On That Note: The Kids in the Hall
- Thread starter cyclones500
- Start date
No, I hadn't seen Weezer before, even though I've been a fan since the Blue album. I played that CD from start to finish for most of high school.
I still follow them but their new stuff isn't on the same level for me.
I will say this, Weezers cover of Africa has been played to death on the radio lately, but it REALLY rocks live. They played a few of their other covers in the show last night and did them well, particularly an acoustic version of A-Ha's Take on Me.
They also played No Scrubs by TLC, which was hilarious.
The show was pretty freaking awesome last night. Weezer rocked it.
Pixies were really good too, and I'm a fan, but I only really know songs off of Surfer Rosa and Doolittle. They played a really long set and I think they lost a lot of people along the way. They played most of the songs I really like, even Gigantic which I wasn't expecting since Kim Deal is gone again. Their new bass player did a really good job with her that and the rest of her parts though.
I guess it's mostly due to limited hit exposure back in the day (only 3 top 10 hits - only one in their native UK).
Non-availability of their material was a big factor. For most of the 70's and early 80's the only commercially available material was the Hits/Odessey & Oracle double album repackage called "Time of the Zombies". Which was just enough to whet the appetite of the music geek in me.
Breakup of the group in 1967/68 certainly did not help keep their image alive either.
They did seemingly appear on a lot of "Most underrated bands/acts" lists for a long time. I think the music geeks always loved and appreciated their work, but pre-internet there wasn't a lot of community interaction. If you were a Zombies fan you sort of assumed you were pretty much the only one.
Modern life's availability of music at one's finger-tips and word of mouth are really the biggest part of their popularity, such as it is, 50 years later. A person no longer has to depend on a radio programmer to play something to experience the music. The other option was if you had a lot of money you could buy stuff you weren't familiar with, but most people didn't do that... or maybe had a relative or neighbor with the records.
I actually looked for decades for some of their less common single releases. Lots of scanning Goldmine Magazine ads and literally every record show I attended. I never found much beyond the 3 hits and one minor hit followup. Ebay has allowed me to complete the collection beyond a very few insanely obscure issues.
The first album and Odessey and Oracle were fairly easy to obtain used. The London stereo release (entitled Early Days) from 1970 was not easy to find.
I guess to summarize this TL/DR post, I'm actually more amazed they ARE actually being honored and inducted at this point. Happy, happy!
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One other factor my have helped raise their visibility. Regrouping and touring the last 10 or so years may have brought their existence/catalog back into the public's eye - allowing a fresh look at what they did in their few short years.
