Artist you have seen live the most times: Hazel
Part of the perk of working at a music store was getting free tickets from the label reps and I took advantage of it whenever I could. I stole the idea of snapping a photo of my ticket stubs from Tom but many of them aren't represented here. I've seen Sleater-Kinney 6 times and Ani and Natalie tie with 5, but Matt and I figured we went to at least a dozen Hazel shows in their heyday. (mid '90's)
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| How many times did I stumble through these doors? |
Unfortunately, so many of them were at venues like Satyricon, Berbati's Pan, The Oh Hell Cafe, and La Luna, often the only proof of attendance was a hand stamp that would sweat itself away by the end of the night. I think these gritty locales were part of the charm of seeing Hazel live. It was like being admitted to a club house in your friend's cool older brother's basement lair. I often pushed to the very front, risking life and limb and eardrums to get a good look at the band. I could reach out and touch Pete. I had to dodge Jody's spit and Fred's pitchers of water.
The sound was also appealing to me.
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| L-R: Brady, Jody, Pete and Fred |
I love male-female harmonies and Pete and Jody were the first band I had really heard that incorporated this to punk music. Also, they had a dancer. It wasn't high art. It wasn't even great live music but more like some odd sort of street theater with a house band. While grunge was ruling Seattle, Portland embraced a more lighthearted indie sound played by outcasts and freaks. Hazel was my favorite of the bunch.
I wish I had a good version of their live music but this link was the closest thing I could find on YouTube. It won't embed and there is the end of one song before the actual song starts but it is a good quality performance given it was recorded in the days before video phones. Or you can settle for the "Day-Glo" video below to get a pretty close depiction of what you'd see at a live show:
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