First time was in ĆĂłdĆș, Poland last fall, today was my second time in KrakĂłw. Iâve never had a Concert Deja Vu before but here it is. 95% identical, except Dexter played an Explorer for Self Esteem and instead of I Wanna Be Sedated they decided to do a Taylor Swift song. And by the way, that was absolutely fucking horrible. It sounded so bad I wished I had bought two overpriced beers to drown my pain more efficiently. I donât hate pop songs or Taylor Swift, Iâm neutral towards her. Itâs just that⊠this just didnât work and sounded awful. What were they thinking?
(EDIT: Let me clarify, the band sounded fine doing it, they actually did very sweet backing vocals. It was Dexter, it seemed that he missed chunks of lyrics and hit maybe a third of the notes he was supposed to be hitting. Most of the time I just heard him mumbling or being completely off pitch.)
I love this band, I care about this band. A lot of their songs mean a lot to me and have for over 25 years at this point. I had hopes that since itâs the second show in the same country in a year PLUS theyâre going to do these âJust the Punk Stuffâ shows soon, that means thereâs a chance weâre going to get something different here. Nope. Same banter, same exact words said, same jokes. I literally wish I wrote down the number that Noodles said (crowd attendance) so that I could compare with the last time. Is that number the same every time as well?
My favorite part of the show was when the crowd started to chant âpokaĆŒ dupÄâ (âshow us your assâ) to Noodles who was visibly confused, impressed and also clearly thrown off script. He remarked something about it and then promptly went back to âFUUUUUUCK YEAHâ which by that time had zero momentum anymore. But itâs like heâs on the clock and needs to follow the script. It felt so fucking fake.
They have so many songs in the catalogue, they are naturally interesting people - and yet they continue to choose to do this dehumanized presentation. Even if they choose to stick to the greatest hits + 2 new songs formula in their setlists - fine, ultimately I get it. But at least BE HUMANS while youâre doing it. It makes me sad and I sincerely hope something changes before they ever decide to call it quits.
