Episode 233: Portland, OR – 5/17/1992

This episode, we rock Portland! May 17th is former drummer Dave Abbruzzese’s birthday, so we decided to go back to the only show where he played with the band on this date from 1992. A lot of the conversation will be directed towards Dave and how well he was clicking with the band just less than a year since joining them. His bombastic, hard pounding style is in the forefront of this show, and we’ll focus on songs like Oceans, Why Go and State Of Love And Trust that he’s a standout on. This show is also the debut of Dave’s first song he wrote for the band, Angel. Will we get to hear from Dave himself about the development of the song? You’ll just have to tune in!

We’ll discuss the meteoric rise of the band during this time period. The show happened days after the first airing of MTV Unplugged and only a few weeks away from the iconic Pinkpop show, so their popularity was just on the verge of skyrocketing. This is also a great show for Mike McCready who is showing off his talents in songs such as Alive, Black, SOLAT and Porch, and we’ll get to talk about some era-specific improvs as well.

For the question of the week, we’ll read your answers on what songs from the post-Dave A era that you’d think he would excel at playing, and our Gear Guru segments will talk about the overall raw sound of the band during this era, and touch up a little bit on channeling their influences during Porch.