"Try to see it once my way..."

Jesse and I went to Cincinnati this weekend to see one of my favorite bands of all time, Bush perform at Riverbend, which I guess they call the PNC Pavilion now. It was a long 4 days at work last week so I was excited to get off on Friday to go up early. We left around 10:30 and headed got into downtown Cincinnati around lunchtime for some food truck action at Cafe de Wheels. It was a gorgeous day so after walking around a little and doing a little people watching we sat at the outside bar at Mynt Martini and had a drink to waste time before we could check in at the hotel.  Don't be surprised by the sh*tty music on their site - it's exactly what you would expect when you arrive but the bartender was nice and it wasn't crowded so we were able to enjoy fountain square without all the hustle and bustle.

 Jesse wanted to visit Hofbrauhaus over in Newport so we headed back over the river into Kentucky.  We couldn't decide on anything to eat so we only ordered drinks but after this we weren't really hungry anyway.

We finished our beer and checked in at the hotel to get ready for the show.  When we arrived Filter was just finishing their set.  I wanted to see Filter but not more than I didn't want to hear Chevelle so I wasn't too disappointed that we missed them.  Richard Patrick, Filter's lead singer promptly came out and did a signing followed by current bassist Phil Buckman and then much to my surprise Kill Hannah's guitar player Jonny Radtke shows up.  A quick Google search informed me that he's playing guitar for Filter for the tour.  Pretty cool.

Our seats were much closer than I had anticipated.  I could actually see the bands faces without the aid of the jumbo-tron which is more than I can say for our painfully high seats for the Katy Perry show a couple of weeks ago.  Bush was awesome.  As good as when I saw them many moons ago when I was but a babe of 15.  Gavin is of course older but noticeably more muscular and not just in a fan girl kind of way. Jesse even said, "Sh*t. Gavin got big.".  The drummer Robin, the only other original member participating in the tour was unfortunately shadowed by bad lighting and smoke machines and I literally did not see him once throughout the entire show.  They played most of the old favorites and singles with a great cover of the Beatles "Come Together" thrown in and a few songs off their new album, Sea of Memories.  I read once in an article in RockSound or something that though people may talk bad about Bush or have called them 'Nirvana Wannabes' that Gavin Rossdale was a "proper f*cking rockstar" and you know what, they were right.  He works a crowd, has an enormous amount of charisma and his voice and guitar playing are both excellent live.  As many of you know, either by knowing me personally or through Shame-free that I am and always have been a huge Bush fan so of course my opinion is a little skewed.  However, by the end even Jesse was sold on it and he was NOT very excited about going and admitted that he was surprised by how good it was and that he would go again.  Now that's saying something, especially coming from someone that loves Elvis Costello. I not hatin' on Elvis, but it ain't Bush, you know? Not my video below, but here is 'Little Things' from the show Friday. It feels like 1995 all over again and I like it. ;)