Soooo.... after ten years of waiting for them to get back together and two years of fervent prayer that they not break up again during the COVID delays I saw My Chem once more and it. was. magnificient.

Mikey has filled out and looks healthy (and I felt less like I should card him before having grown-up thoughts) playing confidently and all over the dang stage. Frankie is clearly sick with something (again) as he's playing in his cardigan and super focused on playing (as opposed to running around climbing people) but sounded great. Toro is shredding, drinking merlot, and. just. beaming. The man is obviously delighted to be playing with the rest of them. Shreds, swaps out guitar, shreds, swaps, bit of wine... Toro-smiling all the while. He's a happy happy man. (And whomever they got to air-brush on his jeans this tour is top-notch.) Gerard looks healthy (not coke-skinny, not depressed-in-the-basement-sketching-and-chain-smoking chubby). He's even got some muscle on his pasty legs (SoCal? Really? For a decade now?) which we had quite the view of as he was Donald Duckin' it all over the stage with that evening's perfomance ensemble of a big shirt and little shorts He has pedals for various vocal effects so he won't rip up his throat this tour. They're happy, healthy, and getting along.

And they tore the place up. The arena went wild. They. were. on. Gerard still owns his crowd. And a whooooole bunch of them were kids - they'd been in pre-k last time MCR played. The future looks bright.

The Bouncing Souls opened (so Frank and I were in heaven) and my friends and I ran into them afterwards. Pete and George (guitarist, drummer) were saying Chem were shredding, really tight, just fantastic, "they're a really good band." See, *I* felt that way, but when the 30 year veterans who play a pretty different genre say so I know I'm not seeing what I want to see.

For reasons I can no longer recall, I talked myself out of buying tickets to My Chem when they played here in August, and I'm still mad at myself about it!

In other news, I've been putting together a Halloween playlist on Spotify and searched back through the archived Music threads to find the track listings for David's Halloween mixes, and found some other gems too. But I can't find a track listing for the Louche Crooners mix! David, do you still have that handy somewhere?

But I can't find a track listing for the Louche Crooners mix! David, do you still have that handy somewhere?

I do! I'll track it down for you.

Not technically Music, but we saw Henry Rollins perform last night at the Palace of Fine Arts and my friends. He's so good. He's amazing - although at one point I was thinking I had to put my earplugs in because the man is Very Very Good at Yelling.

Mimi Parker has died. Way too young. [link]

Mimi Parker has died. Way too young.

It's very sad. She and Sparhawk met in elementary school.

Fleetwood Mac's Christine McVie died at 79. It's a shame, but she sure wrote some good music.

Putting on a very escapist hat and unlurking in very, very, very long shot question: any chance someone here is planning to attend the Lost Weekend Records 20th anniversary show in Columbus, OH? Asking for a Scrawl fan. Who is me.

Edited: slightly embarrassing, but either due to COVID brain fog or all of the local political excitement around, I missed it by a month. But I found a video, so yay!

I am so stunned and saddened by Sinead O'Connor's death. She was brilliant & forthright and had such a lovely voice.

Yeah, it’s a hard one, Sumi. For sure.