Live Music

[Sky]

Apparently I'm the minority in my old-timey non-hippity-hoppity or indie artsy music lovation, but I had to share the lineup of music I'm seeing this weekend.

Tonight it's Blues Traveler for $20 at the local brewery. Lots of cheap beer and bbq ftw, little to no security with excellent front-row stage access. Sunday it's Derek Trucks Band, Allman Brothers Band, and Tom Petty at SPAC. Confirmed rumor that Stevie Nicks will be there with Petty and that it might be his last tour. Already reserved the soundboard cds of the Allmans show for our trip to Maine next week.

All in all, a hell of a music weekend imo. Saw Dickie Betts and Great Southern at that brewery venue last week, it was intense. Last show sharing the stage with his son's band, three great guitarists in full jam-mode.

Wish I could get out to see Black Label Society and RHCP/Mars Volta.

[murdoc]

As I've gotten a bit older my live music experiences are getting further and further apart. This year will be the first year in a looong time that I've seen more than a single live act.

Saw Audioslave when they came through here last October-ish. I'm not a huge Audioslave fan, but I heard that they were going to perform some SoundGarden and some Rage Against the Machine, which they did. I was pretty damn happy with the set. I was especially happy that they did 'Hunger Strike' from the Temple of the Dog CD, which I hadn't heard in a long time.

In September I have tickets for the RHCP and am pretty excited about that show. Not even sure who, if anyone opens for them, but should be good stuff.

[stray]

God, I love Chris Cornell, but he sounds like crap these days. The Audioslave albums are OK, but live, he's almost unbearable.

What he gets for smoking and screaming like a banshee for 20 years, I guess.


Sky, Hip hop can be performed live too ;)

You know me by now though, I dig old stuff as well. I like a little bit of everything. And when I say that, I don't mean it like it's generally meant (by people who can't talk about music). I truly do like all kinds of music. I might dislike some genres more than most, but there are no true exceptions.

Not much going on in my town this weekend. There's always big shows, but I avoid those (unless someone else is paying). There's an old gal from down here though, playing tomorrow night. Rosie Flores. Never seen her live, but she's been making great albums for years. A truly kickass guitar player as well....Might as well be the Queen of Rockabilly if there already isn't one.

[murdoc]

God, I love Chris Cornell, but he sounds like crap these days. The Audioslave albums are OK, but live, he's almost unbearable.

What he gets for smoking and screaming like a banshee for 20 years, I guess.

I was actually REALLY impressed with his vocals at the show here. I went out and bought the 'Live in Cuba' DVD and was REALLY disappointed in the vocals. He must of had a good day when he was here, or I had enough beers and was happy to hear some Soundgarden tunes that I ignored how he was sounding.

He did sound awesome on a acoustic version of Black Hole Sun that he did. That I'm sure of.

[Hokers]

Got nothin for this weekend, but going to see Cheap Trick and Asia next month.

I'd be a bit suprised if this is his last tour, other rumors are that he is working on a rockin +heartbreakers album that is half done.  I would think that he might have one more tour. 

Bought the solo album yesterday but have not listened to it yet.

[stray]

God, I love Chris Cornell, but he sounds like crap these days. The Audioslave albums are OK, but live, he's almost unbearable.

What he gets for smoking and screaming like a banshee for 20 years, I guess.

I was actually REALLY impressed with his vocals at the show here. I went out and bought the 'Live in Cuba' DVD and was REALLY disappointed in the vocals. He must of had a good day when he was here, or I had enough beers and was happy to hear some Soundgarden tunes that I ignored how he was sounding.

He did sound awesome on a acoustic version of Black Hole Sun that he did. That I'm sure of.

Hope it was better than this version:

Black Hole Sun

I guess that version isn't too bad though, at least compared other recent performances.

Go back 15 years though. It's amazing how much of a difference there is:

Four Walled World

I purposely chose a hardcore low quality video, with a fairly unrecognizable Temple of the Dog song. The guy is still kicks ass in spite of all that.

Another great performance...10 years ago:

Burden In My Hand

[UD_Delt]

Sounds like a good weekend Sky. Derek Trucks is awesome but I keep missing him every time he comes through town. I caught the Allman's a couple years back at the first Bonnaroo. Caught Dickie Betts at the HOB in Cleveland last year.

Last week I caught a little festival concert. Got to check out:

Wolfmother - Awesome band. As good live as I would expect from their CD. I was just pissed off they only got about a 40 minute set and the keyboardist managed to jack up his keyboard so about 5 minutes was wasted getting it hooked back up. Because of that they only got about 6 songs in.

She Wants Revenge - Interesting band. Kind of ambivalent on them, they're a little too retro 80's for my taste.

Death Cab for Cutie - Boring as hell. I can listen to their CD as background music but seeing them live I just had the urge to fall asleep. All their new stuff is just way too slow.

Sonic Youth - I tried to get into this but it poured rain on us the entire time. Would have been much better if we weren't soaking wet.

Flaming Lips - The rain had stopped and we were starting to dry out when the Flips went on. As usual they put on a fantastic show. I would highly recommend seeing them at the first available opportunity. The only thing that pissed me off was the political ending. They did a cover of War Pigs set to G. Bush and Iraq war footage. I personally hate listening to politics from musicians/celebs. If you want to include it in your lyrics that's fine but this was just a bit too overt and not even their own song.

[Telemediocrity]

Best live show I've ever been to was Dead Prez, a relatively militant black-power hip hop group.

The show was in Seattle; naturally, the crowd was 99.9% white ultra-liberal college kids.

Dead Prez was more than a little bit shocked to see the all-white crowd chanting along to lines like "I'm an African! / I'm an African! / And I know what's happenin'!".  They refused to play an encore, started a stump speech about how the black people need to rise up, and then, realizing there were no black people, muttered something about how "and, uh, the white people have their role to play too - goodnight!" and took off.  I think they played maybe half their set.

[Surlyboi]

I caught Damien Rice a couple of weeks back.

Brilliant fucking show.

[Samwise]

Starboard Watch puts on a good show.  Wear a pirate outfit to one of their gigs and get a free rum and coke.  Yar!

[stray]

What does coke have to do with Pirates?  :-D

[Samwise]

They advertise "rum drink", but the bar is stingy and won't give you anything REALLY piratey, like, say, a pina colada.    :-(

[Righ]

Ye be lucky if ye get but a mug o grog, ye squiffy waister.

[Moaner]

My brother-in-law’s good friend throws a huge metal show every year just north of Detroit.  Well, he did some networking this year and actually pulled some known acts.  Silverstein was the biggie (blegh), but he also booked The Black Dahlia Murder, who is one of my favorites.

There were a couple good metal bands there, Premonitions of War, Ed Gein, Drop Dead, but Black Dahlia put them all to shame.  It was an amazing show, they were as tight as they sound on their album, and the guys are some of the friendliest I’ve ever met.  While helping them move their shit off and on stage I got some pictures taken with the guitarist and singer which I may link later on depending on how bad they are :)

[CmdrSlack]

Not really metal, but live music nonetheless....we're taking our daughter (6 months) to see They Might Be Giants at the Lincoln Park Zoo next Friday.  The Saturday after that is Mudhoney (the kid won't be attending, it's at a bar, not the zoo).  This almost makes up for us missing the Rollins Band when they came thru town earlier this month.

It always reminds me how I need to be keeping up with our local free newspaper's arts/concert section more often -- Chicago gets great shows, and I just normally don't even know about it.

[stray]

Just wondering....Have you lived there long? I think Chicago would be amazing, just for local acts alone....Let alone all the people who want to play there. Some great stuff coming next month. For example:

The Beat Kitchen 9/3

The Avengers, The Effigies

The Avengers! I don't care how old they are now.

Effigies are an old Chicago band. They rock.


The Hideout 9/9

Big Black, Didjits, The Ex, Killdozer, Jon & Kat, PW Long, Negative Approach, The New Year, Pegboy, Sally Timms, Scratch Acid, Shellac, Uzeda

Pretty much Big Black/Jesus Lizard/Naked Raygun alumni. The best indie/punk rock Chicago has to offer. Go see all of those bands :)

On the next day...

Hideout 10/10

Arcwelder, The Black Heart Procession, Brick Layer Cake, Calexico, Cash Audio, CocoRosie, Enon, Monorchid, Pinback, Quasi, Seam, Tara Jane O'Neil


Less Chicago bands here. And besides Cash Audio (kinda racuous, fuzz laden blues), this seems like the more chilled out show. Sounds great though (if you like surf/Morricone instrumentals, check out Calexico at least).

[CmdrSlack]

Oh, I grew up here, I'm fully aware that there's cool stuff happening all the time.  The problem is that since my daughter was born, I'm not keeping up as much as I should be.

Hence, my random lack of any knowledge of anything past the shows I'm planning on attending.  Thanks for that listing for Big Black tho, that'll be a good night out. (ETA:  not to mention Pegboy and Shellac)

[stray]

You might want to reserve tickets soon, if you do plan to go. I'm sure it'll be packed.

Touch and Go Block Party

[UD_Delt]

Not really metal, but live music nonetheless....we're taking our daughter (6 months) to see They Might Be Giants at the Lincoln Park Zoo next Friday. 

Don't forget ear plugs for the little one. Probably won't be as loud as an indoor concert but probably louder than she should be exposed to.

[stray]

[edit] Oops.

[Sky]

Sky, Hip hop can be performed live too

I'm not real impressed with the hiphop I've seen live. I like Snoop, but when you get a dozen guys on stage with mics talking over each other, and just a DJ providing music, I'm not enjoying things. Someone like the Roots, with a hot band, that's totally different.

BT was great as always. Having the audience so close to the stage at that venue always pumps the band up. They played a decent setlist, most of the songs I'd hoped to hear (Love & Greed, Crash Burn) but not the one I wanted to hear most (Mountains Win Again). High energy show, good time. Much better turnout than Dickie Betts, I guess that's name recognition for you. Lots of annoying college age kids on cell phones :)

The ABB show was amazing, if time-constrained. The worst part was missing Derek Trucks because the traffic was atrocious (sold out show). Then we had to park in some camping area a mile from the venue and hike over. Totally nuts, we wasted an hour and a half just getting in the venue. ABB featured Gregg a bit more out front, and he came out from behind the keys to play acoustic guitar on Melissa. There was a nice Liz Reed done completely unlike any I've previously heard and they closed with the always great Whipping Post. Scored the Instant Live CDs, great mix job on them as always.

Petty was interesting. I like a lot of his music, and my girl really likes him, so we had a good time. But I haven't seen a 'mainstream' show in a looong time, I mostly go to see people who are primarily interested in musicianship. There were some parts I was kind of mindboggled. The crowd cheered at the oddest time (these are the folks who were reading the newspaper when ABB was on...). It was odd. Petty would play a little 6-note figure on guitar and throw up his hands to huge accolades (there was a lot of him throwing up his hands to huge accolades). After so many years of seeing bands that don't showboat, it was pretty jarring. But a decent show, played some good tunes, even if the crowd mostly cheered the big MTV tunes. Oh, and WASPS can't dance.

Some of the greatest show I've seen...Allmans last year at NYS Fair with the Juke Horns. Blues Traveler in 98. Pantera on the Far Beyond Driven tour. Metallica on Master of Puppets, opening for the worst Ozzy show I've seen...Oz was in full glam mode with big hair and lamé suit (Ultimate Sin era). Queensryche touring behind the EP in a bar. Slayer at that same bar...Manson behind his first album at that bar, Deftones behind there second there, Butthole Surfers in 86 there. I miss that place, they don't get shows like they used to (The Lost Horizon in Syracuse). For years, every metal or punk band (DKs, Jerks, etc) played there every tour.

[Viin]

I don't go see bands much, unless I'm dragged along to see some local band who has a friend of a friend in it.

But, my wife and I are going to see The Fray at Red Rocks at the end of September - that should be fun.

[UD_Delt]

But, my wife and I are going to see The Fray at Red Rocks at the end of September - that should be fun.

My wife had tickets to The Fray at HOB in Cleveland. But she and her friends sold them when they got to the show and saw the average age was around 13/14.

It was also the same day I got back from a week in Vegas though so there were other things on her mind as well...

[CmdrSlack]

Not really metal, but live music nonetheless....we're taking our daughter (6 months) to see They Might Be Giants at the Lincoln Park Zoo next Friday. 

Don't forget ear plugs for the little one. Probably won't be as loud as an indoor concert but probably louder than she should be exposed to.

Do they make ear plugs in tiny sizes?  She's 6 mos, so I figured the best we'd be able to do would be cotton balls.

[CmdrSlack]

You might want to reserve tickets soon, if you do plan to go. I'm sure it'll be packed.

Touch and Go Block Party

Sweet, there's still tickets-a-plenty!

BTW, if you're ever in Chicago, you should really check out the bar where this is all happening.  The Hideout is next to impossible to find if you don't know where it is (aptly named, etc.).  It's a kickass venue and one of those places where you don't feel like a tool no matter who is there.

[Trippy]

Do they make ear plugs in tiny sizes?  She's 6 mos, so I figured the best we'd be able to do would be cotton balls.

You can ask your pediatrician or you can do it sealed headphones/ear muffler-style:

[CmdrSlack]

Do they make ear plugs in tiny sizes?  She's 6 mos, so I figured the best we'd be able to do would be cotton balls.

You can ask your pediatrician or you can do it sealed headphones/ear muffler-style:

Our pediatrician SUCKS, hence, we're lookin' for a new one.  I wonder if my wireless headphones would work for that....meh, off to Google!

[Sky]

Dude, get a babysitter. Everyone sitting around you will appreciate it. Concerts are no place for infants.

[UD_Delt]

Dude, get a babysitter. Everyone sitting around you will appreciate it. Concerts are no place for infants.

Depends on the concert, and that's coming from someone who's mostly anti-children. If it was a club concert I would say no way but if it's an outdoor concert then I see no issue with it.

Every year we go to the Cleveland Orchestra's 4th of July series at an outdoor venue and there's always tons of kids at those and it's totally appropriate. Whereas if I went to see the Orchestra at Severance Hall (indoor) then I'd be pissed if I was next to an infant or fussy child.

[NiX]

I saw John Mayer last night at a small club. Despite the heat and obscene amount of screaming at nothing, it was pretty damn amazing. When he solos it's a thing of beauty. He also has quite the sense of humor.

[Sky]

John Mayer irks me. Not just his seeming self-obsession, but he hogged the stage when guesting with Buddy Guy's band. Dude...you don't hog Guy's stage. GE Smith, who could wipe his butt with whippysnappy Mayer wouldn't even solo over Guy, deferring to the master talent. It's just not classy to be a stage hog.

[NiX]

I will admit he does have an ego problem and that he should never hog like that. None the less, last nights concert was still freaking awesome.

[CmdrSlack]

Dude, get a babysitter. Everyone sitting around you will appreciate it. Concerts are no place for infants.

It's outside at the zoo.  Please, I think I know what's an appropriate place to take my kid, dude.

[Sky]

Easy, tiger. I just point that out because evidently everyone at every concert I've seen kids and infants at thought it was appropriate, too. You didn't exactly mention it was at the zoo, eh?

 

[CmdrSlack]

Easy, tiger. I just point that out because evidently everyone at every concert I've seen kids and infants at thought it was appropriate, too. You didn't exactly mention it was at the zoo, eh?

 

ETA -- Uh, I said it was at the zoo

.we're taking our daughter (6 months) to see They Might Be Giants at the Lincoln Park Zoo next Friday. 

I've seen kids at a Social D concert -- the band brought them up on stage.  These kids were at least four or five years old though.  I guess the question is this:  is it the mere presence of kids that bugs you or kids not behaving?  There's a big difference, IMO.  Personally, I'd not take my daughter to a concert indoors, but for outdoor stuff (especially with lawn seats) I don't see as big of a problem with it.