November 09, 2006 - Cleveland, OH - Hot One

Venue:  Beachland Tavern

This small show was the first one that I attended with my former girlfriend Megan.  She and I were into alot of the same musics and we just generally shared a love of live music.  I have her to thank for later going to my first Lollapalooza, and instilling in me a love of music festivals.  I also have her to thank for this list of concerts, because she was the only person I had ever met who kept a list of the shows she had attended and it inspired me to make a list of my own.  The ever growing Word document with all the concerts I've attended dates back to 2006 or 2007.

Hot One was a side project rock band featuring Nathan Larson of Shudder to Think, they only released one album, and it's actually pretty good.  Megan was into a lot of smaller 90s alternative rock, shoegaze, and post-hardcore bands, which is why I would see this band as well as bands like VAST and Silverchair while I was going out with her.

Hot One played 'dirty' alt-rock with a swagger and attitude that reminded you of Eagles of Death Metal.  Their album was alright and they were alright live.  They had a song called Fucking that I still like and think about from time to time, even though I probably haven't heard it in 5+ years.

There were maybe 15 people at the show that night while Hot One was playing, and afterwards it was easy to meet the band and talk to everyone.  At one point Megan and I were talking to Nathan Larson about his voice, and I bring up a Rolling Stone article I read about how Bono from U2 has to be on pure oxygen on the plane in between shows in order to preserve his ability to sing.

Nathan humored me and said that Bono has to do that because of how much he sings and all II remember is feeling like such an asshole.  It might have been all in the head, but I still cringe when I think about bring up Bono and U2 and that dumb Rolling Stone anecdote to this poor guy and with his 15 fans in a shitty Tavern in Cleveland.

Hot One wouldn't make another record, and more importantly, I wouldn't bring up Bono to anymore struggling 90s artists that are just trying to make it long after their peak of popularity.