Tour Dates 2013+

[Zarik]

^^Glad to have been at the band's highest-attended tour on the show! (so far)

[Hermesacat]

Re. Homeostasis' show stats he posted, interesting. I'm curious to know what % cut of total show revenue the band might likely earn. Also, how much Suki or Keith might earn vs. the two "big cheeses", although that might be rather confidential info.

An interesting review of the Nov. 15 Detroit show:
http://motorcityblog.blogspot.ca/2013/1 ... w-you.html
I'm skeptical about a few songs in the set list described as the reviewer claims they started the show with "Rock Section" & ended with "Umbilical", which would be a surprising departure from recorded shows' nearly identical sets, give or take several specific songs, none of which were Umbilical or Rock Section. I see setlist.fm also includes those two songs for the Detroit show. Maybe the reviewer wasn't himself all that familiar with Mazzy's catalogue & used setlist.fm's likely erroneous list to identify songs he heard.
He reports the Detroit audience was noisy with talkers, but that a woman talking during Fade Into You got hit in the face by an irate fan when she started complaining loudly after someone suggested she be quiet during the song.

He apparently did some historical background research though as he includes a band history piece as a preamble. He mentions a 1996 Detroit Mazzy show where the band apparently cancelled at the last minute, then changed their minds & played, but got booed & pelted with ice when they came onstage apparently because another band's set got cut short to make way for Mazzy Star's set. F'ing Detroit.
***********************************************************************************************
Here's the (doubtful?) Nov. 15 Detroit set list according to setlist.fm:

Rock Section
Look on Down From the Bridge
Cry, Cry
In the Kingdom
Lay Myself Down
Ride It On
Does Someone Have Your Baby Now?
She Hangs Brightly
Halah
Fade Into You
Blue Flower
Disappear
Encore:
California
Umbilical
********************************************************
You Tuber Mickey Flipper pointed out Toronto supposedly heard "Rock Section" too.

From Setlist.fm, Toronto Nov. 16, 2013:
Look on Down From the Bridge
Cry, Cry
In the Kingdom
Lay Myself Down
Ride It On
Does Someone Have Your Baby Now?
Into Dust
She Hangs Brightly
Halah
Fade Into You
Blue Flower
Disappear
Encore:
Flying Low
Encore 2:
California
So Tonight That I Might See
I've Been Let Down
Encore 3:
Rock Section

-If this set list's accurate, how come Toronto was lucky enough to get 3 encores, & 17 songs, including Rock Section? I'd like to hear a recording of that show.

[MKBN]

I was at the Detroit show, so I'll try to clear up a little bit of the confusion. I wish I had thought to bring my Zoom mic with me, but hindsight is 20/20.

I'm skeptical about a few songs in the set list described as the reviewer claims they started the show with "Rock Section" & ended with "Umbilical", which would be a surprising departure from recorded shows' nearly identical sets, give or take several specific songs, none of which were Umbilical or Rock Section.
...
You Tuber Mickey Flipper pointed out Toronto supposedly heard "Rock Section" too.

I really want to say I heard them play part of Rock Section at the Detroit show, but, honestly, the night was kind of a blur to me so I might've just imagined it. As I remember it: they kicked things off with a short pre-recorded instrumental intro that played as the band came out, like at the other shows. After that, they performed a brief instrumental piece before Look On Down From the Bridge. During this segment, they played part of Rock Section--or at least, something that sounded remarkably like it. I'd hardly call it a full performance of the song as Hope didn't start singing until Look on Down From the Bridge. Perhaps there were some last minute concerns about the set-up or their equipment that required them to improvise for a bit before starting their actual set? It seems possible that if Rock Section is one of David's favourites, that he'd play a snippet of it to ensure that the sound was to his liking.

As for Umbilical, that's arguably true. The version of So Tonight That I Might See that they played on this tour sounds like something of a combination of the music from Umbilical with the lyrics of So Tonight. After the first encore song, California, Hope told the audience to quit taking pictures. Almost immediately after starting So Tonight, someone took a picture with their flash on and Hope left without a word. The band continued playing the song without her--about halfway through the song, David came over to Hope's set-up and tuned her effects board to produce a feedback noise similar to what you hear during certain parts of the album version of Umbilical. As the song neared its conclusion, each member of the band left one by one, with Suki leaving last. The feedback kept going until a stagehand came by to turn it off. I read somewhere that they did something similar at an earlier show by placing a guitar against a speaker to create a feedback loop.

Given that Hope didn't actually sing So Tonight, and that this version of the song was set to the music of Umbilical, it is fair to say that, yes, they performed Umbilical at the Detroit show...

He reports the Detroit audience was noisy with talkers, but that a woman talking during Fade Into You got hit in the face by an irate fan when she started complaining loudly after someone suggested she be quiet during the song.

It seems my experience at this concert was a little different from what most of the audience experienced, though I could tell things were bound to turn sour as soon as I got there. I arrived at the theater around 7:40, expecting that I'd be hopelessly late since the doors opened at 8:00. Instead, I ended up being the tenth person in line to have my ticket checked, which seemed odd. As the article you linked suggests, the place was still pretty empty after the Psychic Ills finished their set. People came in droves soon after, though. Given that I was one of the first ones there, I had time to mingle and buy a t-shirt, and still managed to get a spot right up at the stage. (A couple people pushed in front of me later on, but I wasn't really going to start a fight over it...)

There was definitely talking throughout. Given my close proximity to the stage I likely didn't notice as much as others did. For me, the worst of it was some woman not far from me who informed us that she was part of Suki Ewers' entourage, and proceeded to yell "Suki!" a few times throughout the show. Some guy closer to the back loudly requested Fade Into You a few times (and not even between songs!) until someone managed to quiet him down.

I heard about a fight from some other people before I left. The story I heard (a variation of this was posted on Mazzy Star's Facebook page, as well) was that some drunk girl was splashing her drink all over the people around her and then began punching them when they got mad at her. Honestly wouldn't surprise me if the conflict you heard about happened too.

Another interesting thing--the Majestic's lighting techs apparently neglected to turn off the overhead lights that The Psychic Ills had been using, so Hope (and the band as a whole, really) was, in comparison to the other shows, well lit through the whole thing. She requested that the light be turned off a few times but no one seemed to notice. Eventually she gave up asking.

Also, crazy but true--immediately after the audio techs had the band's gear unplugged and the lights came back on, they started playing Straight Outta Compton by the NWA over the loudspeakers. Talk about a mood-killer.

Before we examine the set lists for Detroit and Toronto, here's a copy of the actual set list, which I got from one of the stagehands after the show. You've probably seen it as they used the same one at each show--here it is, regardless:

Here's the (doubtful?) Nov. 15 Detroit set list according to setlist.fm:

Rock Section
Look on Down From the Bridge
Cry, Cry
In the Kingdom
Lay Myself Down
Ride It On
Does Someone Have Your Baby Now?
She Hangs Brightly
Halah
Fade Into You
Blue Flower
Disappear
Encore:
California
Umbilical

So for the Detroit show, they played every song they had planned to, with the exception of Into Dust (after Does Someone Have Your Baby Now? a stagehand came out with the violin, Hope said something to the effect of, "We're not playing that now," and he turned back around and left) and Flying Low. Umbilical is half-right, as what they ended up playing was an instrumental of their tour version of So Tonight That I Might See, which sounds a lot like Umbilical. Rock Section... I want to say it happened but without an actual recording of the show I really can't say for certain. It should probably be identified as "Instrumental Intro" or something along those lines.

From Setlist.fm, Toronto Nov. 16, 2013:
Look on Down From the Bridge
Cry, Cry
In the Kingdom
Lay Myself Down
Ride It On
Does Someone Have Your Baby Now?
Into Dust
She Hangs Brightly
Halah
Fade Into You
Blue Flower
Disappear
Encore:
Flying Low
Encore 2:
California
So Tonight That I Might See
I've Been Let Down
Encore 3:
Rock Section

-If this set list's accurate, how come Toronto was lucky enough to get 3 encores, & 17 songs, including Rock Section? I'd like to hear a recording of that show.

I had a quick look through the shows you've upped to YouTube, so I might've just missed it, but I don't think they played Flying Low at any of their shows, besides Toronto apparently? Strange, given its inclusion on the set list. Apparently I've Been Let Down, despite not being on the actual set list, was also played at the Boston show.

I guess it's possible that, since the Toronto show was the day after the Detroit one, they chose to reward the Toronto crowd for being such a good audience? That's about all I can figure. Hopefully recordings of the Detroit and Toronto shows turn up so we can figure this out.

EDIT:

This post is already ridiculously long but I just came across this and figured it was worth posting. Guy seems like he knows what he's talking about: http://burdenofsalt.com/2013/11/19/mazz ... usic-hall/

[alas]

Yes - it was a long post, but interesting to read. Didn't seem long-winded to me. Thanks for being thorough.

[madub]

I was at the Toronto show and indeed we got 3 encores. The audience was quite polite which is nice since they haven't been in the past. Now, i'm not super familiar with mazzy star's catalogue of songs, but listening to Umbilical now I'm about 90% certain that they did play it as their last song. I remember Suki sitting down and starting with the organ intro before the others joined in, as happens in Umbilical. Unless, as others have suggested, there's some sort of a mashup of Umbilical with the vocals of STTIMS going on. I do remember at one point thinking that they were playing a song they'd already played; some of their songs are similar like that. Wish i'd have recorded the show!

[Hermesacat]

Thanks MKBN for your informative post re. the Detroit show & explaining how reports they played "Rock Section" & "Umbilical" can be viewed as being true or partially so (btw, I like reading detailed accounts. In fact , I wish more people who attended shows would post detailed accounts here). And thanks madub for your info re. the Toronto show re. "Tonight/Umbilical", & to MKBN for the Toronto show review.

I haven't actually listened to the album versions of "Tonight" or "Umbilical" much lately, or closely enough to have noticed the version of "Tonight" they've been playing on this tour seems to incorporate some of another song's music, "Umbilical". That helps explain why more than one person in press & fan accounts from this tour had ID-ed the song as "Umbilical" though the lyrics are from "Tonight", & according to the set list MKBN kindly posted a photo of, the band is still calling the song "So Tonight That I Might See".The band could have renamed the tour version something like "So Tonight That We're Umbilical" !

Re. "Flying Low", no, none of the 7 live shows I've heard so far include the song. An L.A. setlist posted earlier in this thread shows "Flying Low" in between "Disappear" & "California", but the song doesn't show up on the actual recording some one else upped to yt here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8k4KReqOBvg
A setlist supposedly of the Portland show posted here earlier also includes "Flying Low", but I've not yet heard a recording of that show to be able to hear the song.

[Emma]

Jeremy Roth collaborated with Mazzy Star on lighting, video, scenic, and production design.
His web site includes an article that describes his work with Mazzy Star during the 2013 tour:
http://www.jsroth.com/#/mazzy-star/