imagine how intense that turn around is - that's like an 8 hour shift of being almost constantly on stage? He's what, 85 odd? I emerged from the theatre essentially staggering and half blind after being in the dark for so long where I had done nothing more taxing than sit down, and they had to go and do it all again? Incredible.

I think Falstaff is generally supposed to be a bit younger, but him being older didn't really bother me any; the body padding took longer to get used to because you are so familiar with McKellen's normal frame. I guess the real challenge for this is that he is so recognisable and has such a recognisable voice (and let's face it, I imagine the vast majority of the audience are there to see him) so at the beginning your brain does waste a bit of time going "omg that's Ian McKellen" before you sink into the play properly.

The promo photos were bizarre in comparison to the actual set design, so I'm not quite sure why they chose to do that. The posters were of the cast in an American Diner/ Greasy Spoon type set up, but this had no connection to the direction/ set design of this production. They were still in the Boar's Head tavern; it hadn't been replaced by a cafe and the red and white colour scheme of the posters bared no resemblance to the actual set. (Which was essentially a fancy brick wall back drop). I did hear people comment that they were expecting something quite different based on the posters as they were leaving.

It was quite cinematic in places and particularly the battle scenes were impressive. (I am easily swayed by fancy pyrotechnics). I liked how the opening and closing scenes mirrored each other with the same staging for both coronations.

The music choices were interesting - they had some really loud sections where it was blasted through the speakers at a volume which made me jump at least once. But most of the music was sung onstage as a solo at certain points. This was quite powerful but did leave me a little confused (are the other characters aware of this guy who just turns up and sings? Or is he just for the audience?)

I thought the first half (which basically covered Henry IV part 1) was more cohesive than the second half, although I guess that could just be personal preference of the two plays. I do feel like I need to look up some film versions now to get a better idea of the choices made in the abridgement and production. My other take away from this (don't @ me) was that my assumption that Shakespeare histories were dry crusty old things that are so boring that they daren't even attempt to teach them in school was probably incorrect and maybe I should try some others.

Basically this was a cool production to see especially with affordable tickets still being available, but definitely be aware of the run time because I was not prepared and that is now my overriding memory of the play. 😅

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: West Coast Avengers #1: Avengers Assemble!

September, 1984

WHO will answer Hawkeye’s call to join the new team?

I assume Mockingbird? I see her silhouette in the cover box and the assumption was that she and Clint were a package deal? I don’t know what it’s being played like its not a given.

Some good or at least interesting options here for the second team.

Red Wolf, Iron Man, Puck, I thiiiiink Crystal?, Doc Sampson, Mockingbird, Cyclops, Black Widow, Wonder Man, Tigra, Quicksilver, Hercules, Ant-Man, Namor, and the Shroud.

A lot of interesting options. I really want it to be Cyclops and I know its not going to be Cyclops.

STOP TEASING ME WITH AVENGERS CYCLOPS IF YOU’RE NOT GOING TO GIVE IT TO ME!

Also, this issue #1 of West Coast Avengers. Or at least the first issue #1. The team is introduced in a four issue miniseries before getting an ongoing - and a second issue #1 - about a year later.

This will be moderately confusing for my numbering but I’m brave enough to barrel on through anyway.

Last time in Avengers: Vision became the chairman of the Avengers and announced that due to the threat of the Dire Wraiths, the Avengers would be opening up a West Coast team led by newly married Hawkeye. In one page reminders of the subplot in various issues, Hawkeye and Mockingbird arrived in Los Angeles, went real estate shopping, and set up a new HQ in a nice compound that used to belong to an actress.

The team is only missing one thing.

A team.

Maybe it’s just me but I’d think that you’d get the team sorted out before you spent who knows how much renovating a compound up to the level required for a superhero team.

It’s going to be really embarrassing if you open a new Avengers team and nobody comes.

(Vision agrees and has taken the liberty of reaching out to several likely candidates.)

Mockingbird confirms that Hawkeye has invited her onto the team but she’s not even sure she’s Avengers material, she doesn’t even have powers.

Hawkeye: “Neither does Captain America! Neither do I! If I can be an Avenger -- !”

Mockingbird: “Anyone can, right?”

Hawkeye: “And people wonder why you took the code-name Mockingbird!”

Haha! I do like their chemistry!

He does clarify that its totally not just because she’s married to him (although I would point out that he kept trying to get Black Widow on the team based on them dating) but that she’s totally earned it! She has years of experience as a SHIELD agent!

Hawkeye calls Vision to let him know that the place is all set up and Vision lets him know about the reaching out to several likely candidates biz.

BOOM SCENE TRANSITION TO DOWNTOWN SAN FRANCISCO at the office of private investigator Jessica Drew.

Because, yeah, Jessica Drew did the PI thing as an ex-superhero way before Jessica Jones. And Jessica Jones is probably Drew with some of the serial numbers scratched off.

ANYWAY, she’s talking to hardboiled Tigra, who helped her on the Enselmo case.

Jessica Drew: “I still laugh when I think about the way you ran our pigeon up and down Telegraph Hill!”

Tigra: “That was the best part of the case! After all... bringing pigeons to ground is second nature to a lady who’s half-cat!”

Jessica tries to offer Tigra a job (since this is before the internet and Tigra can’t find a lot of modeling jobs for models covered with fur) but Jessica’s secretary interrupts with a call for Tigra.

The call sounds ominous from Jess only hearing half of it but I’m 99.9% sure its Vision offering Tigra a spot on the West Coast Avengers.

Read Tigra’s replies with that context and you’ll laugh.

Tigra tells Jess that she’s got to book it to LA for business that she has to settle on her own but they’ll talk about Jess’ offer later.

Tigra: “Don’t worry, I’m a big girl... I can make my own mistakes!”

I feel like a little bit of clarification would have gone a long way here, Tigra.

Because Jessica assumes that Tigra is in trouble and decides to call someone to tail (ha) Tigra.

Meanwhile, a car chase in the Mojave Desert.

To cut to the car chase, this is a movie set filming a stunt spectacular car chase scene for what I’m pretty sure is James Bond.

Pyrotechnics are easy if you don’t stress blowing up the stuntman.

Because he’s near invulnerable.

The stuntman (Simon Williams, Wonder Man) does need to have buckets of water thrown on him to cool him off after being in an explosion but he’s otherwise fine.

Cool that Wonder Man found an acting job he can handle. He seems pretty thrilled with it.

One of the staff on set tells Simon that his trailer is buzzing and he realizes its his Avengers transceiver.

He receives his offer from Vision (although apparently a much more vague one than Tigra) and flies off after making sure he has no more stunts scheduled for the day.

An hour later and hundreds of miles elsewhere, Iron Man (the James Rhodes version) is flying around, minding his own business, thinking about how cool it is to have relocated to California to help Tony Stark open a new business, admiring the Standord University Linear Accelerator Center.

Just as he’s thinking that he hopes that Tony isn’t in a hurry to being Iron Man since he’s gotten used to it, Vision cuts in on the secret Iron Man radio frequency to call him in to the meeting.

Iron Man arrives twenty minutes later at the West Avengers compound on the Palos Verdes Peninsula bluffs and paraphrased does an impressed whistle at what a nice place it is.

Iron Man: “Some spread! This looks like the kinda place Tony would’ve hung out... before he lost Stark International! The best part of being his pilot in those days was ferrying him to spots like this! Who’d have thought I’d ever be invited on my own? Then again, who’d have thought little Jimmy Rhodes would grow up to be Iron Man?!”

Future knowledge bums me out a little with this. This is spoilers for a year from now and several issues from now but in the time gap between the West Coast Avengers limited series and the ongoing, Tony does take over being Iron Man again. I hope you enjoy all this while it lasts, Rhodey. And hey, War Machine is only like eight years away!

Tigra arrives and starts acting familiar with Iron Man because she thinks she knows its Tony and they were teammates for a bit.

She ditches the briefly identity obscuring trenchcoat and hat because dammit she has a year round fur coat and its hot in California!

She also might be flirting, although hopefully not as bad as she’ll get later in the ongoing. Spoilers for a year and several issues for now but it is a bafflingly bad subplot that Tigra gets given.

The other reason I bring it up is that this is the exact situation that led Rhodey to quit the Avengers when he became Iron Man. He felt it would be awkward interacting with people who already knew Iron Man well.

I guess he’s more comfortable with it now.

The West Coast Avengers roster that we already know about are all people who either quit the Avengers or don’t feel like they’d be a good fit. Which is just a great start so I’m interested to see if we’ll get justifications for why they’d sign up the minute a franchise opens.

Hawkeye takes Tigra and Iron Man off on a tour while a mysterious shrouded figure watches.

The tour concludes without us seeing the tour, boo. But it comes up that neither Iron Man or Tigra know why they’re here.

Iron Man was just told he was needed but didn’t get any more details. We know that Wonder Man got the same vagueness. And Tigra was just offered a $1000 dollar stipend to fly out to LA and see if she could “help the Avengers out!”

So Hawkeye gives them the sales pitch.

That Captain America made it a rule that except in emergencies, the Avengers’ roster would be limited to six members. But Vision decided that they need more than six Avengers but wanted to keep the team from becoming unwieldy so told Hawkeye to set up an expansion team: the West Coast Avengers!

It’ll basically be the same thing as the original Avengers in terms of by-laws and rights and privileges and both groups will be affiliated but the West Coast Avengers will be running their own show west of the Rockies.

If everyone here agrees to sign up, that’ll make a team of five with a sixth spot to fill.

But Tigra objects that she left the original team because she felt out of her depth and why would that be different here?

Ah, now there it is.

Justify it, Hawkeye.

Except he doesn’t because the intruder alarm goes off.

The intruder alarm all the way in the first basement level, which means their intruder has already penetrated deep into the compound and bypassed a lot of the security systems.

Hawkeye is sure that the intruder is actually a highly organized commando raid and he’s instantly proven wrong with an infrared scan shows just one guy.

Womp womp.

Hawkeye is also sure that however this just one guy got as far as he did, the security system in the next area will totally--

Womp womp.

Hawkeye is fed up at this point and seals off the security levels, forcing the dude back through the domestic areas. He then orders Iron Man, Tigra, and Mockingbird to split up to cover more ground that way and surround the intruder.

Not having much better to do, they do, but everyone has some misgivings in their thinky thoughts.

Iron Man: Hawk sounds like he really gets into giving orders. I don’t know if I like that.

Tigra: I must be some sort of masochist to get involved with Avengers again! They always seem to know what they’re doing... not like me! What am I doing here? What am I trying to prove?

Hawkeye: Should I let the others catch our intruder... or rush in and collar him myself? How would Cap handle this?

Mockingbird: Poor Hawk... He wants so much to be a good leader! I know he can do it, but I wish he wouldn’t try quite so hard! In a way, though, it’s funny... His first act as leader was having the team split up!

Mockingbird is the first to run into the intruder, suddenly being enveloped in a cloud of darkness. She can’t see anything but hears someone moving and launches one of her staves from her spring-loaded sleeve launcher.

Its a near miss, breaking a lamp instead of the intruder, who turns out to be Shroud. Y’know, that friend of Jessica Drew’s we met in that two-parter about saving Jessica Drew’s ghost?

Shroud realizes how skilled Mockingbird is and that he might have trouble if he takes her lightly so he goes right for the Vulcan neck pinch, knocking out Mockingbird. But she hits Shroud in the stomach guts with her second stave as she’s passing out.

Hawkeye then shows up, concerned that he hasn’t run into Mockingbird yet and drawn to the cloud of darkness, except not the Final Fantasy villain.

He shoots a light arrow, except not the Legend of Zelda powerup, into the cloud to no real effect so shrugs and shoots a sonic arrow instead.

Shroud flees the area and Hawkeye finds Mockingbird who tells him to shut up with the EEEEE arrow.

Hawkeye: “Where’d our man go?”

Mockingbird: “How should I know? It was dark!”

Hah.

The cloud of darkness passes through the area of the mansion/compound that Tigra is in and she recognizes it as Shroud’s darkness. She calls out to him but he doesn’t hear her because he’s in another wing about to be tackled by Iron Man who can see Shroud with his in-helmet radar.

Controlling darkness is all well and good until technology.

Ain’t it said, Rumia?

Shroud is also blind so all he knows is that an armored man is lunging at him until Iron Man calls him a fool for trespassing on Avengers turf.

And that’s when he realizes that he done goofed.

Hmm. What is that symbol on Shroud’s hood, anyway? It looks kinda like Aku.

Shroud manages to escape Iron Man’s grasp, sacrificing some of his neat cape. Although, it tears into an even cooler look so is it really a sacrifice?

He decides that he’s just going to get out of here.

Shroud: Have to get undercover and think out my next move. I don’t want to fight Avengers! That could become a life’s work -- and I have better things to do!

I can’t decide whether he means that he’d be at it all day or that this misunderstanding fight would lead him down an unwilling path of villainy as some third-string grudge holder.

Probably the former?

Anyway, Shroud is just leaping over the balcony when Wonder Man finally arrives and spots him. And unfortunately for Shroud’s ribs, he has been cultivating a reputation as a crimelord so Wonder Man flies in and tackles him into a tree.

Womp womp, except for Shroud this time.

Tigra shows up and jumps on Wonder Man from forty feet away to stop him from hurting Shroud any further, explaining that he’s her friend.

Shroud: “I’m certainly glad I’m not an enemy... I’d hate to think how I’d be treated then!”

Hah.

Later, in the medical room, I guess, Mockingbird applies bandages to Shroud’s ribs except on the outside of his costume. Does... does that do anything? Obviously not for open wounds. But for bruised bones, I guess the point is compression. But it feels less than ideal because he’d have to take off the bandages to take off his shirt. Just feels better to apply the bandages under the clothes, MOCKINGBIRD.

What makes it weirder is that we see him a couple panels later pulling his shirt down over the bandages. Which makes me think Mockingbird bandaged him on top of his costume and he had to pull his costume top out from under them and pull it down. He didn’t just stop her because that would be rude?

Shroud explains that Jessica Drew asked him to keep an eye on Tigra because of how the phone call made her act all weird. He followed Tigra from the airport to here and ran into a gaggle of superheroes. 

In the meantime, Hawkeye has verified Shroud with a report Captain America filed on him so Hawkeye believes he’s a good guy now.

Wonder Man and Iron Man apologize for going in swinging and Tigra for not just telling Jessica what the call was about. But Shroud tells them no permanent harm done.

Hawkeye decides to offer Shroud the last spot on the team (assuming that everyone already invited is going to choose to stay).

Hawkeye: “That trick you do with the dark is one slick little number... and anyone who can hold his own against us as long as you did obviously has what it takes in the skill department. Besides, what you did reminds me a little of how I introduced myself to the Avengers -- I broke in, too! Come on... What do you say?”

Shroud say... no.

He’s honored and a couple years earlier he would have jumped at the chance. But Wonder Man’s assumption didn’t come from nowhere. Shroud has been spending the last many months building up his outlaw rep so he can take down gangs from the inside.

Like the Green Hornet, I guess?

But since it’d be hard to be an Avenger West Coast AND keep up the fake outlaw thing, Shroud has to turn them down.

Shroud then pulls his cloud of darkness disappearing trick and nopes out.

With all that tied up, Wonder Man asks whats the big thing that Vision called him out for, leading an exasperated Hawkeye to start his West Coast Avengers sales pitch from the top.

Mockingbird: “That’s the spirit, fearless leader! Just remember, it can only get better from here!”

Hah.

So, that was the first issue of West Coast Avengers.

And there’s still no West Coast Avengers team.

Tigra and Iron Man still have reservations about the idea. Wonder Man has no idea why he’s there.

Its an interesting decision to hit the ground walking with this team. But it makes sense. The initial plan wasn’t for the West Coast Avengers to get an ongoing. This limited series was supposed to establish the concept, give a few Avengers affiliated characters something to be doing off-panel, and be able to be pulled in for crossovers and guest appearances as needed.

So the book can focus more on Hawkeye’s trials in actually getting this team going. He’s finally gotten to be a leader of the Avengers like he’s always wanted and now has to deal with all the frustration that Captain America or Hank Pym had with him, and then some.

Still, funny that the West Coast Avengers’ first adventure has them not only not a team yet but spending their time beating up a friend due to mistaken identity.

Will they get their act together by the next issue? Only time will tell. I tell a lie because Chronos never spoils stories. Only me will tell or maybe the Internet.

Follow @essential-avengers​ for the rest of the West Coast Avengers limited series. And for eventual bafflement when they get an ongoing. Also, like and reblog.

[notafraidofredyellowandblue]

MTV Masters 2004 Rammstein - thoughts

After doing the translation of the MTV Masters 2004 set, i was left with some lingering thoughts and miscellaneous rambles, so here goes.. ❣in no particular order.

Even though it was primarily a collection of snippets from other/older interviews and some making ofs, i liked how it was put together as a sort of "History of Rammstein up until now", too bad part 2 was missing.

Olli might be just as direct and outspoken as Paul, just not as eloquent, and not as bothered to try and get his opinion out (maybe should do a post on Olli alone...probably..).

The Mutter drama

very likely started with Richard (greatly helped with a bunch of cocaine), but after it also everyone says they didn't want to go on with the same type of music, but wanted to experiment...

afaik Richard is one of the more experimental of the band, so while at some point (understandably) they wanted Richard out, I think he was also needed for the new direction...a "can't live with him, can't live without" situation?

because of that shared feeling, i guess a bandcrisis was unavoidable at some point, and maybe it was brought to a head when it was and they worked through it...if it had lingered another few years maybe they'd have said "we've been doing this long enough now, let's quit"

the years after were better, but i think it's only in the recent 2 or 3 years that the band-together-vibe has really returned, but without the corset they all hated, good for them for hanging in all that time

Paul's occassionally shows his sunny smiles when saying a pointed or sharp remark. If you didn't understand the text you might think he just said something really cute, and all the while is dissing something or someone ☀️ not just a ball of sunshine, but one with stings..

Till often doesn't finish sentences, leaves part of it hanging in the air, starts his next thought. I could imagine he prefers to express himself in writing (his poetry and lyrics) instead of talking, especially talking with a journalist where he probably half expects to be misquoted anyway.

The parts about Germany are all the more interesting knowing that 15 years later they did a song on pretty much exact the topic as it is discussed here. I wouldn't be surprised they had rewatched these old interviews and then came up with using the theme for a song. I also agree that the nazi-era, apart from the atrocities and unspeakable harm it did to people, also very much crippled the germans with guilt, making it impossible to look further away in the past without linking it to the later nazi years (a lot of harmless things from before get a connotation it originally didn't have because the nazi era tainted it) and not being able to move on in the future because the guilt couldn't be let go. If only they'd ever do a 'making of' or interview about the song "Deutschland" i'd be very interested on their thoughts...but i don't have much hope anymore for that...

The scenes with Schneider and Paul on a couch, Paul telling Schneider he's the best actor, Schneider sort of embarrassed reacting and then Paul reconsidering and coming to the conclusion that he's not sure about actor Schneider and talking, but concluding he is really good at looking in certain directions 😁 that must be a prime example of Paulinist remarks, on the one hand cute and funny and generous, and then with one sentence basically pinpointing what Schneider can't do ☀️

Richard admitting having to be unhappy to "create" and sometimes creating drama to trigger that is very revealing, self-aware, unsettling and in a way very sad.. i hope he has come to terms better with it later in life and can also use music from a happier core (like when he writes songs for his children), but deep down, this is his drive and probably still is..

Love Paul's metaphores, he always has one (or three) at hand on any topic. When interviewed along bandmates he's quite restless though, moving around a lot..

Felt sad for Till when he talks about writting stuff off of his soul and afterwards "feeling a bit better, a tiny bit" I wanted to reach in and hug him ❣

At this point in time the Mutter drama is forgiven but not quite forgotten, I think especially Paul will be one to regularly have referred back to it in the first years after the crisis. At least the last couple of years it seems to have been really layed to rest (apart from maybe a little inside joke like old friends have).

Although I always think Schneider is the most levelheaded of the bunch, he does seem to occassionally not "get" what is going on, he seems occassionally vague. That too changed later on, nowadays he seems the most stabil one to interview (well, Flake as well but you can have Flake just reminisce old bandstories and don't have to ask questions 💓)

Schneider for that matter also seems to, by the time of the interview, still remember there was a crisis, but is starting to forget the details, that is probably for the better, no use rehashing everything, but i'd bet some of the others took longer..

Richard is very analytical about what happened and also imo very honest, like mentioning when in the early days they did something funny, that wasn't their intension and only later learned to laugh about themselves. Other people would just have twisted a story like, but he just says it as he thinks it was. He seems very much to say what he feels at the time (not that a next time he won't say something different, but then *that* is what he feels). This must probably also have gotten him into spots of trouble over the years.

Till just lights up (no not like that 😊) when he hears the pyro guys, next time someone manages to catch him for an interview they should just let him give a masterclass on pyrotechnics and ask the questions in between so he doesn't have to bother with the standard interview-situation and just do his own thing.

There is not a lot of Flake in these interviews, while we know now that Flake is actually one of the better storytellers, maybe he was used to let others do the talking at the time, or maybe he was strugling with his alcohol addiction that he talks about in his books and his happy to let tune out.

I think Richard once mentioned in a different interview that he likes to work in a team but isn't a teamplayer; what i take from these interview snippets that he loves the band and very much wants the band to be well.. later he wrote an Emigrate song for them (a band he doesn't tour with, afraid he'd like it better than Rammstein..😙 he a worrier at heart i think..).

Paul gets interviewed in various combinations with bandmates at the time, but i don't think from those years there is a combination of him and Richard. But much much later (2016), when they are interviewed together at the Rammstein in amerika premiere, they completely make up for it and have loads of fun. Ofcourse that's exactly the difference 10+ years can make, but good for them to have given it a shot and finding common ground after all (and even managing to be soft to eachother...aaaww those two 💕)

Schneider casually calling Paul 'Paulchen' as an endearing term and Paul not even batting an eye is very cute, but also shows that they regularly call him that (nothing much to do with his size imo)

Paul having the last word is probably typical, but what a sweet way to end this show, saying he really likes all of them, empasizing again 'really' and he is glad they are all still alive 💗 apart from that that is very cute, i also think they did worry about one or the other bandmate and their lifestyle (in keeping with the interview not naming names here) i hope that part of their wildness has mellowed down by now...the first remark also is a foresight to a 2017 interview with Paul where he mentions they have really nice chemistry at that time...so glad their bandlife did become better over the years.

All in all...the really are a 6-man-marriage...aren't they 💖

[gra-sonas]

‘Roswell, New Mexico’ has been a non-stop thrill ride in season 2. HL spoke with Jeanine Mason about that tender moment between Liz and Rosa, the arrival of Diego, and the ‘insane’ finale.

Roswell New Mexico has reached the second half of season 2 and is showing no signs of slowing down. Max and Liz have been happily reunited after he was brought back from the dead, but that doesn’t mean their fight is over. There are a number of complications ahead for our fan-favorite couple, including the entrance of Liz’s ex, Diego. HollywoodLife talked EXCLUSIVELY with Jeanine Mason during an edition of HollywoodLife’s TV Talk to get the scoop on Diego and more.

“I feel like there’s going to be a lot of very happy fans off the top because he’s quite the charismatic and intelligent man,” Jeanine told HollywoodLife. “He meets Liz where she leads, which is her brain. Through him, we get to know a lot about her history, which was fun for me to go back to that Liz who existed before Max Evans. It’s also just a really delicious dynamic to be standing between two stunning men… I’m really excited for people to meet him. He’s lovely. I think you guys are really going to like him. But yeah, it’s definitely a hell of a complication for her and Max.

”Liz has had to deal with a number of unexpected appearances this season — her sister, Rosa, and her mother. Mama Ortecho blew threw Roswell and did a number on Liz. Her mother’s appearance exposed the broken relationship between the mother and daughter. Even though she’s gone, Mama Ortecho will not be forgotten. “It’s going to be fun for everybody to watch the next couple episodes because so much more than we even know was set up in this first episode where we meet Mama Ortecho,” Jeanine teased. “There are a lot of things that we’ll start to pull strings at later and will unravel in a really big way.

”The May 4 episode featured an emotional moment between the Ortecho sisters. After Rosa overdosed, she told Liz that she wished she could go to rehab. Liz knew that her sister needed help, so she found a way to get Rosa to rehab. Jeanine talked about this touching scene between the sisters and what it means for Liz. “We miss her for a couple episodes, I believe, and that was so weird,” Jeanine said about Rosa going to rehab.

“Amber [Midthunder] and I had such an amazing time. We’re really great friends, the two of us, and it was fun to just build their chemistry. She is Liz’s crutch. I think that’s the main thing about Liz Ortecho is that she’s so giving and she wants to take care of her people that even though the way her life has been built and surviving these last few episodes is she needs her [sister], but she’s going… You need to be okay, so I’m going to send you away. I’m going to help you and support you in going away to get better.

”The season 2 finale is set to air June 15. Jeanine couldn’t say much about the episode, but she did drop some hints. “It is stunning. Man, what can I tell you? I mean, what I will tell you is it is an event,” Jeanine revealed. “We have a really big event happening in Roswell when this all goes down, and it is the backdrop for our finale. It’s actually two episodes that happen in this one event that’s happening in town, and the way we were able to shoot in and around this spectacle was so crazy. It was all at night. Here’s a little hint: there’s a lot of lights and so many bodies. It was just insane. Generally, when we read scripts, we have such beautiful, really big ideas from our writers. It’s just the nature of TV and of having 7-8 days to shoot an episode of the show, those things have to get parred down and I’m just blown away by how big everything was. We had some pyrotechnic stuff that happened on set.”

In addition to Roswell, New Mexico, Jeanine has other projects in the works, one that was a dream come true for her. “Right before this all happened. I had just finished shooting an episode of Grace & Frankie for Netflix,” Jeanine said. “That is one of my favorites, so I was so happy to get to be a part of the seventh season because it’s their final season. I was like so full fangirl. I was just walking out of my trailer and saw Lily Tomlin... I didn’t even know what to do. It was amazing, so I’m really excited for that. I have a couple other projects coming up this year. One’s coming out towards the end of the year, which I can’t talk about just yet, but I’m so excited to share what it is because I think people are going to love it.”

Jeanine is currently in Miami with her family amid the coronavirus pandemic. She talked about how she’s trying to give back to small businesses to help support them during this difficult time. “That’s been my effort on my Instagram,” Jeanine told HollywoodLife. “I’ve been trying to share as many small businesses. A lot that are here in Miami, which is where I’m from and where I’m quarantining with my family, so restaurants, craft stores, bookstores, and creative ways we can support them. I just think that’s the fabric of our cities, and they’ve got to be there when we’re done. And then also places in New Mexico because I live half the year there and I love New Mexico.”

~ HollywoodLife

[emaleesky]

On another site Star Wars Trivia:

Chewie stood on a small landing and pounded his mighty clenched fists against the unmoving hatch. He didn’t want to stand in the putrid pool of liquid filling the room beneath all the trash.

Luckily he, Luke, and Leia had avoided being hit by a deadly bolt from Luke’s blaster which had bounced from wall to wall before slamming into a pile of floating metallic trash, destroying it.

The room was magnetically sealed. Their weapons wouldn’t help them.

At that moment, Han fell from the darkened chute above, landing in the trash piles as they had just moment before.

He stood up, finding his footing as best he could on top of the garbage, silently assessing the situation before turning to Leia. “The garbage chute was a really wonderful idea!”

He continued condescendingly, “What an incredible smell you’ve discovered.”

Chewie was still trying to open the hatch of trash compactor 3263827. Han caught sight of him and drew his blaster. “Let’s get out of here. Get away from there.”

Luke tried his best to stop him. “No, wait!”

Han fired, and again, the blast ricocheted around the room, narrowly missing each of them before blasting the trash.

“Will you forget it, I already tried it, it’s magnetically sealed”, gesturing to the hatch.

Leia lit into him, “Put that thing away, you’re going to get us all killed!”

Han glared at her. “Absolutely your worship. Look I had everything under control until you led us down here. You know it’s not going to take them very long to figure out what happened to us.”

Leia fired back, “It could be worse.”

Suddenly a deep, inhuman moaning boiled up from beneath the trash and water, echoing off the disgusting walls.

“It’s worse” said Han, looking around for the source of the noise, blaster drawn.

The trash compactor footage was shot June 21st and 22nd 1976 on stage 4 at Elstree Studios. On June 24th, two days after this scene was completed, Harrison Ford wrapped his last day working on ‘Star Wars’ by filming his scenes in the 'Falcon's gun turret, for the getaway from the Death Star.

The detention block escape scene, followed by the Trash Compactor scene, is the first time the hero band of Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewbacca merges on screen. Luke is trying to keep the peace while Han and Leia are sniping at each other, and the undeniable chemistry tells you this is something special. It’s the perfect mix of alarm and humor that makes Star Wars work at its’ core.

As protection against the slimy water, the actors had the option of wearing a wetsuit under their costumes. Carrie thought it was mandatory, and wore hers for both days of shooting (Likely a tan skin color based on the images seen and with it being under her white costume dress).

Carrie: “I liked jumping through the garbage chute, but didn’t like wearing the wet suit. It was under my white gown, for protection, or I was going to look like Walter Brennan from the waist down from being in the water so long.”

British cameraman Ronnie Taylor, who passed away in 2018, also wore fishing waders, as did Focus puller Peter Taylor.

Roger Christian, set decorator said “The garbage compactor set was also pretty hard, because I knew I had actors in there and the walls had to come in, and they had to be in dirty water and I had to get stuff that would be light enough so it wouldn't hurt them but also not bobbing around." The set was dressed by Brian Lofthouse and the rest of the prop crew.

Even before the terror of the converging walls began, Luke and the others were visited by a live resident of the compact, the Dianoga. A lone eye stalk appeared out of the water to spy on its prey, and the something that moved past Luke’s leg was a large tentacle.

That same tentacle wound up and around Luke’s leg, body, and throat, strangling him and ultimately pulling him under the putrid water. Only after hearing the clanging indications that the compactor was about to come to life did it release him.

In order to portray the realism of the scene, Mark strenuously made himself appear as if he were being strangled.

Mark Hamill:

“I purposely made myself red-faced for a strangulated look, causing a blood vessel in my eye to burst. Afterwards-they had to shoot carefully to hide it until I healed. George told me I should've asked him first because with the lighting and red-filters it made no difference.”

It was Mark’s left eye that was affected. He was examined by the studio’s Dr. Collins, and then he was sent to be seen by eye specialist Dr. Watson.

Originally, the Dianoga was to have been a much larger creature, and be responsible for far more of the sequence than it ended up being.

Lucas described the Dianoga creature he envisioned in his mind this way: “It’s a cross between a jellyfish and as octopus, a transparent muck-monster which can take any shape. It presses itself against the floor or in nooks and crannies of the trash masher, or even in the trash itself to survive.”

Ultimately he had to scale back on the size of the part the Dianoga would play. It was yet another compromise. He had tried a trash compactor escape scene in THX 1138 and he had to cut it out because “it failed miserably”.

John Stears, Special production and mechanical effects supervisor, said they created a much larger monster, which was ultimately cut down from a full body to a tentacle when Lucas decided to combine the original, larger Dianoga encounter with the trash compactor scene. “There was an awful lot of work that went into that monster, and it really was superb. Unfortunately we couldn’t use it in its entirety. You never see the full body, just the tentacles.”

During pre-production there had been a plan to inflate the monster, so it would seem to emerge from the water. Budget cuts forced Lucas to combine scenes, so that idea was scrapped. A smaller tank had to be used, and the full scale monster became physically impossible on the resulting set.

As a result of the scaled down scene, the iconic head/eye that pops up out of the water and looks around was added at the last minute. Phil Tippett and Jon Berg sculpted it and filmed it on a stage at ILM. It was made from latex over foam, and featured hand-punched hair and a mechanism that allowed it to blink. A puppeteering rod allowed it to be turned from side to side so it could look around the trash compactor. The trash and debris in the garbage for their shoot included pieces from exploded pyrotechnic X-wings, and wreckage from the exploded Death Star.

George initially intended for music to play a part in the Trash Compactor/Dianoga scene, but ultimately decided to remove it to allow the creature’s noises, and its movement in the water to be heard, giving the scene a more ominous feel and tone.

Because the compactor room was a hollow metal chamber, Sound designer Ben Burtt ring modulated vocals, and added echo. He took inspiration from the technique used for the devil in ‘The Exorcist’ and used them for the sounds of the Dianoga. A ring modulator takes two signals and multiples them to create two new frequencies.

When the Dianoga retreats, and impending danger becomes immediate danger with the walls closing in, music returns to ramp up the tension.

From the original LP liner notes by John Williams for Side 3: Track 4, ‘The Walls Converge’:

“The walls begin to close together and the group helplessly fights to stop them. Finally C-3PO and R2-D2 come to the rescue and, at the last minute, stop the walls from crushing the group. This music has no thematic connection with anything else. I wanted to create a dark threatening sound which would represent the jeopardy of the group. I intentionally used low end music so it would co-exist with the grinding sound effects of the big steel walls.”

George was not happy with having to cut down the scene, and on one of the days Mark noticed he was a little down. He was waiting for another take to be set up - a scuba diver playing the part of the Dianoga to pull him under the water.

From Mark: “I hadn’t planned this, it was just out of desperation that this idea came into my head what with the monster being called a dianoga and everything. I picked up one of the little bits of green pieces of styrofoam floating on the water and, to the tune of ‘Chattanooga Choo Choo,’ I started to sing, ‘Pardon me, George, could this be dianoga poo-poo?'”

Lucas responded by putting his foot on Mark’s chest and pushing him into the water.

As a result of standing in the disgusting, murky water over the two days, Peter Mayhew’s yak-hair Chewbacca suit reeked for the rest of production.

The scene immediately after the heroes exit the compactor was shot in continuity, in what was called the ‘disused hallway’, explaining why it wasn’t filled with Stormtroopers or others noticing their exit from the compactor.

Before filming the scene, Mark had taken a look at the continuity of the film up to that shot, and was concerned.

“I remember saying things like, ‘Well, wait a minute. I just got out of the trash compactor. How come my hair’s all perfect?’ And Harrison replied, ‘Hey kid, it ain’t that kind of movie.’ And I thought, he’s so right.” – Mark Hamill.

[mst3kproject]

814: Riding With Death

Oh, goody, another compilation movie.  Who thought these were a good idea?

The super-duper high-tech Backstory-O-Matic introduces us to our hero, Special Federal Agent Sam Casey.  He’s not very interesting but he does have one superpower, the ability to become invisible.  Rather than make any use of this, however, the spy organization Intersect assigns him to drive a truck transporting a sample of Tripolodine, a new fuel additive that could revolutionize the transportation industry.  What nobody’s told him is that Tripolodine is dangerously explosive!

Having survived that, Casey’s next assignment takes him to a racetrack in Ontario, to seek the ultra-elusive saboteur Robert Denby.  Denby also has something that blows up – an unstable metal called dutrium that goes critical when it hears a certain radio frequency.  He has smuggled this stuff into the USA by having it built into a racecar, which is exactly where you want to hide an explosive. Once again, Casey finds himself having to get out of a vehicle before an experimental substance on board blows it up. Apparently the writers could only think of one plot.

All those shots of the super-duper high-tech Backstory-O-Matic are actually from Colossus: the Forbin Project, which Joel said in Master Ninja II was his favourite movie.  I wonder what he would have said about their appearance in Riding With Death.

If you’ve ever encountered The Gemini Man outside of this MST3K episode, it was probably on a list of the fastest-cancelled tv shows in history – only five episodes made it to the air, and it most definitely did not leave legions of disappointed fans clamoring for plot threads to be tied up in a movie.  Unfortunately, they gave us a movie anyway.  Rather than film a proper one, however, they made Riding With Death out of one episode that was on TV (called Smithereens) and one that never made it (Buffalo Bill Rides Again).  The result is… well, you can kinda see why they cancelled this.

I like to say at least something nice about these movies, so I’ll start by noting that direction and photography actually aren’t bad.  The Smithereens half is quite competently shot and while dialogue scenes get a little long, the more actiony sequences are nicely edited.  Despite what Mike and the bots have to say, the part where the truck has no brakes and Agent Lawrence is desperately trying to keep the Tripolodine from exploding is tense and holds the attention.  I quite like Lawrence’s resourcefulness, using the torn-up laundry bag to suspend the Tripolodine bottle.  The Buffalo Bill Rides Again half is not as well-made – the stock footage does not blend well with the stuff shot for the actual show, and there’s a distinct lack of tension in both the race and the scene of Casey and his friend Buffalo Bill trying to get the car away from people before it explodes.

The special effects are very limited, but not awful. Besides extensive pyrotechnics, the only effect they need is Casey vanishing and reappearing when he activates his invisibility watch.  There’s nothing special to the effect they use but it works well enough. In terms of just getting stuff onto the TV screen, the people who worked on The Gemini Man were good enough at their jobs.  That’s really, really faint praise, but I’ve seen so much worse doing this blog that I feel I do want to mention it.

On to the bad stuff.  The biggest problem with Riding with Death is that the characters just aren’t engaging.  I suspect part of this is because we never get to meet them properly. Instead, we arrive with the plot already getting underway, and the movie is much more interested in making sure we know why Tripolodine is important than telling us who Sam Casey or Abby Lawrence are.  There are a couple of flashbacks, but they just repeat stuff from the Backstory-O-Matic. About the only personality trait given to either of them is that they’re competent and committed to their jobs, remaining calm under pressure and finding workable solutions to the problems presented to them.  This is a good characteristic for secret agents to have, but it’s all we get.  It doesn’t help that Ben Murphy and Katherine Crawford, not among the world’s more charismatic actors to begin with, don’t seem to care very much about the project.  They turn in just barely enough of a performance to get a paycheque.

Not only do we get no idea of who the characters are, the relationships between them are also left more or less mysterious.  Is Lawrence supposed to be Casey’s love interest? One tends to suspect she is, since he thinks fondly of her in his flashbacks and even today female characters in action movies are primarily love interests.  They never have a ‘moment’, though, and Murphy and Crawford have no romantic chemistry.  The scientist in Buffalo Bill Rides Again who berates the head of Intersect, Driscoll, for harassing Denby obviously feels he has a right to lecture his boss, but if it’s because they’re old friends we’re given no clue.  There is apparently a long history between Driscoll and Denby, but this is narrated at us by the angry scientist guy rather than shown.  All this stuff would be fine on TV, where backstory has to be filled in quickly to stay in the time slot and not every episode can follow something like the romantic arc. In what’s supposed to be a movie, it just leaves us with a lot of unresolved threads and stuff we’re not sure why we ought to care about.

When I watched Cosmic Princess I noted that the attempts to marry up the two disparate episodes into one story actually worked surprisingly well.  In Riding with Death, they… don’t.  The halves are connected as both feature a guest appearance by comedian Jim Stafford as Buffalo Bill, a man whose many non-talents include trucking, country and western songwriting, and racecar driving, but neither Wild West showmanship (sadly) nor tailoring human skin (fortunately).  Buffalo Bill comes across as not too bright and somebody you’d probably find annoying if you knew him in real life, but his eclectic interests and the enthusiasm with which he tackles them does give him a lot more character than Casey.  The friendship between Casey and Buffalo Bill is also the only relationship in the story that feels even halfway real, because we see it develop rather than just being told about it.

Choosing two episodes with a character in common seems like a pretty good start – that was how Cosmic Princess did it, picking two that both featured Maya!  Like Cosmic Princess, Riding With Death also does some editing and ADR to help connect the halves, but in this case it is disastrous.  Take, for example, everybody’s favourite line – you’re as elusive as Robert Denby.  If they wanted to establish the existence of Denby in the half taken from Smithereens, they should have suggested that villain Dr. Hale was talking to him on the radio or something.  That would have implied that he was also behind Hale’s scheme, making him the overall big bad of the entire movie.  In fact, this seems to be what they’re trying to get across when they have Casey’s boss tell Denby he’s going to prison with Hale.  Throwing that 'elusive' line in the way they did is jarring and mostly just emphasizes that Denby has nothing to do with what we’ve seen so far.

Even worse is what they did with the fact that Agent Lawrence wasn’t in Buffalo Bill Rides Again. The obvious thing to do with that would have been to make an excuse for her absence.  Say she’s on vacation, on another case, on maternity leave… anything would do. Instead, the editors put in random scenes of her somehow watching what’s happening via surveillance footage at Intersect.  Why did they bother?  It only draws attention to her absence, which is the very thing they were trying to paint over!  I don’t think this could have been less competent if they’d tried.

One place where Riding with Death does manage to resemble Cosmic Princess is an unfortunate one – they have one cool idea and they don’t do anything with it.  Sam Casey has the ability to become invisible for fifteen minutes a day.  Maybe in some of the episodes that did not become part of Riding with Death, this was more useful, but in this movie he doesn’t do much with it that he couldn’t have done without it.  Any half-decent secret agent in a movie can take a couple of guys with handguns or sneak into a car unseen.  James Bond or Black Widow wouldn’t have broken a sweat. Hell, even Super Dragon could probably have pulled it off, but Sam Casey relies on his invisible wristwatch.

This is especially annoying when the opening credits claim that this story was inspired by H. G. Wells’ The Invisible Man.  That was a novel that explored the corrupting influence of power, and even the worst film adaptations of it generally try to do something with that theme.  Riding With Death never even touches it, or indeed any other theme besides a brush with the 70’s energy crisis.  Again, maybe other episodes did something with this, but in Riding With Death Sam Casey is never troubled by his ability to become invisible, never examines the implications of it, never feels any temptation to use it for personal gain. It’s a big part of what makes him so outstandingly dull.

The main impression I get from Riding With Death is just that nobody really put any effort into it.  The writers didn’t bother to come up with an interesting way to use their ‘invisible guy’ premise, and stuck to mindless, often action-less plots that end in something blowing up.  The actors didn’t bother trying to infuse their characters with any personality. The bad guys’ goals are never quite clear.  It’s all very lazy and dumb, but at least it makes for good MST3K.

[dailyonionsite-blog]

Concert Review: Foo Fighters - Live At Madison Square Garden

Ok, so I'm an 80’s metal guy, through and through. I grew up on bands like Iron Maiden, Metallica, Anthrax, Guns N Roses, Skid Row, Motley Crue, KISS, Stryper, Queensryche..I could go on and on, but you get the point. I became a full-fledged “metal head” around 1988, and never looked back, embracing the music, the look and the lifestyle at the ripe young age of 14. I was the guy in high school with long hair, ripped jeans and concert t-shirts, sporting a denim jacket with the band patch on the back and buttons on the front, and wearing skull and cross earrings. It was a look I wore with pride, and I was pretty much the last of my friends to cut their hair (my one buddy did it about 10 years ago, and it was literally just a pony tail with short hair all the way around, so I don't count that), and I didn’t do so until 1993, when I was 19, and I did so very begrudgingly. From pretty much the moment it first exploded on the scene with Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit", opening the floodgates, alternative rock and grunge were the enemy for me, as it killed all of the bands I listened to, and the music I loved. The bands that I had seen in concert filling 18,000 seat arenas and selling millions of albums in 1991, suddenly could barely fill 1,000 seat clubs by the fall of 1992, and as a loyal metal head, that made me angry, and I refused to embrace the music. In fact, it took a good 5 years before I finally started to appreciate and like alternative rock. Finally around 1997, I started to venture outside my comfort zone. And now years later, I like a variety of grunge and alternative bands. But for whatever reason, I never paid much attention to the Foo Fighters. That all changed in 2011 when I started listening to a local rock station on a regular basis, and pretty much heard them every day. They have since become one of my favorite bands, and a bucket list band for me to see live. I had 2 opportunities to see them on previous tours, and struck out both times. Well, the check mark finally went next to their name this past Monday, July 16th as I finally saw them at Madison Square Garden. One thing I was very curious about, was how the Foo's would open the show, as I have seen everything from Iron Maiden using video intros with Ed Force One, to the dramatic build ups that KISS would use when the house lights would drop, and you would hear a low humming bass before that familiar, gruff voice would scream, "YOU WANTED THE BEST? YOU GOT THE BEST!", and the band would hit the stage with a flurry of pyrotechnics and smoke bombs. There was none of that here. The house lights dropped and the 20,000 fans in the jam packed Garden barely had a chance to let that first roar out before the band came running on to the stage playing loud power cords on their instruments and drummer Taylor Hawkins banging away on his set. This lasted about 45 seconds before Dave Grohl let loose with a few of his trademark ear-piercing screams (RAAAAAHHHH!!!!"), before asking the crowd 3 times, "ARE YOU READY?!?!", and immediately ripping into the opening chords of, "All My Life". This set the pace for a high energy show filled with many of those same screams, that I honestly don't how he was still doing (with relative ease I might add) 2 and half hours later, plus singing great and running all over the stage like a maniac. The band went right into the "Learn To Fly", which by that point the scent of a certain herbal "element" had permeated the air, prompting Grohl to say into the microphone mid-song,"Ooh it smells good in here right now!" "Pretender" was next, which was extended into the first of many improvisational jams, and lots of audience participation, as Dave asked the crowd a few times, "Do you love Rock N Roll?" even doing a tribute to Chuck Berry's trademark duck-walk. Newer songs, "The Sky Is a Neighborhood", and "Rope" followed, along with a great drum solo by Taylor Hawkins which featured his drum kit rising into the air on hydraulic lifts (no doubt a tribute to one of the band's biggest influences, KISS). Another new song, "Sunday Rain" followed after that, and then Dave formally said hello to the sold out Garden crowd (with a couple of ear piercing screams to start), asking not only how many people had seen the Foo Fighters before, but how many had not. And I almost felt as if Dave was speaking directly to me when he said, "We're gonna show you why it was a good thing that you waited almost 23 f***ing years to see our band!”. What followed next was one of the highlights of the night, an epic performance of, "My Hero" which started off with Dave softly strumming the main riff on guitar and singing it slowly, before the full band kicked in, with breakdowns at various points to allow the crowd to sing acapella in unison, "Theeeere gooooes my hero". That lead into "One Of These Days" which was almost as epic, and slowed things down just a bit, but not much, as the chorus was still full bore, and heavy, but the beauty of the slow parts and the way he held the audience spellbound and in the palm of his hand must have moved Dave, because at one point during a stoppage in the song, he simply looked at the crowd and said to them, "I can't believe this is my f***ing job!" prompting both a roar and laughter.  At this point we were only a quarter of a way through the set, and this was already one of the best shows I had ever seen. After picking the pace back up with an old time Foo's classic, "Walk", the band loosened up a little (as if they weren't already) and had some fun with band intros, and a bluesy jam that included a bit from Queen's, "Another One Bites The Dust", and then segued into "La Dee Da" off the new album, and featuring guest saxophonist Dave Koz. At this point, Dave decided that the audience needed to be brought together with a song of "love and hope". That song humorously turned out to be Van Halen's, "Jump" sang to the melody of John Lennon's, "Imagine" with Hawkins joining in on backing vocals. This was another highlight of the night as the band really proved that beyond the loud guitars and thundering drums, they truly were just enjoying themselves up there. The band then ripped into a cover of the Ramones, "Blitzkrieg Bop" with guitarist, Pat Smear showing his former Nirvana roots and opening with a riff that had just a touch of "Breed" to it . The fun continued with Hawkins coming out from behind his kit to join Luke Spiller, lead vocalist of opening act, the Struts (who were really good in their own set, by the way) for a cover of Queen's, "Under Pressure". Dave Grohl took his old spot behind the drums for this song. That concluded the covers and goofing around (for the most part), as the latter part of the show picked back up the ferocious pace and kept it up for the rest of the night. The band started that pace with “Monkey Wrench”, and continued with new song, “Run” and then my second favorite song from the band, “Breakout”. This featured another extended jam by the band, and a particular concentration on Hawkins’ drumming, before breaking down into a quiet, eery strumming of the guitar, with the entire stage going dark, and a few cellphone flashlights coming out, prompting Dave to encourage everyone to, “be my light show”. The audience gladly complied making the pitch black Garden look like an old school metal show during a power ballad, before the band put the finishing touches on the song, ending with a fury and more trademark screams from Grohl. “Dirty Water” from the new album followed next, featuring Dave Grohl’s daughter, Violet and 3 other girls on backing vocals. And then came the moment that I had been waiting for all night, which was my favorite Foo Fighters song, “Best Of You” to close the first set. Not surprisingly, this was another highlight of the show as the band extended it out to almost 12 minutes, breaking it down 3 minutes in to just Dave’s light strumming, compelling the entire audience to spontaneously sing the trade mark “woohh ooh oh..woohh ooh oh..”part of the song as the band went into a melodic, jazz influenced jam. This continued for a few minutes until another breakdown that brought back the audience participation sing along. This was probably the most beautiful part of the night. So much so that at one point the band just stopped playing and let the crowd sing accapella, prompting Dave to say, “That’s some real s*** right there!”, and then after a minute or so, jokingly saying, “Can we finish the rest of the f***ing song??”, which they did, ending it with a fury, as the band left the stage to let anticipation build towards the final encore. As that anticipation built for a few minutes, Dave finally appeared on the big screen backstage to tease the crowd, holding up various finger combinations to ask how many songs they wanted to hear. The crowd booed at 1 and 2, cheered for 3, but thanks to previous set lists being online knew they were getting 4, despite Dave stubbornly insisting, “Alright ..3 more!” before jokingly relenting, “We’ll see what happens…let’s ease into this.”. The band then went old school with “Big Me” off the first album, which admittedly is probably my least favorite song from the band, but they did a good job with it, doing a slower version with mostly just guitar and minimal bass and drums. “Times Like These” picked the pace back up next, followed by “This Is A Call”, with Dave reminding everyone halfway through, "I said 3 songs, right?". With the crowd voicing their disapproval, he defiantly said, "F*** you, I said 3!", and then went right back into the song, before finishing it with some playful jamming with Pat Smear, showing the obvious chemistry between the 2 long time friends and former Nirvana bandmates. Dave then addressed the crowd one more time saying, "I said 3 songs..but I think I love you, so we might do one more!". And then after thanking the old school fans for sticking with them for 23 years, and the newer fans for coming out, and promising to come back to the Garden if they would, said, "This one's for you!", the band finished with the epic, "Everlong" which is probably the most popular of all Foo Fighter songs, and had the entire place on their feet singing it word for word. This was by far one of, if not, THE BEST concerts I have ever attended, and I have seen many great bands and artists over the years. From the fun, club atmosphere of Stryper, to the over the top, bombastic and make-up laden shows of KISS, to the various Eddie themed shows of the mighty Iron Maiden, to the thrashy assault of Metallica, to the theatrical performances of Queensryche, and the near album sounding perfection of the Eagles, the Foo Fighters got up on the stage of the fabled Madison Square Garden, with no pyro, no make-up, no theatrics…and levitating drum riser, and killer light show aside, no other real props, and quite simply kicked a** for 3 hours of fun, good old fashioned Rock-N-Roll. This was a throwback show for the ages, to a time when artists simply relied on their talent as musicians, and connected with the audience in a way very few bands can do these days. I highly recommend you catch this show if they are in your neighborhood anytime soon. You will NOT be disappointed. SETLIST: All My Life Learn to Fly The Pretender The Sky Is a Neighborhood Rope / Drum Solo Sunday Rain My Hero These Days Walk Lead Guitar solo Another One Bites the Dust La Dee Da Keyboard Solo Imagine / Jump Blitzkrieg Bop Under Pressure Monkey Wrench Run Breakout Dirty Water Best of You ENCORE: Big Me Times Like These This Is a Call Everlong https://youtu.be/X_0TnXUXSwM https://youtu.be/waawJNfS-Hs https://youtu.be/vvLkyYdZnqQ https://youtu.be/8F322atx46M https://youtu.be/XWxfSmwYiAs https://youtu.be/DWPViHyGdE4 Read the full article