Grandaddy, For Noise Festival, Pully, Switzerland, August 25th, 2012

"and dogs are dead/

with broken hearts/

collapsing by/

the coffee carts"

Dreams come true in Switzerland when Grandaddy plays "Crystal  Lake" 

Well well well, this long awaited moment was finally upon the chosen few, with concert tickets purchased in April and finally, after plane, train, and a steep uphill walk, I am in Pully (pronounced like the first half of a 3-year-old saying "Pwease" without the "s," not like "pulley," a tool used to lift an object of equal or greater weight), standing in the rain and mud, discovering that my fancy-pants North Face jacket is no longer waterproof, and wondering what it's all for.  22 CHF later, I have a Grandaddy t-shirt  (yes I was that guy)  emblazoned with the quote "Now it's on....again" and a cheap plastic poncho protecting me for all it's worth as I wait to see a band I have loved since my early twenties days as a tragic art student.  This is what we do for rock and roll.  Considering my first Grandaddy co-fan in San Francisco was a Frenchman, I am not so surprised at their considerable popularity in Europe, but I am surprised at the age of the crowd, good to know our favorite Modesto rockers are reaching ever younger and impressionable audiences.  Almost as satisfying as hearing the guy behind me requesting "Jeez Louise" which, with the accent, sounds like "Jeez-he Louise-eh."  Ah, adorable.

pedals fuzzy with anticipation

The crew comes out to the opening theme song to Welcome Back Kotter, an appropriate choice after a 7 year break-up-now-hiatus. They opened with "El Caminos in the West," and I now I am sure the song is about this kind of El Camino, not the historic highway in California. The stage setup is reminiscent of classic Grandaddy, so a big screen playing assorted films, my favorite being the video for "Now it's On," where a group of girls, replete with fake beards and trucker hats, play the band members and get up to all sorts of awesome cliched rock star antics, like chugging root beer, fighting, and storming/escaping from of a press conference. A b-side gem that was resurrected, amidst mostly songs from Sophtware Slump and Sumday, was "My Small Love," a short and sweet paen to the lovelorn some of you may know from rarities Concrete Dunes album.  In a tribute to another great California band, also from the Central Valley, Grandaddy covered "Here" by Pavement, during the encore, in a faster, more crunchy guitar/feedbacky version.  Funny, didn't Pavement just reunite in 2010?  So, unlike so many other disappointing and pathetic reunions (I can't even talk about the Codeine show in July, it's still too fresh) where lights and and effects and tired songs mask burned out and compromised musicians, I am happy to report that Grandaddy still has you, crying into your keyboard with your big headphones on, getting on the outside of 12-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon, next to your mixer and laptop, dorking out on midi mixes, while the lawnmowers going and the crickets chirping and methane hangs over the farmlands and air conditioners get abandoned in forests and you wonder where he/she went and why you screwed up so bad. 

So we could analyze the Pavement lyrics: "I was dressed for success/and success it never comes," harkening back to the point where Grandaddy almost-but-not-quite broke big time, but let's just go straight to the end, where "Last time, last time was the best time." Indeed.