Blue October Concert

My wife Kari and I went to see Blue October in concert at First Avenue on June 25th. It was the second time we have seen them together at that particular venue, which I like to think of as “The House that Prince built.”  Yes, I’m a geek…and a huge Prince fan. But I digress. Kari and I love Blue October’s music and we bought their new CD, called “Approaching Normal” the first day it came out back in March. We interrupted our family vacation in Florida to run to the record store and buy it. Priorities, you know! We listened to it in the truck the entire way home after listening to it repeatedly while still on vacation.  Loved it immediately.

Anyways, the show was fantastic, a little odd but great nonetheless. One “odd” thing about it was that the band played their entire album in order, song-by-song, to open the show before moving on to older material, including a couple of their hits (“Hate Me” and “Into the Ocean”) and some other “deep” tracks.  I’ve been to dozens and dozens of concerts over the years, but never have I seen a band play their entire new album from start to finish in that exact order to open a show. I don’t know if anyone else has ever seen or heard of this being done before, but it was a first for me. In some ways I liked it because it was different, but in other ways I didn’t because it seriously lacked any element of surprise and it was not very imaginative. Still, as I said, it was a really good show…probably one of the 10 best I have ever been to. Their best performance of the night came on one of their new songs called “Should be Loved.” They absolutely killed it live. It also happens to be my co-favorite song off their new album along with “Blue Skies.”

Another “odd” part of the night was that we found out prior to the show that Michael Jackson had died. It was weird, sad, and surreal. We couldn’t believe the news. At the Hard Rock Cafe across from First Avenue we were tipping back a few pre-concert libations watching MJ’s videos on DVD and toasting him. Then in walked a news crew from one of the local TV stations looking for “man-on-the-street” reaction to Michael Jackson’s death.  I was the first one they interviewed, but I cut the interview short in the middle of answering a question when we saw Blue October band members walk by outside the Hard Rock to the hotel next door.  I made a hasty exit to go out and shake the hand of lead singer Justin Furstenfeld. Kari and two of our friends made the cut for the news story that night. I did not.

It was unfortunate that Blue October didn’t play mine and Kari’s favorite song by them, “Calling You.” When we got married my wife walked down the aisle to an acoustic version of that song played by our friend, J.R. Anderson (he was with us at the show too). It was also the first song at our wedding reception dance and the song used for our wedding music video.  I had seen earlier set lists from their 2009 concert tour, none of which included the song, so I was not surprised when they did not play it.  Fortunately, we did get to see them do the song the last time we saw them at First Avenue, so it’s all good.

After this show we went out back by the tour bus to meet the band and snap a few photos.  Kari even put Justin, the lead singer, on the phone with my 15-year old step-daughter Kourtney (also a huge fan) to say hello. She was thrilled!

The best part of the encounter was that I had a chance to talk to Justin for a few minutes and tell him about how we included “Calling You” in our wedding. He remembered me from the pre-show handshake and came over to talk after all the groupies (ok, other groupies) were done taking pictures and getting autographs. Nice guy! It was a rare opportunity to tell an artist what their work means to you, and he seemed genuinely moved by our story. He even asked that we send him a copy of our wedding video.  We’ll have to get on that one of these days.

By the way, no, he is not flipping the bird in that photo of us. It’s a peace sign.

All in all it was a very, very memorable night…one I won’t soon forget.