7-8 October 2021 Summer of Seether Sacramento Day 4 The Ace of Spades, part 2: The Concert at Ace of Spades

 

Now here's the real thing. 

Did I ever tell you I'm known in my family for not being able to find my way out of a paper bag.  Now here's a great example.  We are driving down the freeway with the bossy Google Maps lady telling me (and showing me) where to go.  I got my husband helping the Google Lady tell me where to go.  I'm supposed to get off on the exit for Q street.  And I miss it.  Now, remember, I did a practice drive just yesterday.  Shit!  I missed the exit.  Google Maps Lady recalculates and tries to get me back to where I need to be.  Well, I should have made my destination the parking garage because she got me on R street, but it's one way and I can't turn that way.

Shut up Google Maps Lady!  Now I got my husband.  "Where are you going?!"  "Don't go that way, it's one way the other way."  "Go!  You are holding up traffic."  "There's no one behind me!"  "There is now." Flipping him off did not help, but I did get a laugh.  We finally got headed down 15th street.  He says, "Well that guy looks familiar."  Standing on the corner in front of a rather familiar tour bus is Mr. Lowery.  Yup, he looks just like him.   "Turn here."  This is my husband, not Mr. Lowery.  "Can I turn here? Is it one way?" "Yes, turn here, here!"

The parking garage in a Ford 150 is a little tight and my husband is freaking out because I'm not use to such a wide turning radius and the potential to scrape the front end or the back end is high.  We finally make it to level 2 and I park.  "Well, you could have had more room if you parked in a space without the pillar."  So I pulled back out, got out of the truck and said, "You park the fuckin' thing."  The guys standing around their truck were laughing so I smiled and waved my facemask at them.  I'm sure they were laughing with me.  I'm sticking to that.

Ace of Spades.  We asked where to go at the first table.  Very nice people, but it's the Covid test table.  There are actually four lines.  General Admission.  Very long.  Fast pass, shorter.  We spend some time in that line talking to the women behind us who were from a little town around Stockton and the fellow ahead of us who was from Sonora.  He talked about the set tonight being the Vicennial, showed my husband the picture.  "Twenty years, they are playing hits that are going to be on the album."  "I'm getting the purple ones." I piped up.  "Vinyl?" "Yep."   Vinyl is the new compact disc.  Does that make CD's the equivalent of 8-tracks?  If you don't know what an 8-track is, look it up.  

An A of S employee went down the line checking ID's and Vaccination cards and stamping us.  Ours were blurry but it turned out to be, "I solemnly swear I am up to no good." The Sonora fellow showed us his and said it was from Harry Potter.  Another twenty-something who is kind, but think we gray hairs have been living under a rock.  "Yeah, we've heard of Harry Potter."  So about that time I remember that we are probably supposed to be in another line.  Remember that nice Ace of Spades man, Michael, that set me up with premium seating?  He sent an email, which in the excitement I forgot about, that said I was suppose to go up to the podium by the door.  Oh, yea-a-a-h.  I remember now.  So I ask another A of S person and he directs me up to the man at the podium.  The podium guy has a list and I'm on it.  "Are you Michael?" I asked "No, I'm way below his pay grade." Not-Michael podium man directed us over to a third line, even shorter.  So what's the 4th line?  Right by the door, VIP section.  

VIP goes first, we go second and I think Ace of Spades is channeling the airport.  We empty our pockets into plastic dishes and raise our arms and they body scan us for weapons, front and back.  Next checkpoint, ID and ticket scan.  We make it in and ask another very nice employee to tell us where to go.  We go upstairs and that's not right.  A more experienced repeat customer directs us downstairs and over to the "away from the GA side section stool seating area."  I was going to show you a map, but it looks like this:

Not exactly helpful.  But accurate, to an extent.  Below is a view from the stage.  There is a VIP balcony that is up the stairs and running above that back wall to the left.  We were sitting on the second row in the seats to the right, in the back corner closest to the door.  

This is what it looked like to us, but they've got two rows now, one behind this one you see above.  It's raised  so you can see above the heads of those in front of you.  Unless you are the more diminutive lady from Colorado sitting next to me and behind a taller young man.  I'm 5'9" so many ladies are more diminutive than I am.  [Which is why I feel rather clunky and a bit protective of them when I'm around them].  She was so excited to see Seether, she'd seen them last in 2012 and never in a small venue like this.  She managed, though, by sitting on her legs on the stool.  A well kept, and flexible early 60's, she looked hardly 50.  She'd stopped getting the General Admission tickets when she felt it was no longer safe for her to mosh.   I only regret not being standing out the front when the guys start tossing picks and drumsticks and handing out setlists with the duct tape still attached.  I suppose I could order some from Etsy (picks), but they wouldn't have sweaty Seether fingerprints on them.  Oh, don't "ew" me, you'd take one in a shot.  O.k., down the garden path on the Internet with this, why is Shaun's nickname (at least in 2015) Mr. Feecie and you can purchase a pink guitar pick with a penis on the front with enough long pubic hair that it looks like an uncircumsized My Little Pony?  Is this real, or are they just jerking my... (Little Uncircumsized Pony.) 

We found our seats and I made a trip to the restroom, having learned my lesson at USANA that you go before the concert starts so you can concentrate on the music.  Well, I did do this at USANA, but should have made a second trip.  I know, TMI.  Ace's ladies room has a sign, "Only one person in a stall at a time."  I wonder if the men's has the sign too?  Probably.  A woman saw me staring at the sign and thinking about why they would need to post this [Warning: contents may be hot] and made what should have been a funny comment.  I couldn't hear her and she wouldn't repeat it.  I really wanted to hear it.  Just cause I look like someone's grandma, doesn't mean I don't have a sense of humor.  What is with these young people today?  They think their parents don't know what sex is, I guess they were all born through immaculate conception, and that they invented the word fuck.  I happen to know, cause I looked it up, that the etymology of the word fuck dates from the 16th century.  Really, she was very nice and perhaps just chickened out.

Next to our seats was a big honking camera,  they were filming the concert, an historic moment of the band's Vicennial.  Twenty years of Seether music.  Cool!  Tell me there may be a DVD in the offing? Please, please, please.  With special features?  The drinks lady came by and come to find out they were not serving food.  And after I convinced my husband, from looking at the Ace website, that we didn't need to get dinner beforehand, we could eat at the venue. Maybe between the number of people, Sacramento Covid protocols and not wanting the audience on film to look like cows chewing their cuds, they decided not to.  Didn't really matter.  We got a bag of chips and some M&Ms and once the music started I forgot to eat them anyway.  First time I haven't finished a bag of M&Ms, I can tell you.  My dedication to Seether knows no bounds.  

A of S kept checking people in and they were still coming in the doors halfway through the set.  I don't think all the GA ticketed people even got in.  The setlist has been floating around for weeks, since it's the twenty year selection for the album.  The guys seemed a little more nervous that usual, maybe because of the recording going on?  Not like they are not on camera at every concert, either on the huge LED screens or on the hundreds of cell phones.  The longer set?  The more prescribed occasion?  They were just as terrific as the other times I've seen them, just didn't seem as relaxed to begin with.  Shaun did mention they really couldn't see anything because of the lights for the cameras.  

I do love watching them perform.  John always looks intent and very serious about what he's doing.  Dale sort of falls into the music and lives there very happily.  Corey, enthusiastic, energetic and connecting with the audience.  And Shaun nervous, worried about doing his best, worrying about screwing up.  Please, guys, we don't hear most of them and if we catch mistakes, it just makes us feel better.  Have you heard me attempt to play Gasoline?  No?  You are very lucky.  Gasoline is not meant to be in 4/4 Dirge time.

1. Fake It

2. Remedy

3. Fine Again

4. Broken

5. Words as Weapons

6. Country Song

7. Let You Down

8. Rise Above This

9. Weak

10. Tonight

11. Nobody Praying for Me

12. Careless Whisper

13. Truth

14. Gasoline

15. Betray and Degrade

16. Breakdown

17. Same Damn Life

18. The Gift

19. Driven Under

20. Dangerous

Here's the set list, but not in the order played.  Gasoline first and Remedy last with the others in between.  They didn't do Broken, though.  The only time I've seen the band do Driven Under was from the music video from the early 2000's.  And that was pre-John Humphrey.  Shaun and Dale in their early 20's.  Little did you guys know.  If you could go back and tell your younger selves what it was going to be like, would you have listened?  

The audience was really into it.  I know the Colorado lady and I sure were.  Loved every song, except, of course, Careless Whisper which I hate.  Seether makes it tolerable. Barely.  I whispered in my husband's ear, "I hate this song."  He, of course, proceeds to sing the whole thing.  Just the kind of asshole move I married him for.  It's the one song Seether does that he knows all the words.  Got a little overwhelmed about 3/4 of the way through, with the crowd, but my "emotional support" husband was there to hold on to and hide behind.  He's a smart ass, but he's also "that guy".  God knows, he's gone to three Seether concerts with me in the past two months without really caring about hearing them himself one way or the other.  A Seether-enabler.  That's what he is.  No, really, I think he's my biggest fan.

Those dang surveys, "which Seether song do you like the least" keep forcing me to choose between them.  If I was going to add some others to hear them play live, what would I pick?  I know, you don't really care what I'd pick, but I'm going to tell you anyway.  Sympathetic, Against the Wall, I'll Survive. Worlds Fall Away, what I call "Family Home", that is, "FMLYHM".  Feels like I'm Dying, Save Today, Buried in the Sand.  Oh, oh!  Failure and Written in Stone.  Wouldn't it be awesome to do Beg and have the audience sing, "Beg, Motherfucker" a few dozen times?  I wonder if any venue has asked Seether specifically NOT to do Beg?  It's not like there is a lack of fucks to give at any Seether concert, or in fact in any of the banter of the bands we listened to at Aftershock the next day.  Just remember, guys, it's overkill to use the word fuck or any derivation thereof in the same sentence.

It's exhilarating to hear them and watch them play.  I love Remedy, but as one fan said, "It makes me sad to hear it because I know it's the last song."  Seether exited, the lights came up and we were gently but firmly moved out the doors.  Ace of Spades, I appreciated the helpfulness and friendly attitude of all your employees working at the venue.  Down to earth and really wanting us to have a positive experience.

My husband and I moved towards the parking garage, past the tour bus on the corner.  Past the tour bus again, when we realized the exit we took to get out of the parking garage earlier was one way, out only.  My husband drove the truck around the garage levels to the exit.  We were rewarded with the Seether "after concert" provided by the young men in the truck ahead of us blasting Seether from their stereo.  "Turn it up!" I yelled, but I don't think they could heard me.  Or hear me singing along, which, perhaps, is just as well.  Turned off the poor Google Maps Lady, as going around in circles in the parking garage just confused her.  The parking garage gentleman (and he was quite gentlemanly) graciously accepted the parking pass on my phone and we were off to Denny's for a breakfast for dinner at 1:00 in the morning.  

EM

P.S.  Seether, you guys do know I usually am asleep by 10:30, unless I'm at the end of a good book?  Now I have another reason to stay up and eat scrambled eggs and English muffins at 1:00 in the morning.  I guess I don't have room to whine since you were doing all the work.  And my home is only one hour later that California.  Shaun and John live in a time zone two hours later and Dale and Corey three. On the first day you get home, do you all fall face first down on your beds and stay there?