The Used, MTV Taping, Hard Rock Live, Orlando, FL 06.03.03
Posted by Ryan T. Murphy on 06.06.2003
Made-for-TV concerts are like school in summertime.
I just heard about The Used playing a show for only $10 that was to be taped for MTV today. The last time The Used were here, they sold out the House of Blues, but I figured that they wouldn't sell out the larger Hard Rock Live quite as quickly. I picked up my friends Amber and Bree and headed to Universal's CityWalk. (For those unfamiliar with one of Orlando's biggest tourist traps, a string of themed clubs and shops called CityWalk leads to a strip with Islands of Adventure on one side, NBA City, Hard Rock Live and the Hard Rock Cafe in the middle, and Universal Studios itself on the other side.) A trip to the ticket window confirmed my fears....they were sold out. Desponded, the three of us met up with our friends J.B. and Ronald of the soon-to-be-legendary metal band Fell on Earth. J.B., Ronald, and Amber already had tickets so Bree and I were faced with the task of finding some scalpers. While walking through the facing area, I haphazardly said something about finding tickets and a random stranger to my left said "Oh you need a ticket? I have one. Ten bucks." Being the gentleman I am, I reached for my wallet, bought the ticket, then told Bree she was on her own. Ok ok so I was just kidding, I tried to help her find a ticket afterward. As it was getting down to showtime, it seemed as though Bree wouldn't be joining us. And then, just randomly out of the blue, a guy walked up to the table we were at and asked "Do any of you need a ticket? I have one left." Also selling it at face price of $10, Bree got her ticket at the eleventh hour and we all went inside for the show. God Bless the scalping industry.
There were no opening acts since this wasn't meant to be a traditional show rather than a television taping. For any loyal minions I have who want to see me, I was on what would be stage right, toward the middle, and wearing a Sabres jersey and black Marines beanie with glasses & a goatee; standing next to a girl in a wifebeater & a white bandana and a guy in a brownish vest with patches all over it. The first thing you noticed upon entry was the GIGANTIC MTV logo on stage left, as well as the huge guitar that said AT&T Wireless and the projection screens that served the sole purpose of showing a stationery Nokia ad. Clearly, we were in corporate Oz. We walked in right as they were starting the crowd preparation. Someone (either an MTV guy or a local radio host or something) was attempting to get the crowd warmed up and getting them used to the cameras. His instructions basically boiled down to "don't look at the camera and try to go crazy." They did a few crowd shots before the show, with "Taste of Ink" and "Boxful of Sharp Objects" piped through HRL's speakers. Since the crowd had not been properly broken in yet, most of those shots amounted to a bunch of pop-punk pogoing and metal hands. Very quickly afterward, The Used took the stage.
The Used must think they're rockstars now because they did the classic rockstar trick of having the drummer come out first, leading up to Bert McCracken finally taking the stage and eliciting a huge audience response. I barely recognized him at first, as the floppy fro-type deal he had on his Osbournes appearances has grown into long stringy hair. They launched into a few songs that got the die-hards in the audience going, and there was a scant bit of crowd surfing and even a small pit that broke out. I have never been to an HRL show that was sold out but, even though it was pretty packed, there was still room to move around. The moral of this story? Hard Rock Live is too fucking big! How can this be a bad thing you ask? Well, because whoever designed it knew fuck-all about accoustics. The sound at HRL is historically terrible, as no one gets any resonance and no matter how loud a band turns up they're never loud enough. This performance was especially bad because in the interest of getting a good sound mix for TV, the band wasn't all that loud.
I hope I didn't get on tv for anything from the first half of the show because we were all just acting really goofy. For instance, when in in the midsong banter Bert said "Are you all here to have fun tonight?" I yelled "No! I'm here to have a serious fucking discussion!" Stupid boredom-induced bullshit but the lack of an opening act really did little to get us into the set. After only like 2 or 3 songs, they launched into "Taste of Ink". One of the maybe 4 songs I could recognize offhand, I got a little more into it. Either directly after or 2 songs after "Taste of Ink" Bert let us know that he was about to puke, which lead them into "Bulimic". He didn't, however, puke. Tis a shame, as that would have been more interesting than just about anything else at that point.
All the songs were just lackluster because of the poor sound. Finally, after a few more numbers I didn't recognize, the band launched into "Box of Sharp Objects." This is the one time where I'm fairly certain I would end up on TV, so look for me at this point: a fairly big mosh pit broke out right in front of me, and as I was pushing the little kids involved around from the outside I thought, ah fuckit. So I went in the middle and broke into full hardcore dance mode. I was throwing windmills and floor punches and even a few spinkicks. So, whenever this airs on TV, during "Box of Sharp Objects", look for crowd shots to see if you see a big dude windmilling in the pit towards the right, that's me. (Side note: if you do notice this and have the capability, please try to tape it and get at least that part of it online. I don't, as of 24 hours ago, have cable and likely won't even see this entire show otherwise.)
What really clinched this as a boring show was the fact that "Box of Sharp Objects" wasn't even the last song. In fact, there were several more after it, none of which was half as recognizable (other than maybe "Buried Myself Alive"). At one point, Bert made a big deal about The Used's amazing guitar player and then proceeded to show him pretending to solo with a solo being piped in over the sound system. It fooled no one, as even Bert remarked that it was just a camera trick. I think this is when they went into "Buried Myself Alive" which was pretty fun, all things considered. This was when the crowd was at its zenith, as they seemed to be having the most fun. The band still sounded too far away, and I'm not exaggerating when I say that I've listened to The Used in my car at a louder volume than what we heard at the show. They inexplicably played a few more songs and then said their goodbyes as we quickly filed toward the exit.
All things considered, most everyone (including people we met up with afterward) considered this show to be lackluster. The sound was terrible, the corporate atmosphere was stifling, and a large part of the crowd just wasn't into it. It might have been the lack of an opening act or the pressure from having the cameras on but other than the crowd surfers and other assorted moshers in certain sections, the crowd just seemed deflated. Coupled with the fact that the entire event lasted only about one hour; the fact that this show only cost $10 really showed. As for how this will play out on television, look for a lot of crowd shots. The sections of the audience that were getting captured by the overhead roaming camera were the wildest (I was on the opposite side of that camera the whole time) and plus onstage the band didn't seem to be putting much more into their performance besides a lot of crowd interaction. A lot of Bert's midsong banter included the word 'fuck' since he's all rebelious and whatnot, so look for excessive bleeping. And overall just look for a performance that will probably seem a lot better in your living room (to be fair, the band themselves played well but far better bands have succumbed to HRL's shitty sound) than it did live.
I'm not sure when this will air and whether it will air on regular MTV or MTV2, but be on the lookout for it. And again, if anyone can tape it for me and either transfer the tape online somewhere so I can see it or maybe work out a deal to mail it to me, let me know.
The 411: The Used played as well as one would expect them to but the sound and atmosphere made for a disappointing performance that was luckily inexpensive. The percentage of Orlando's young rock fans who weren't here were across town for RHCP/Snoop Dogg, and about half of the ones at The Used walked away feeling decidedly underwhelmed.
