sometime last week, baby kitty asked whether i'd like to go see Berlin on their upcoming stop in (of all places) dayton, ohio. i said sure, and got the tickets on monday.

after leaving work early, i picked her up, and we headed to dayton. we were running a bit behind (the website said show at 6pm), but there were two openers, and we were hungry. the solution was a quick dinner at Friendly's.

[ah, shit -- time to karaoke. i got distracted by watching the donnie darko director's cut with commentary. i'll finish later, and put up a couple pics.]

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ok i'm back. a few days later, but i'm back. :)

Where was I? oh yes, Berlin.

After Friedly's (where i did NOT have a reese's sundae), we went over to the Dublin Pub. it was odd -- the show was in an outdoor tent, which was conected to the actual building. we went into the building first, as our tickets were on will call. no problems there, luckily; i'm always leery of will call tickets, but it was fine this time around.

we had missed the first opening band, who was apparently a traditional Celtic band. ugh. it was the day before st. patrick's day, though, and we were at an irish pub, so i supose it was to be expected. the second openers were cinci locals Shesus. i hadnt heard them before, which was odd, since they play in cinci all the fucking time. but yeah. they were ok, not really my style, though. very similar to Wire and Elastica, especially in the basslines. the crowd for the most part seemed somewhat unimpressed, with a few exceptions up near the stage. i think folks were there for Berlin and no one else.

after a while, they finished, and we waited what seemed like forever, although it was still fairly early in the evening. eventually some radio dork came up and did the stupid intro and the band tok the stage, initially withouth terri. the band was all young -- late 20s-ish, i'd say -- and all had spiky, LA-stlye haircuts, black with colors (purple/blue/red, i think) on the tips. they played some instrumental stuff for a few moments, then terri nunn came out.


first thought: wow, she still looks great! and as soon as she started singing, it was apparent that she still sounded great, too.

they of course played most of the well-known songs: "no more words" came early in the set, while "the metro" came a bit later. they ended up playing most of the first record, in fact.

the band was good, and the sound was as well. they played at times with a backing track, which had sequenced synth parts (especially the moroder-style fast parts)., but it didn't come off as lame, as bands sometimes can who play along with pre-recorded stuff.

a great moment for me was when terri announced that they were going to play a cover. at first, it sounded like duran duran's "rio", but as soon as the vocals started i realized that it was "big time", one of my favorite Peter Gabriel songs. awesome. it was at this point that was sure i hadn't wasted the $25 ticket price.

eventually, of course, it came time for them to play "take my breath away". as an intro, terri brought up a piece of paper with a seal (the gold foil kind, not the animal) on it. she said that the mayor of dayton had sent her this certificate of recognition for berlin's award winning song "take my breath away", which (i'm paraphrasing here) "would always remind listeners of military flight."

ugh.

i looked at baby kitty, and she was looking at me with the same disgusted look on her face that i was sure i had on mine.

it was time to go.

as we left, we heard the song's synth bassline fading behind us. too bad she had to sour things by reading the stupid letter she'd gotten.

the only song i hadn't heard that i'd wanted to hear was "sex (i'm a)", which i'm sure they saved for the end of the set, or even for an encore. it was no problem, though, as i'd definitely gotten my money's worth.

we drove home, and i called gabe, who'd said he was going to come over and watch the third season of oz with me. he said he was playing video games over at our friend steve's, and he'd come over in a couple minutes. a half hour went by, and i called to check on him. "sorry man. let me beat this level." i was tired, but i'd been looking forward to oz, so i said ok. forty-five minutes after that, still no gabe. it was now nearly 1am, and i was far too tired to watch anything. i called gabe to let him know this, but before i could tell him that, he told me he'd changed his mind and wasnt coming over after all.

grr. that's an hour and a half that i could have been sleeping. oh well. naturally, i crashed after that.

here are some more pics from the show: