The Hoodoo Gurus in Seattle

We caught the Hoodoo Gurus last night at the Neptune Theater, one of our favorite Seattle venues. They hit the stage right on time, with no opening act. They're promoting this go-round as the Back to the Stoneage Tour, opening their sets with a start-to-finish performance of Stoneage Romeos.

Sound quality was kinda muddy, but the energy in their performance was unmistakable. Dave Faulkner and Brad Shepherd have been on board since the earliest days; bassist Rick Grossman joined in the late '80s. Drummer Nic Reith is the new kid int he band, and he's been beating the kit with the Gurus ten years now. (And he has the most visible grey hair of any of them.) Faulkner was in excellent voice, although his speaking accent is pretty heavy; I could barely make out what he was saying, whenever he spoke to the crowd. (No, I didn't have a lot to drink.)

As you can see, it was a very generous setlist. Most of the crowd had about as much grey hair as we do, although I did spot a fair number of twenty-somethings. We went home with big grins on our faces. (And I'd say more, but I gotta rush off.)

SETLIST:
Let's All Turn On
I Want You Back
Arthur
The Death Ship
Dig It Up
My Girl
Zanzibar
Leilani
Tojo
In the Echo Chamber
I Was a Kamikaze Pilot
World of Pain
Hayride to Hell
Miss Freelove '69
Hung Out to Dry
Chariot of the Gods
Heart of Darkness
Bring the Hoodoo Down
Out That Door
Come Anytime
Axegrinder
1,000 Miles Away
The Right Time
Like Wow — Wipeout

ENCORE:
Be My Guru
Bittersweet
What's My Scene?

I saw them here in Virgina two weeks ago and even though I had seen them only a year ago, I thought they were much better this time. Perhaps playing all of 'Stoneage Romeos' had something to do with it. One cool thing that they do is on the setlist they are a couple of question marks, those are for songs requested by the audience. The band does a good job trying to accommodate the requests and some deep cuts do get played. But one has to wonder about some people. During one of those periods, a group kept yelling out "Bittersweet" and Faulkner kept telling them not to worry, the band would be playing 'all' the hits.

It's was also fun to get some tidbits about the songs from 'Stoneage Romeos', though a bit tongue in cheek. Before 'Dig It Up', Faulkner said this song was about something that is frowned upon in certain places. Necrophilia. At the table next to me was a family and I wondered how that conversation would be when the little girl asked her parents what necrophilia was.

> Before 'Dig It Up', Faulkner said this song was about
> something that is frowned upon in certain places.

That leads to speculation about where it might not be frowned upon. Okay, moving on ...

Dave did talk about "Dig It Up" at the Seattle gig. I don't remember any comment about necrophilia, but then again, like I said, I found his stage patter hard to understand. He did say that the song was meant as an homage to one of their biggest influences, The Cramps.