Foo Fighters - Spaceland (2.08.2011)

After two shows in four days, I never dreamed that would become three shows in five days! The day started with more twitter action:
-"that was fun, thanks roxy. hmm what should we do tonite..."

I had heard speculation as far as the remaining venues. Much speculation included the Echoplex, Viper Room, Spaceland, or even the Roxy again. While I was at work some friends were texting me as locations were discussed. I checked Twitter and someone had driven by and seen the crew unloading gear. Since I had gone to work early, I was able to cut out early. Capacity at Spaceland is 300 (a drastically smaller venue) and I knew it would be even more competitive to get in for a show here! I was shocked to be the first person in line. Little did I know we were about to be tricked. The band/crew was frustrated that word had spread like wildfire about the previous day's show and they wanted to put some fun back into it which I was all for. The first two shows were so secretive I felt bad that the third one had been ruined. Plus a bit of a scavenger hunt would kill time rather than standing in a line!  I was told that the show would be there, but you had to go somewhere else within a five-mile radius to buy the wristbands.  Several other Foo friends showed up around the same time so we decided to hang together and take one car. We started brainstorming where they would hand out wristbands. We thought independent record stores made the most sense. Then we received a clue via Twitter:

We all busted out our various smartphones to search pizza places in Silverlake. Although I've hung out in this area a fair amount, there are a vast variety of places to get food in L.A.! One person said that there was a pizza place named Two Boots attached to the Echoplex (a venue close by owned by the same person as Spaceland). We went inside, but the employees were clueless. We found Garage Pizza which we thought made perfect sense (the new album was recorded in Dave's garage). The guy working seemed high and was rather elusive (although very nice). He seemed slightly suspicious so we thought we might have found the right place. To kill time, we decided to grab a slice and he put on the Foo Pandora station (how nice of him!) If nothing else, we were all having fun on a random adventure. From a friend of a friend, we heard there was a growing line outside the Echoplex. We hopped in (already about 100 back) when we were led into the venue, down the stairs and out back, to the white limo and wristbands! About that time several pictures of space came through via Twitter. I found this to be indicative of Spaceland as the venue, but Dave recorded a message saying the show was at Echoplex. Everyone was super confused now!  Once we received our wristbands, we had our "Psych!" moment:

We went back over to Spaceland and had dinner at a Thai place next to the venue. No one was supposed to line up before 7:30, but since people always hover nervously we wanted to be close in case they allowed a formal line to form. To kill more time we walked down to Lamill Coffee and I had quite possibly the best mocha of my life. It was rich and velvety. (Granted their drinks are rather pricey, but you get extremely good quality. A nice splurge once in a while!) We ran into the Foo guitarist, Chris, there and made some small talk.  Since it was a rather small venue I hung about halfway back on the side. Scream opened up yet again. Celebrities included the band No Doubt, Gavin Rossdale, Darryl Hannah, and McLovin (from Superbad). I almost walked right into Nick Oliveri, ex-guitarist for Queens of the Stone Age. It was a nice change to not be worried about being up front. It was a small enough venue (very tiny!) that you could go get some water, go to the bathroom, and come back, and have no problem getting back wherever you wanted to. It was also by far the hottest/sweatiest show I've probably ever been to. By the end of the evening, everyone was absolutely drenched (and it was rather smelly! Yuck!) There was a bit of a pit that formed in the center....so you could mosh/crowdsurf if you wanted to, but those that didn't weren't affected which was nice.  They cut several songs from the set (one's that would strain Dave's voice)  Something special about this show was that Foo played their first L.A. show ever at Spaceland (on the club's opening night) and this was the last night Spaceland was open (before switching names and management). They've really come full circle!  Afterwards I said goodbye to my crew friends and left. I was absolutely exhausted and ready to swandive into bed! I've loved all the shows for different reasons (and feel very lucky to have gotten to see them all), but this was one of my favorites since it was the smallest / most intimate. (and I've never been able to get out of the crowd to go get water in between songs) It's small enough that there isn't even a backstage area -- before/after the set the bands just hang out in the bar!