Nothing lasts forever, only fades away - The Hooters at the Electric Factory

I saw the Hooters in concert 19 years ago (yes, I was 11). They played at the local Catholic school's gym. It was a benefit show for a little girl who needed a bone marrow transplant. And it was a pretty big deal at the time, I guess. They had made it pretty big with Nervous Night and they had just released One Way Home.

Friday's show was also a big deal, at least to a lot of people in Philly. When we arrived at the Electric Factory after work, they were lined up for blocks around the corner to get in. I was surprised. The show was sold out and I can honestly say I've never seen that many people at the Electric Factory before. It was crazy.

We were harassed by a scary dude in the parking lot. I acted crazy so that he'd leave us alone. I said the most off the wall thing to Paul that came to mind and the guy just looked at us an walked away. The look on Paul's face was priceless because he didn't know what I was doing. This was advice that I recently got from the Opie and Anthony show about what to do when approached by someone in a parking lot...

"Excuse me, which way is north?"

"Uh..."

Bam! And then the next thing you hear is "Just hear those sleigh bells jinglin'" But wasn't it just summer? Why are you in the hospital? Why aren't there any mirrors around you? Why is your mom in the corner crying?

But I digress...

We got to the end of the long line and finally got in. We made our way up stairs to the bar area, found a spot and got beer (in that order, right, Paul?). There was an opening band. I can't remember their name. Ike? Ipe? They sing that song that goes "Baby do you wanna take a ride into Philadelphia?" I don't know if they play that song in other parts of the country, but you hear it around here sometimes. I'm not dying to get their CD or anything, but they weren't bad, I guess.

The Hooters came on with one of their later songs that I'm not familiar with. Then they went into "Day by Day." For the most part, they played a lot of slower crap and stuff that sucked. They covered "The Boys of Summer," which was slow, but okay. They did the bad version of "Fightin' on the Same Side," which really disappointed me. If fact, they really didn't play anything from Amore, surprising to me, considering that the crowd was probably full of die hard Philly fans who would have loved it. Fairly late into the first set, they played "Karla with a K" and said that they'd be rereleasing a newer version for hurricane victims in New Orleans. That's cool. They played "And We Danced" and the place went nuts. They came back out three times for encores. The first time, they completely shut off the lights on stage and played "All You Zombies." During the second encore, they came out and played songs that they wrote that were performed by other artists like "Time After Time" and "What If God Was One of Us?" At some point during this encore, they also did a little medley that ended with a verse of "Don't Knock It 'Til You Try It." They ended the final encore with "Blood From a Stone" and I was relieved because I was starting to think they weren't going to play it. It's one of my favorite songs due to the use of the word "bullshit."

Overall, it was okay. I guess I'm disappointed because they didn't play much from my two favorite albums, Amore and One Way Home. Well, they played some stuff from One Way Home, but it was the commercialized stuff. I would have been psyched with "Engine 999" or the title track. And they seemed to still be dressed in their 80's outfits. Rob Hyman is still hot and I'd still have 10,000 of his babies. But dude, the white pants and the vest have got to go.