If he's coming to your town I say, don't bother.

OK, I admit, I was only going to see the Smiths' and The The's famous guitar maniac. My expectations were a bit too high. With the show coming up, I tried to pick up their new CD twice in the last 2 weeks, to no avail. I went to 2 of my favorite record stores, and both of them were out. Having only heard "Down on the Corner," their radio single, I was mildly amused and certainly surprised the CD was sold out. They've got to be great, I thought.

In a half empty house at First Ave tonight, I found myself completely bored. Sure, he's still got the skills on guitar, but the fun effects and craziness were often performed by the second guitar man in the band. I think Minneapolis' City Pages said it best in their write-up for the show when they said, "The good news: Johnny Marr and the Healers' Boomslang (ARTISTdirect) doesn't try to recreate the gloom-pop heyday of Marr's seminal work with the Smiths. The bad news: At times, it tries to recreate the gloom-pop heyday of '90s bands who tried to recreate the seminal work of the Smiths." The first few minutes sounded like a badly-Oasis-influenced garage band. Or something. I tried desperately to get into the show for about the first few songs, then found myself more interested in the conversation my friends were having with a long-lost firend of theirs they'd run into. And I didn't even know the girl! So I spent the latter part of the evening upstairs, occasionally paying attention, then wondering why I was bothering.

Luckily, I had a comp to the show. And ran into a friend's new beaux who worked there, so even got drink tickets out of the deal. Other than that, it might have been a wasted night.


typo, schmypo...
[This message was edited Wed May 7 21:28:06 PDT 2003 by CarrieMpls]

Johnny Marr should work with really talented people now, I'd like to see him working with funk artists

I saw him with The The in the late 80s and he was amazing. It's too bad the show you went to sucked so bad.

CarriMpls summed it up perfectly.

I had been able to pick up the cd, and I enjoy it. BUT, it's nothing special. It feels like a cd that will end up on a shelf in 3 months and never played again...anywho...I Tried to get into the show, ran into this long lost friend, we chatted for a bit. I tried for one more song to get into the show, and then said 'screw it' and went upstairs where we could talk with some of the band noise blocked out...

It wasn't horrible, just nothing special. I would've been upset had I paid for the show (yay comps!)

His new CD is aiiight from the tracks I heard. But it was nowhere near as legendary as his work with the Smiths. I'm trying to get tix to his NY shows as a matter of fact. He's one of my favorite guitarists.

I heard Marr's CD and was rather unimpressed. It's ironic as hell--Oasis was attacked for sounding like The Smiths, and now The Smiths' musical force sounds like Oasis.

That's my writing--you steal it, I'll sue you, biiitch!

Should I even bother scrambling around for tickets to see him or sit this one out?