In September I heard of the nonprofit organization Pablove and sent an email through their site offering our services. Free ice cream and a foundation that raises funds and awareness for children’s cancer programs kinda go hand in hand. About a month later I received and email from Sneak Attack Media about a Pablove Benefit at the Avalon in Hollywood. I wasn’t exactly sure how free cream would fit into the concert but reached out and everything fell into place.
Benefit concerts are a crap shoot. Sometimes there’s too many bands or no common thread between the music or…. they’re just not that interesting. This wasn’t the case with this show. Band of Horses, Tom Morello, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Tom Gabel from Against Me, Shirley Manson (with Butch Vig) and a bunch of other artists performed short sets using a lot of shared instruments so there was always music being played or coming up shortly.
Aaron and I were parked out front slinging cream for the first half of the show. There wasn’t too much traffic but it was still fun to try to push cream on people walking by – some heading to the show, some just wandering down Vine St. We missed Shirley Manson covering Bowie’s “Life on Mars.” I’m not 100% sure but I think that she visited Pablo (whom Pablove was founded for) in the hospital and she asked him what song he wanted to her to play for him and “Life on Mars” was his request. Check out a clip from the concert:
When we finally locked up the truck and headed in Rooney was in the middle of their set so AC and I grabbed a couple PBRs from the back tub then headed out front. There were quite a bit of people there but still plenty of room to not feel crammed. Soon after, Tom Gabel from Against Me rocked a couple solo tracks from his new album and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club stole the show. It was impressive to see them rock out their songs in a stripped down way. Tom Morello is a master of the high energy, one man show. Taking cues from Billy Bragg and his band Rage Against the Machine he commanded everyone’s attention and was a perfect fit for the night.
The Avalon, and it’s predecessor The Palace, have a long history of double booking their nights. I remember when I was younger I used to get upset that we had to be out by 10:30 because of some dance club happening afterwards. Now…. I was happy that I wasn’t going to end up getting home at 2 in the morning. Band of Horses was headlining and they barreled through their three-song set without their drummer. For the most part it worked and it was cool to be able to pick apart their sound a bit and focus on the harmonies and multiple guitars on stage. They’re in town working on their third album which will be out sometime in 2010. Wonder if the new song they played for us at Lollapalooza will be on it? Hehe
Keep up with all Pablove happenings at www.pablove.org. Hopefully we’ll be able to continue to work with them to give away ice cream at the children’s hospitals they stop at around the country.
