Rock On

Today's weather was disappointing. It was supposed to be the warmest day in the extended forecast, hitting perhaps 71, albeit with clouds and a chance of showers. Instead, it was in the 50s all day, as well as being cloudy and wet. Color me unimpressed. Let us talk of something else.

If you're on Facebook, you've probably seen the thing recently where people are listing ten band names, nine of which they have seen in person, and inviting friends to guess which one is the ringer. I didn't do it at first, because I could only name three bands off the top of my head that I've seen live (each multiple times), and though I knew I had seen more, I was coming up way short of ten. However, I remembered that I had once made a list of concerts I'd been to, and when I dug that out, well, look here!

1. Big Audio Dynamite
2. Bruce Springsteen
3. Counting Crows
4. Depeche Mode
5. Live
6. Mike & the Mechanics
7. REM
8. Spin Doctors
9. Sting
10. Wallflowers

What do you think?

To be honest, two of them were in a show together that I might not have gone to without a group of friends who wanted to see them, and one of the others actually opened for another one (but I was sincerely excited to see them, so I decided it counts).

The only question I am left with, since Googling has failed me, is who on earth did I see the Sugarcubes* open for? I'm really sure I didn't go to see them on their own, I can't even name one of their songs, but Google only tells me that they opened for U2, who I have not seen. Yet I have a clear memory of them coming out, and being basically ignored by the crowd, as opening acts so often are, and the lead singer (oh, that was Bjork?) introducing the band by saying, "Hi, we're the Ice Cubes from Sugarland."
*Remember them? From Iceland?

It's so frustrating when Google doesn't give me the answer, sending me back to the pre-Internet days when you just had to try to remember things like that. I once spent weeks, after seeing Mel Gibson's Ransom, trying to figure out where I knew an actress from, the bad guy's girlfriend, what else I had seen her in, before finally piecing together that she was in Say Anything with John Cusack. All I knew was that her voice sounded familiar, and I was picturing her in a room with guitars.

How did we live without it? Yet what can we do when it fails?