Oh grandpa!

Last night I went and saw Ben Weasel preform at Reggie's. Just a few months ago if I would have told you that it would have been with a huge smile on my face. This time around I say that with bitterness and disappointment. Oh where to start?

Well for so long I have put aside the fact Ben Weasel has probably one of the worst personalities in punk rock due to the fact that the man has wrote and sung some of my all time favorite punk rock songs/albums to this day. What can I say, the man has a knack for making just about every band member he's ever performed with hate his guts. Not only that but as his previous writings, blogs, and radio shows have proven, he also has a talent for having some very wrong opinions. Sure sometimes he can be right but most times I'm just left left thinking " woah wait, you can't be serious?" But hey, despite all of that I just kept telling myself "well at least he writes and sings some damn good songs."

Now before the show last night I've seen Ben Weasel preform three previous times at Reggie's. I never had the chance to see Screeching Weasel live in the past as I was too young and naive at that point. So of course I was incredibly excited to finally see Ben play live at Reggie's back in May and I'd have to say that was one amazing show. I finally got to hear a ton of my favorite Screeching Weasel songs played live for the first time. Plus people from all parts of the world flew in to Chicago to see that show, making for one ecstatic crowd. The two Ben Weasel "My Brain Hurts" shows in August were still a blast due to the fact that I got to hear one of my favorite albums played live from start to finish. Plus I can't forget the fact that one of my punk rock heroes, Dan Schafer, actually made amends with Ben and joined him on stage playing My Brain Hurts. Face it, you can't have a "My Brain Hurts" show without Dan, his thumbprints are all over that album.

So enough back story, onto what went wrong with the show last night. Well first off Ben has had these Reggie's shows booked within 3 months of each other. DON'T DO THAT! Everyone that wanted to fly into Chicago to see Ben Weasel already did so for the first three shows. People just can't afford the plane tickets, hotel rooms, and time off to fly into Chicago every 3 months. So this time around the show did not sell out, there were still plenty of tickets available at the door. I went to the restroom once during the Weasel set and while the place was wasn't empty by any means, it was definitely not at sold out capacity and there was no struggle for me to get through a sea of people just to use the restroom.

As for Ben and the bands performance itself, it fell flat on its face. Spare for the one guitarist from the Jetty Boys who looked a little tired but was working his hardest to try and get into it, the rest of the band just looked completely tired and worn out. What made matters worse was that Ben looked like he wasn't into it at all this time around. I really got the feeling that Ben was phoning this one in since the show didn't sell out. The crowd wasn't as easily impressed or motivated either due to the fact that it consisted mostly of locals who have probably seen Ben play live at least one time before yesterdays show.

I had the feeling from the start that the show was in trouble since the usual set closer Cool Kids was one of the first songs played. The set consisted mostly of songs that were played from the past three Reggie's shows; the only new songs added to the set-list this time around were Static, Every Night, You Are My Sunshine, and the new song Countdown from the Riverdales "Phase Three" re-issue. Every Night is a great song and Static is one of the two great songs from Emo but the cover of You Are My Sunshine should have easily been skipped for any better Screeching Weasel song that they haven't played live yet. This was also the shortest set out of all the previous shows; with the set-list that we got it felt like a jip compared to the last three shows. But the banter was what made matters the worst. Here was more witty banter from Ben about how we should all checkout the merch table and buy some $15 shirts because "the show is the bread and the merch is the meat in the money sandwich." I guess the best stinger was when people were filing out and Ben gets on the mic and says something along the lines of "look at all those people walking out without even looking at the merch table." I can only assume no one gave Ben a memo telling him that banter wasn't funny at the last two/three shows. I couldn't begin to start on how many people were shouting "shut up and play" among other things every time Ben took a minute on reflect on merchandise.

Overall it was a massively disappointing experience and I wish that my time and money could have been used elsewhere that night. I'll end my rantings on this fact; for the first time ever Reggie's had to pour all beer being sold from cans into plastic cups for the Ben Weasel show, which I can only guess is due to the fact that Ben didn't want people chucking cans of beer at him.