Rewind: Squeeze & Steve Poltz at House of Blues, 4.10.2012

Sometimes it is challenging to remember what I've posted and where. I mean, sometimes I upload photos to my Photobucket account, sometimes I send them to SoundDiego, sometimes I post them on Facebook, and sometimes they just sit in a folder organized by date just waiting for something to happen.  I mean, I still have a diary post that I started BEFORE I left to South By Southwest and never posted. Don't count on that ever getting finished, though I wish I knew where to pick up from there.

Other times, like in this instance, I just post photos randomly weeks after a show because when I'm given a photo pass, it is expected that there is some evidence that I used it. That said, all the way back on April 10, I went to the House of Blues to see Squeeze and Steve Poltz.

Steve kicked off the night with a signature set, performing old and new songs, playing some serious ones and then following immediately with his more tongue-in-cheek songs. The show wasn't quite sold out, but it was pretty close, and the crowd was mostly people who were in their teens and twenties when Squeeze was most popular in the 80s, so very generally speaking, they're affluent and this was a big night out for them so everyone was especially drinky & chatty, but Steve did his best to play to those of us who were paying attention. He performed a new song called, "The Days Are Beautiful" that was amazing, and wouldn't you know that you can already here a live recorded version of it. The song is about Cpl Nick Kimmel, a 21-year-old wounded veteran of Afghanistan that Steve met when he sang the national anthem at Petco Park.




Squeeze came out shortly after Steve finished and they sounded so perfect. It's amazing how familiar their music is even if you think you only know a handful of the hits. The crowd ate it up and were dancing and singing along throughout the night. I kinda moved around throughout the show, starting in the photo pit for the first three songs, then a couple rows back for a few songs, then back by the bar for the middle of the show. Incidentally, while back there, I met a rep from Taylor Guitars who was super cool. He was taking notes on the setlist because he was going to be interviewing the band a few days later, so I shared my setlist photos with him. For the encore, I moved over toward the side where Tim Mays and his group were in a roped off area and I shot a couple videos from there (which is why they are so bad). It was definitely a worthy show and I'm glad I went because there was no chance I was gonna see them at Coachella at the time they played. You can see the photo slideshow after the jump (including some of the photos of Housse De Racket, which was after the Squeeze show) as well as a couple videos I shot.