More X Photos!

I've finally had some time to edit the rest of my X photos. I'm pretty happy with how they turned out, hopefully you'll dig 'em:

Billy Zoom's pick

Who signs their guitar picks before they play a show? Billy Zoom does! Which to me is all part of his cheesiness shtick that includes smiling the entire show and winking at girls in the audience constantly. At the end of X's set Friday I caught Billy Zoom's guitar pick, which is awesome. But I do have to wonder how many he throws out if he's signing them in advance on the back.

Last night Seatte was rocked by both X and The Freeze

Two great bills, the same night, luckily both downtown. I was on the fence about seeing X originally. But for 24 hours the Showbox offered half price tickets that made them cost about what the originals would have with all the unnecessary fees Ticketmaster adds in, so I jumped and bought a pair. Glad I did! It was a fun show. Locals The Heels rocked it, photos of their performance will follow. I was a huge Adolescents fan, so I was intrigued to hear Steve Soto and the Twisted Hearts. Ouch, they were like Los Lobos crossed with a more mellow bluesy bar band. But hey, I ran into lots of friends, so it was time to talk and catch up with friends, rather than suffer through a second rate bar band that seemed out of place on the bill. X were awesome. There were times where I couldn't quite hear Exene loud enough, but over all they played great, were all laughing and smiling on stage, and put on a great performance. And since the set was all requested by fans, it wasn't exactly as you might expect, they did some of my favorite slower songs that they might not normally do live. It's funny, the last time I saw X it was also the original line-up, and it was *gulp*... 24 years ago. 1985, I was in highschool, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers opened up for them at The Moore. That show was packed. This time around they played a smaller venue, the club was maybe 2/3rds full, and it was a lot more intimate. You could get within about 10-15 feet of the band. Totally great, everyone around me had big smiles on their faces the whole show:




X ended before midnight and I knew I had time to cruise over to Funhouse to see The Freeze. The Freeze were mostly off my radar growing up, but I picked up their best of CD that came out a few years ago. They began in Cape Cod, MA in 1978 playing snotty punk and later were adopted by the Boston hardcore scene that grew in the '80s. They are pretty damn fun, and surprisingly this was the first time they've made it to Seattle in their 31 years. Funhouse was packed for the event and the crowd went apeshit. It was awesome. Here are a few pix:




It was pretty cool two 30 year old punk bands the same night, one that got huge and now plays pretty mellow shows for people mostly in their 30s and 40s and then to go to see another one that never got big, but puts on a way more energetic show in a small, packed dive bar to a younger and more energetic crowd. Loved both, it was a fantastic night!