Pacific Coliseum, Vancouver, British Columbia
Other Bands on the Bill: Pat Travers, Vanilla Fudge
So my day started about 2:00pm when I boarded a bus from downtown Victoria to make my way to
Vancouver to catch the show. I was going to meet a buddy of mine on the ferry and get to the
concert with him. On the Vancouver side of the ferry, I had my sister pick us up in the
Soccer Mom-mobile and drop us off at the Pacific Coliseum. We got to the Coliseum around 6:45pm
early enough for us to get in for the 7:30pm start.
The Pacific Coliseum is not a bad venue to see a show. I saw the Cult there twice in 1989 and
1991. The venue holds some 10,000 - 12,000 people depending on the setup. I guess the
promotor over-estimated the size of the crowds because when we got inside the venue, we found
that two whole sections were roped off (the stage had been moved forward several meters).
Anybody that had tickets in those sections had to go to a table to get reassigned seats.
My tickets were not particularly good, but we found that we were able to just move down about 20
rows to better seats without any problems. There were lots of empty seats throughout the venue.
In retrospect, I think they should have chosen a different venue for the show, and I'd be
interested to hear what it's like at other shows on this Canadian tour. My best guess is that
there were 4,000 to 5,000 people at this show.
Pat Travers started the show at 7:30. The announcer mentioned that he was Canadian. Didn't know
that. They played a 40 minute set, that didn't really have any memorable moments. It was OK,
I guess, but not really my kind of music.
Vanilla Fudge came on next, starting at about 8:30. Man, this is a band that was definitely worth
watching. The keyboardist was probably the most animated keyboardist I've ever seen. Waving his
hands around, waving his legs around, it was very entertaining to watch. I recognized a lot of
the songs they played, however, I don't know how many songs they played were originals. They
did a cover of U2's One as the second song. An interesting take on it, for sure.
Shortly after 9:30 came the Doors. The crowd in Vancouver was LOUD. In addition to being loud,
it was extremely diverse. We saw people in their 60s, and one young listener who was under 2.
There was the whole range, many tweens with their parents, and a good number of young adults.
The most populous age group were the 40-somethings, I think. There was lots of merchandise, however,
I wasn't particularly impressed by any of it. The best shirt, I thought, had the band picture
on the front and dates on the back. It was $40. They had underwear, stickers, keychains, other
shirts and a denim jacket ($110). There was a lot of people wearing different Doors shirts, I
must have seen about 100 different designs within the Coliseum.
I'm going to have to get the setlist later from idafan, I just don't remember the order of
the songs, but I know they did do a great acoustic interlude in the middle consisting of The
Crystal Ship and People Are Strange. Very nice, I thought this was one of the best
parts of the show, highlighting Ian, Ray and Robbie. They also included Eagle In The
Whirlpool, but didn't really talk about it that much. The encore consisted of Light My
Fire. Ian went off stage after his first section of singing while Ray and Robbie did their
thing, and invited about a dozen "go-go girls" on stage to dance for a while. They seemed to
enjoy themselves, while Ian watched from the back of the stage.
I was very impressed at how animated Ian was during the whole show. So many Ian-isms present,
twirling the microphone on the cord, shaking the maracas, and of course, the tambourine. He
seemed to be having a few troubles with them in the beginning, he kept changing them out until
he got one he liked. Lots of "Ian dancing" throughout the whole show. Like I say, the Vancouver
crowd was loud and I think Ian fed his energy directly from them. He seemed to go
through a lot of liquid, too, as his drink guy was constantly giving him a new drink. My tip
for the next show: give him a bigger glass!
Setlist:
Roadhouse Blues
Break On Through
Love Me Two Times
When The Music's Over
Peace Frog
Five To One
Crystal Ship
People Are Strange
Eagle In The Whirlpool
Touch Me
LA Woman
Encore:
Light My Fire