Cranberries in KL (Roses Tour)

Venue: Stadium Negara
Date: Wednesday, 4/4/2012

Bought my ticket to The Cranberries concert stinking early - like back in February. Then I found out Celcom had a slightly better discount (20%) on tickets a few weeks ago. But I didn't want to risk getting a bad seat so close to the concert, so I didn't. 

I call myself a fan, but I only own one album that I won in a contest years ago - Bury the Hatchet. Which I liked. Haven't heard it in years, since they went on that decade-long hiatus they're now out of.

I remember getting to the stadium before 8.30 p.m. Thanks to the free Wi-Fi by Celcom (the telco sponsor) I wasn't bored stupid waiting for the concert to begin by tweeting and Facebook-ing random updates. Took me by surprise when it finally did because I was expecting for it to start after 9 p.m. and the house lights went dark shortly before that. Was too lazy to write down the setlist, so I recorded every song because I won't be able to remember every single song off the top of my head. My camera battery lasted most of the concert until the last song in the encore. Typical :P Concert ended around 10 something, which gave people plenty of time before the LRT stations close at midnight.

Better ones I took, noisy or not

Watching Dolores O' Riordan dance on stage I can't help but think, "I've seen it somewhere, and on a regular basis..." and then I knew. It was Craig Ferguson's stupid dance for every time Secretariat (the Late Late Show's "horse") made its appearance during the tweet and email segments. You can YouTube it.

Even though they're promoting their latest album Roses, they still played a lot of old songs. Which was great, because I don't think not many people have heard it, let alone bought it (I have it, but didn't buy - ssh..!). It was a little dead in the stadium when they played some of the songs off that album. Everyone was dying to hear Zombie. 

I enjoyed myself enough at the concert - Almost lost my voice, did a lot of headbanging and miming along in my seat. While I would've preferred to see them pre-hiatus, buggers can't be choosers.

Random bitchy thoughts after the jump - some of which I tweeted while I was still there.

Related articles

• The Cranberries are coming to KL! (lifeasacynic.blogspot.com)

So here are the random, (not that) bitchy thoughts...

• Only official merchandise sold inside the stadium was the usual tour tee shirt (with the tour dates on the back) in black and white, mens and women's sizes, RM90 each. I bought one.
• How early do you have to be to get parking near the stadium? Where can you park if not illegally on the side of the street?
• Aside from Richard Ashcroft, I'm always happy when there's no opening act.
• I kind of don't understand why people take camwhore pictures of themselves at gigs - those pictures are all about the same; you could have taken it anywhere and not be the wiser.
• Silly people - don't you know you can stock up on glow sticks at Daiso?
• So did not know that there was an "official yogurt". Heh.
• They put actual barriers in the free standing area to separate people who paid RM80 more than the people that didn't.
• I think most of the audience only perked up when they finally played Zombie before the encore. Typical. Haha.
• I wonder how many people only know Dreams because of the Faye Wong cover way back when.
• No thanks to the ladies behind me, I now know some people think "encore" is pronounced as it appears. Adoi. The pedant in me wanted to correct them so badly, but I would not be able to make a clean getaway, so I didn't. 

I will admit tears were shed hearing songs from my tweenhood, like Linger.

PS. As it turns out, if you're taking the trains (yes, plural) down to Stadium Negara from PJ, it's relatively less annoying to change trains at Masjid Jamek and take the Ampang line to Hang Tuah station than the monorail. At least the Jamek interchange is better lit; walking around the construction from KL Sentral to get to the monorail station just pisses me off.