2010-10-31 HARD Haunted Mansion - Los Angeles, CA

[TheBang]

The Rez/Cowgirl silhouette was live, but the shadow screen was off stage due to the setup, so it was a video feed of the shadow screen. This is the same way it was at the Cow Palace.

We were supposed to get the shadow screen last night at San Diego. They had found room for it on the left side of the stage, but when showtime came it was gone. I never did find out why it didn't happen. Maybe Karl didn't want to do it because of how he was feeling, or maybe they tested it during soundcheck and it didn't work in the small space, I dunno.

For those that think they just "press play" on the new songs, well, that's definitely not the case. As mentioned, Karl ran off stage after the beginning of Scribble, and so they had to jam the middle part while he made his way back.

We got some nice Monkey Wink during the end jam of Nuxx, so that was fun.

Overall, this show was a lot better than I expected. Especially considering what happened with Hard Summer last year, I was impressed with the organization and security of this event. The crowd was better at this show than the Cow Palace. They seemed interested and engaged, and showed some level of recognition for some of the songs. I'm not sure if it was due to the age difference (18+ vs 16+), the time that UW was on, or if LA is better than SF.

But yeah, I'm glad I went too. I was feeling some Underworld fatigue, and just plain fatigue in general after 3 days of traveling. At some points today I felt, eh, maybe it wouldn't be so bad if I didn't see them tonight. But all of that melted away once the show started.

I didn't get bored with the setlist like I thought I might. It's quite a good live set. I know some people have been disappointed, but it's still an Underworld show, and the band and crew put in their all each night and make in entertaining. They're going to continue with this set for the album promotion for the rest of this year. But I hear Rick's itching to get back to improv-y shows, so I think we'll see a return to the Underworld Live we love next year.