The Breeders. Slime's. 11.14.08.

I'm pretty sure Kim Deal is heavily medicated.

She's gained a lot of weight, and it seemed movement beyond a strum or two was way over her energy limit. Her hair was long and stringy and settled on her shoulders in a tired way. She did not smile. She did not say, "Hey, We're the Breeders, we're from Dayton!" Kim was barely there and it made her sweat a lot too. Looking at her made me sad.

Kelley is the new star of the Breeders. She's the the same size Kim was when D. and I met her. A healthy-sized woman with a huge smile, a clear voice and a good-time-girl sense of humor.

They explained the absence of Carrie Bradley this time. "She fell in love and moved to New York. She's very happy. It's disgusting." Guess who said that? The new star of the show. Kim said nothing.

I'm worried about Kim Deal. She appears to have lost her joie de vivre. Kim's joie has gone missing right along with her beer habit. I can't help but notice these two notable qualities grasped hands and left the building at the same time.

Slim's was practically empty. It was the first non-sold out Breeders show I've ever been to - spanning some time, like since 1994. Kim. Kim!! Dude! What happened to your love??

I was five people back from the stage and able to dance like a maniac. Just before the show I made a couple of friends. They LOVE the Breeders, but the guy had never seen them, "Oh, they're always amazing," I told them, "Always a fantastic show. They rip." UHHHHH, oops.

Wrong call, a bad night. Bad call, a wrong night.

They opened with Tipp City and played only one other Amps song, the only other one that shreds, Empty Glasses, "Where's my other shooooe?!" We also heard Roi, New Year, Cannonball, No Aloha - maybe the best song of the night, I Just Wanna Get Along, Divine Hammer, Bang On, Shocker in Gloomtown, It's the Love (Kim did one thing perfect and that was the little tiny "OW!" during that song), Happiness is a Warm Gun, Safari, and what was almost the most perfect closer ever - the beautiful Fortunately Gone.

What a shame the band didn't end it there, that the show had to end with the sad silence of a crowd who couldn't get it up enough to invite them back with clapping, whooping, stomping nor screaming.

As I considered leaving before the end of the show to sit in my car and smoke a bowl, Kim and Co. came back with Overglazed, an exciting song, one that would have been another good closer, but not for a band that has lost all sense of themselves. Instead they chose to end the night with their insanely boring Spanish song, "Regalame Esta Noche," which followed.

There is one song I have not mentioned. One song was played that personified the whole evening as a sad, overweight woman who's lost her joie...Drivin' on 9. What, you say! Nuh-uh. Drivin' on 9 is always a highlight! Um, yeahhhh, not anymore. Not without Carrie Bradley, not without the redhead dread girl and certainly not with Kelley playing the violin that she learned "just for this song." I have to say this, and it bums me out, but Kelley has not learned to play the violin yet. What she has learned is how to touch the bow to the strings and make popping sounds that are weak, out of tune and out of time.

The Breeders are on crutches. I hope they heal soon.