The Del Amitri Concert, April 30, 1995
by Alison Bellach

Top Ten Reasons To See Del Amitri in Concert, Especially On April 30, 1995 (with reason 10 being most important):

  1. The concert is at Slim's...EVERYone goes to Slim's!
  2. Slim's is in San Francisco!
  3. It's on a school night!
  4. The tickets are cheap!
  5. Alison and Caroline are going to be there!
  6. They might have shirts you can buy!
  7. They might perform "This Side Of The Morning" accoustically!
  8. They just might have another "Worst Facial Hair" contest, and then shave funny designs in their beards!
  9. Justin will be singing and playin bass! Iain and David will be playing the guitar! Andy will be playing the keyboard!
  10. Del Amitri is one of the most talented bands ever!

Okay, here is the story of my experience with Del Amitri, the best band on the face of this planet!
All weekend I had been away at a convention for my youth group, so I was very very tired. Two days with about four hours of sleep is not a good thing. My sister and I were exhausted, but excited! Anyway, we came home, threw on some warm clothes (because it had started to rain), and realized that we had no idea how to get to the club where the concert was. (Slim's) So, I called them, we hopped in our car, broke a few traffic laws, and arrived one hour early.
I don't know if you have ever tired to park in San Francisco, on the street, near all the clubs before, but let me tell you, it was hellish.
Anyway, we got there, and were harassed a bit as we entered because although it was an all ages show, my sister and I were two of the 4 or so people there our age, with everyone else being over 21. (Ah, the joys of being 18!!) We walked in, bought our shirts (we had to really haggle with a roadie because he was trying to be cute and not give us our $10 change...) We sat down in front of the stage, watched silent cartoons on a huge screen they had, and waited for the show to start as we tried to keep our eyes open and meet people.
Anyway, Melissa Ferrick opened. She was pretty good. But I was SO excited when the Dels came on...my sister and I were in the front of about 250 people for a sold-out show which was being broadcasted on the local radio station. I was right in front of Iain, but Justin came over quite a few times. I can safely say that my sister and I were the biggest fans there, because every time there was a bit o' silence, we yelled out songs we wanted to hear. First we tried for "The Return of Maggie Brown", a b-side. Justin looked at us a bit confused and then walked over with the mike. He explained that since Brian had left, they hadn't played any of the b's with the new guy yet. So we asked about "The Heart is a Bad Design" just in case, but no luck. He asked me if I wanted to play in place of the drummer so we could hear the songs we requested, like "Crows in the Wheatfield", but I thought that the audience would have cringed. :) They played these songs:
  1. Food For Songs
  2. Just Like A Man
  3. When I Want You
  4. Start With Me
  5. Lust For Life (with Iain on voacals)
  6. One Thing Left To Do
  7. To Last A Lifetime
  8. Hatful Of Rain
  9. Roll To Me
  10. Crashing Down
  11. Come Together
  12. Move Away Jimmy Blue
  13. The Ones That You Love Lead You Nowhere
  14. Always The Last To Know
  15. Being Somebody Else
  16. Driving With The Brakes On
  17. Medicine
  18. Here and Now
  19. be My Downfall / Like a Virgin
    and somewhere in the encores:
  • Ace Of Spades
Justin also played his new song, "Medicine", where he plays guitar. The weirdest thing about the whole show was the fact that we had conversations with Justin, while he was on stage. It seems that the other people in the front were just really unexcited or something, although the crowd was really receptive and excited. Anyway, he played two songs for us, prefacing them with "This is for you two" and pointing towards us: "Driving With The Brakes On" and this cool medley of "Be My Downfall / Like a Virgin / Kiss This Thing Goodbye". They played them because they were the requests we made that the drummer knew. Anyway, the concert ended after a few encores...when they came on for the second one, my sister and I started to yell "Driving With The Brakes On!!" very loudly, so Justin says to us, "Okay, girls, we'll play the song for you if you let us have our own dig for a bit," and then proceeded to tell the rest of the audience that there were two girls up front who were relentlessly requesting. So, I told him, "Play everything off of every album," and he laughed. Then they went into "Ace Of Spades".
After the end of the concert, I asked one of the stage technicians if we oculd have the two remainging picks left on Iain's mike stand. He gave them to us...Caroline wound up with Iain's pick and I, Justin's. You may be wondering how we knew who's pick was who's...well, after sufficient asking and pleading, THEY LET US BACK STAGE! We were the only non-roadies there, and I freaked out, because Del Amitri is my absolute favorite band. Caroline and I had an hour and a half talk with them...especially David about the newsletter. Justin asked me how I knew all of the b sides, because they were only released in the UK, so I told him about all of us on the net. They signed my "Twisted" cd after I gave Iain the option of singing any one he wanted, and also signed and gave us a picture of them. They helped us ID the picks...the black one I got was Justin's from the only guitar song he plays, "Medicine". The neatest thing about them is they are SO nice. I think it's so weird that I got to meet these guys who I only knew because of their music and the newsletters...Anyway, here are some funny things we found out.
  1. I now know the real meaning of their name, which I incorrectly thought meant 'among friends' before. Justin told me. :)
  2. They have these really weird fining games they play, like one with a marble...everyone on the trip had a marble, and someone would randomly take theirs out and bang it on the wooden doorframes. Whoever didn't have theirs owed everyone a dollar...all I can say is that Justin was $8 short. :)
  3. David decided, after I told him about how much I loved the band's intelligent use of lyrics, to teach us words he thought we didn't know like topiary and dirigible.
  4. Their backstage passes have these cute little dogs on them and say, "Let me in or the dog dies."
  5. I got into this huge conversation with David (who is SO nice) about his newsletter. I could have sworn that I had seen a punctuation error, because he told me he was a real stickler for that sort of stuff, so we tried to find it...I couldn't! Ah!
  6. This led to a talk about how they played at Woodstock and hated it. (They REALLY hated it.)
  7. THIS led to a talk about their fave bands. Dave's first response: The Replacements! This is so cool, I love the 'mats, and they had been playing "All Shook Down" over the speakers before the concert. :) They also like Prefab Sprout and Crowded House, but hate A-Ha and Duran Duran. They like Nirvana but hate STP, too.
Anyway, hanging out with them ranks #1 on my list of the best things to do. I have never met so many cool people! Now I know why they are my favorite band. :)
Oh, and to end, the concert was RAD. It was really good. They rock! And if you want to know anything else about what we talked about, just ask...I left tons out. :)

Del Amitri is SO GREAT!