Show: 2016-04-20

@ Mill City Nights, Minneapolis, Minnesota

My Brief History with Filter

I have been listening to Short Bus for just over 20 years. In comparison to other albums of the time, this was a solid end-to-end album. When their follow-up album, Title of Album came out, I was not overly impressed. The lead single, Take a Picture, was too upbeat for me. Earlier this year, some 20 years after Short Bus was released, I find myself planning a brief work trip in Minneapolis when Songkick alerts me to a Filter show the night of my stay. Tickets were cheap enough at $27, so I bought them later that evening.

The Show

The ticket said doors opened at 7:00 so I showed up around 8:15 hoping to miss Death Valley High and Vampires Everywhere. I was only interested in Filter and, perhaps a little bit of Orgy. I missed Death Valley High.

Vampires Everywhere

These guys were pretty descent musicians, but their sound just didn’t resonate with me. It’s always nice to see the musicians going through the setup and teardown for their own performance rather than hired hands.

Orgy

A little closer to my style, but still not my groove. Also, the only real song they do that I know, Blue Monday was played musically pretty well, but the singer insisted on letting the crowd sing most of the song. These guys also helped with setup/teardown.

Filter

Admittedly, I was hoping for something of a 20th anniversary show for Short Bus like The Toadies and Candlebox did, but no dice. Patrick kept talking about his brother and ended the show with a comment about him wanting to ‘sign some merch’.