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Gener's meltdown in Vancouver last night
http://skullbrain.org/legacy/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=38023		 Page 1 of 1
Author:  ungawa222 [ Tue Jan 25, 2011 1:04 pm ]
Post subject:  Gener's meltdown in Vancouver last night
Jeezus, he looks awful... that ain't just drunk:
http://www.straight.com/article-369810/vancouver/ween-completely-blows-it-bizarre-vancouver-show

He was really doing well for a while there... this is sad.
Yeah, it was funny back in 1993 when they would take the stage wasted... but (to me, anyway) how fun and funny it was to see them play wasted shrunk in inverse proportion to their becoming a more professional band. Once they started to really cohere as a great band, that's what I wanted to hear when I paid the rising prices to see them.

I stopped seeing them play live with any regularity back in the early 00's, but happened to sit outside of their waterfront show here in Burlington back in '09, and they were sounding great. I assume people close to him have been aware of a major backslide (you don't start looking like that overnight), but this is coming as a surprise to me. I hope he can get well again.

I know one member here knows Mickey, but I don't know if they keep in touch; I wonder if that person has any insight on this...
Author:  gazpacho [ Tue Jan 25, 2011 1:16 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Gener's meltdown in Vancouver last night
wow :shock:

this is sad, indeed... okay,, two things

first of all, ween has been one of the best live acts for the past 10ish years. i started seeing them in the early 2000's, as well.. i saw them in central park earlier this year and also at a festival over the summer. both shows were incredibly better than it appears this abomination seems to have been,. I feel the worst for the rest of the band, i cannot imagine how embarrasing that must be at this stage in their carrears.. i hope this doesn't signify the end of all that is brown.

second of all, holy shit,, you live in burlington?! didn't think there were any board members from that corner of the country. i went to school at UVM and only left burlington 3(ish) years ago... Awesome!

oh also, the waterfront show you're referring to got cut short due to a storm, no?
Author:  ungawa222 [ Tue Jan 25, 2011 2:18 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Gener's meltdown in Vancouver last night
Yup; I'm a Jersey transplant, will have been in VT for 15 years on 2/01. Lived in Plainfield for many years, until finally making the move to Burlington just recently (despite my social life/band projects/etc having been based there all along).

Yeah, I feel for the rest of those dudes... I absolutely can't imagine having to deal with that at a big, packed venue (or at all, really). Their anger is totally understandable. I have friends in Seattle who are supposed to go see them tonight, and friends in SF who are supposed to go see them at week's end... I'm certain their reviews will be interesting (if the shows actually happen).

If the waterfront show was cut short, I wasn't aware... seemed to me they played a full set. It was actually a beautiful night, warm and breezy with some dramatic heat lightning over Champlain. The bay was packed with Ween fans watching from their boats.
Author:  nefasth [ Tue Jan 25, 2011 3:04 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Gener's meltdown in Vancouver last night
I love Burlington !

Image
Author:  theraker [ Tue Jan 25, 2011 3:29 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Gener's meltdown in Vancouver last night
Saw Ween a bunch in the 90's, including one time up there at Higher Ground. They were always good (so awesome with the country band) and played long sets. Unfortunate, for the folks who went out to the show last night.
Author:  uberboy [ Wed Jan 26, 2011 12:13 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Gener's meltdown in Vancouver last night
apparently man cannot live on bananas and blow....
i love ween, i haven't seen them for about 6 years now though.

ungawa, you lived in plainfield, vt for awhile? do you know the bissex family?
Author:  ungawa222 [ Wed Jan 26, 2011 6:23 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Gener's meltdown in Vancouver last night
Ha, nefasth- believe it or not, I have never eaten at Al's.
I do love a good burger... and that's probably why I've never eaten at Al's. :lol:

ub, I do know of the family, but I'm not acquainted with any of them. Nice people, by all accounts. Are they relations of yours?
Author:  uberboy [ Wed Jan 26, 2011 9:45 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Gener's meltdown in Vancouver last night
dan b is one of my closest friends from college in the berkshires. i spent a couple weeks up there one summer just hanging out, swimming in the creeks, sitting on the stone "fence" near the one corner with the pizza place. plainfield is tiny, so i figured you might actually know the family. goddard kids are fun too, though the school always seemed perpetually about to run out of funding.
Author:  ungawa222 [ Wed Jan 26, 2011 10:24 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Gener's meltdown in Vancouver last night
Oh yeah, Dan!
The bass player, right?
I just googled him; I definitely know him from around town, and I think we even had a brief convo or two at the Positive Pie counter over the years.

Yeah, I actually worked in the kitchen at Goddard for a couple of years when we first moved there in 1996; what a trip the place was then... a lot of colorful goings-on always. Plainfield really lost some flavor (& a whole lot of interesting events- music, art, etc) when the on-campus program ceased back in '03 or so.
Author:  gazpacho [ Wed Jan 26, 2011 11:45 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Gener's meltdown in Vancouver last night
to fully derail this thread,, some of the things i miss most about burlington/VT in general:
four corners of the earth deli
switchback
pizza on earth (go, if you don't know)
hiking the chin at stowe for those fresh tracks
watching the sunset off of lone rock
swimming at the buckets, huntingtons gorge, and the many other watering holes
maple leaf indica, blue moonshine, cindy99, cyber crystal, and widow
late nights at the daily planet
concerts at shelburne farms, higher ground, the flynn and the waterfront
duff hour

just off the top of my head. damn, i love nyc, but i miss the green mountain state so much :cry:

ps- to keep this post somewhat relevant,, i listened to quebec this morning to help me remember the good times 8)
Author:  ungawa222 [ Wed Jan 26, 2011 12:15 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Gener's meltdown in Vancouver last night
Mmmmmmmm Four Corners... my girl and I were just saying yesterday that it's been too long since we lunched there...

Ha, to bring it full circle: my last good late night at the Planet was after that Ween waterfront show back in '09... the whole band was there hanging with the locals, holding court... fun night!
Author:  resinate [ Wed Jan 26, 2011 2:11 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Gener's meltdown in Vancouver last night
damn, and they hit portland tonight. not able to go but really wonder what's going down.

i saw them twice last year and they were phenomenal. definitely one of the most comfortable and talented teams of touring musicians out there. they've always gotten a little fucked up as you can tell from old recordings/show stories.

still gener had a beer belly when i saw them this past summer:
Image
Gener's Rainbow by ΛstroNate, on Flickr
from the photos/video from monday's show, he does not look at all well.

i have faith in the band and still love them to bits. hope they'll get their shit together and maybe record some new material.
Author:  ungawa222 [ Wed Jan 26, 2011 4:16 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Gener's meltdown in Vancouver last night
Jeezus, what a picture... ugh.
I truly hope he gets well.
I'll always have an abiding love for these guys, too; I got on board with The Pod; that was a record that left such an imprint on my life.
Author:  resinate [ Wed May 30, 2012 1:44 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Gener's meltdown in Vancouver last night
Quote:
“It’s time to move on,” Freeman told Rolling Stone from his home in New Jersey. “I’m retiring Gene Ween.” So does that mean the end for Ween, the band that Freeman formed with high school friend Mickey Melchiondo (a.k.a. Dean Ween) in New Hope, Pennsylvania, in the mid-Eighties? “Pretty much, yeah,” says Freeman. “It’s been a long time, 25 years. It was a good run.”

“For me it’s a closed book. In life sometimes, in the universe, you have to close some doors to have others open,” says Freeman. “There’s no, ‘Goddamn that such and such!’ For me, I’d like to think it’s a door I can close finally.”


Very down on this news. It's pretty clear looking at before after pictures that this band was kind of Gene's 20-odd-year drug binge though. I'm glad I got to see them five whole times and those shows will always rank among my favorites. What an act.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cs3wLqKibP0
Author:  phantomfauna [ Tue Jan 05, 2016 2:45 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Gener's meltdown in Vancouver last night
This was one of the few bands I was happy to see get back together. I got tickets for the three night Colorado show. Anyone on here going?
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