Phoenix, AZ - Oct. 22, 1997
Veteran's Memorial Coliseum [Arizona State Fair] (capacity:
14000)
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Summary by Jim Duke There was no opening band, the ticket stub showed a starting time of 7:00 PM. He came on stage at 7:01, and was finished at 8:00, living up to his affinity for promptness. He was in fine form vocally, and seemed to be in quite the good mood. He looked healthy and refreshed, and pomped and circumstanced his way around the stage, utilizing amazingly huge gestures and being quite the thespian with his usual backdrop and the large screen dangling overhead. He looked like he had spent the week at a Club Med, as he was very rested and full of energy and tanned. He had a great rapport with the audience, gesturing and talking off microphone (during songs) to people crumpled down at the front. The venue (Veterans Memorial Coliseum) is probably the largest he will play on this tour. It holds approximately 14,000 people for concerts, and on this day there were right around 3,000 to 4,000 in attendence. This is pretty good, considering that he gets virtually no radio support in this town. In fact, no radio stations were even sponsoring his show, which is quite unusual for "State Fair" acts. Our two local "modern rock" stations are only promoting the Howard Jones concert between them, but I digress... His voice was astounding. The band members were excellent. He brought the house down with a crescendo of roars for the encores of "Satan Rejected My Soul" and "Shoplifters." His quipped: "We are the (sic) sideshow this evening. We are a band from England" This was a obvious a reference to playing at the state fair, where he perhaps had the feeling that half the crowd might not know who he is. Fortunately this was not the case, as everyone certainly knew what was going on. "Where did you get that t-shirt."(over loudspeaker) "Give it to me." (off loudspeaker) which the audience member certainly did! Incidentally, I have no idea what was on the shirt... He said, "Thank You, Phoenix, youve been SWEET!" before launching into "Shoplifters." Stage Rushing: Moz tried to help one female audience member up during "Shoplifters," but the overzealous fascist (and quite large) security FORCE pulled her back down. One brazen boy made it up, and repeatedly broke away from the aforementioned fascists and actually got to cling to Moz for a second or two. There were at least thirty of these security people keeping audience members in their seats and off the stage, which of course completely sucked. However, this was a small price to pay for such a great show. Tickets were only $7, plus fair admission. His thirteen song, 55 minute set was well worth the total outlay of $13. All in all, a tremendous performance! Summary by Matt Smiley |
last modified: 09 Nov 1997 09:06 AM
All rights reserved. Copyright © 1997 by David Tseng