Finishing up my long string of concerts for the year, I hit up the Weezer show in Long Beach last night. The full card consisted of Weezer, Tenacious D and Jimmy Eat World, performing in reverse order.

The evening didn’t start off particularly well, as the first thing I saw on getting to the Long Beach Arena was a line consisting of oh… 10,000 people or so. Since the lower floor of the arena was completely general admission, they decided to make everyone wait in line before they let people into the arena. It all went fairly smoothly, but I started to see how all those concert disasters where people get trampled happened in the first place. Luckily the crowd was a bunch of perky underage emo girlies that were nice enough not to push.

My second “I Hate The Long Beach Arena” moment came when I sat in my seat and realized the view from my seat was blocked by a lighting platform that jut out right next to me. As a result, I was pinned in this little cubbyhole of a seat and could only see the stage if I stood up or took this weird spread leg position where I put half of my ass on the platform. So for most of the show I looked like Fonzie, propositioning the back half of the arena. Ayyyyyy.

Jimmy Eat World (or JEW, as they like to be called) put up a pretty standard opening set. It was all pretty good poppy punk, with a few standout songs like Bleed American. There was a solid following there, including one girl behind me that was apparently the biggest Jimmy Eat World fan EVER, or something. She screamed and screamed until her lungs (and my ears) burned. These are the Joys of Youth.

After a 15-20 minute break, the lights dimmed again for Tenacious D. Now, if you’ve heard or seen Tenacious D before, you know pretty much all you need to know. At its core, The D is still a comedy act, so the songs are mostly jokes you can only hear a few times. Luckily, I hadn’t listened to any in a few months, so the performance was hilarious. Jack Black oozes so much dirty charisma that it’s hard not to crack a smile every once and again.

“I see a lot of 13 year olds in the audience tonight. Apparently you couldn’t get into Harry Potter and came to the see the D!” — Jack Black

Well… technically they couldn’t get into Potter and came to see Weezer, but the point still stands. By the time Weezer hit the stage, the crowd was getting antsy (and I was starting to lose circulation in my toes due to being in my “power position” the entire time). But Weezer Cures All.

Featuring quite a bit of completely new material and a good spread of the old, Weezer ran through a fun set that kept me on my feet the entire time. I’d never seen Weezer live, and I was surprised at how tight the band was. After years of playing live, Weezer is an absolute machine with a propulsive rhythm section and a monstrous guitar sound. They even have the rock star moves going a little. My personal highlights were… um, pretty much everything. Some of the older stuff definitely took me back, especially “In the Garage” and “Say it Ain’t So.” The hits like “Buddy Holly” and “Hash Pipe” were probably the biggest numbers for the crowd.

While the performance was top notch, I think the whole concert was more of a testament to Rivers Cuomo’s precise songwriting talent. He’s as good as anybody at aping the soaring Brian Wilson melody during a chorus and dropping that over some of the hookiest punk chords today. It’s a wonderous combination, forcing you to sing along and bounce at the same time.

Long Live Weezer.

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Happy Thanksgiving. I spent the day bumming around with friends, living halfway between consciousness and tryptophan delirium. Isn’t that the way it should be? Goofy photos here. Not really worth looking at, but hell, I took the pictures.

I do like this sunset though, don’t you?

Belated commentary on the latest zeitgeist monstrosity, Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone, coming right up. I haven’t read any of the books, so I went in cold to the film. I caught the premiere in Westwood, so it was fairly freak-laden, with bunches of folks in cloaks and house gear and an occasional one with a staff or a broom. It was definitely an event, and you anticipation from the audience was tangible. As for the film, I dug it. It’s not the greatest thing ever, but I could definitely see why people were going ga-ga over it, especially young kids.

As a film, the narrative jumps around quite a bit, and it feels like Chris Columbus tried to stay a little bit too faithful to the book. If anyone would have been daring enough give something that didn’t follow the book so literally, they might have been onto something really good. Of course, the chances of them screwing that up would have been fairly high too. These are the risks of adaptation. Potter takes the safe route and delivers something that feels a bit too much like the Cliff’s Notes version of the book.

That said, the makers of the film did an amazing job creating Potter’s world of magicians and monsters. By the time Harry gets to Hogwart’s, everything feels fully realized and cut of whole cloth. There are many times where you could see the audience was as wide-eyed as Harry himself, and that’s about as big a compliment I can pay.

I’m not fully on the Potter bandwagon, but it has my support. Unlike your average kids phenomenon, Potter gets kids to read and use their imagination, to be better thinkers and believers. I think that’s something I can get behind. My understanding is that the books get significantly better, and my hope is that the following movies get better too. I’d like a little more for the adults in the audience. Once the film franchise gets that done, I’ll go buy my Gryffindor polo like everyone else.

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Wheeee. My three day weekend is finally at a close. Friday started off promisingly enough, with a screening of the new Mamet heist movie … uh… Heist. It’s a fairly typical Mamet movie, filled with labyrinthine plots and catchy rat-a-tat dialogue. There’s a point where the movie becomes so pretzel-like in its plot twists that it becomes a bit predictable. It’s still a breath of fresh air for me, what with its characters and plots and what not. We’re talking a huge change of pace from The One and Thirteen Ghosts, let me tell you.

Next up was The Man Who Wasn’t There, the new flick by the Coen Brothers. The new movie is a black and white noir, shaped after something like Double Indemnity. The adultery, the blackmail… all that good stuff. It’s not a straight noir though, by any means. It’s got that quirky black humor that is now commonplace for the Coens, and it’s structured a bit more like a character study, centered around a quietly brilliant performance by Billy Bob Thornton. It’s the best I’ve seen Thornton since Sling Blade, easily. Roger Deakins’ cinematography is beyond brilliant in this too. Go see this.

Capping it off tonight was a visit to the Staples Center, where I caught U2 for the second time this year. Pretty much everything I said about the first time still stands. No Doubt opened with a bouncy fun 45 minute set that really kicked the show off right. I’m not a huge No Doubt fan, but their boundless energy make them really watchable. Gwen Stefani’s belly dancer moves don’t hurt either.

This show was quite a bit tighter than the first show I saw few months ago, with a songlist that did a good job keeping the momentum up. It was a bit 9/11/01 heavy, but I expect it from Bono. Between Bono wiping his tears with the American flag and the scrolling names of the WTC victims during the encore of “One,” with a performance of “New York” and Bono revealing a star spangled banner sewn into the lining of his jacket, Bono has pretty much taken it upon himself to heal the american psyche through song. His heart’s in the right place so I’m not going to knock him for being cheezy at this point. It’s Bono. You get what you pay for.

So you ask, “What exactly did you pay for, Han?” New Years Day, Out of Control (!!!), Sunday Bloody Sunday during one stretch, and the main set closing with Streets With No Name, Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For and Pride (in the Name of Love). While U2 is still putting out capable stuff, nothing really captures the classic power of the old like that and I’m just glad they’re still able to throw down those old songs with the same conviction of ten years ago.

The other thing that will always stick out is the now semi-frequent act of pulling out someone of the audience to play People Get Ready. It’s an easy song to play, and generally if you have a sign saying you can play that song while you’re sitting close to the stage, you have a good shot of getting onstage with U2. Tonight’s lucky guest was Courtney, a young blonde girl with short cropped hair that they pulled from the point of the stage. They strapped the acoustic on her and next thing you know, she was strumming along with the Edge, prowling the stage trading banter with Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen. I mean… how cool is that?

Go Courtney.

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You know you’re up late when the only person available on your IM lists is SmarterChild.

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Man… it’s a terrible week to be Asian this week:

1) Bob Brenly hangs Byung-Hyun Kim out to dry in the World Series, letting him blow two saves in two straight games.

2) Jet Li’s new movie The One opens. It is not a very good film.

3) My rent was raised this week.

4) I had to sit through The One.

Why must my people (especially me) suffer like this?

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