Archive for the 'Concerts' Category

Moby totally destroys Hoboken

Published
by
Thom
on April 16, 2008
in Concerts
. Closed

And here lies the reason this site will never truly succeed. I am finally updating again, only to talk about last week. What a posting schedule. Anyway, early last week I managed to stumble upon a very important post. It started with simply noticing that the header on Music Snobbery listed Moby as part of his 3rd Anniversary show at Maxwell’s. After doing a little research I realized that he was indeed talking about THE Moby. Since word travels around these parts rather quickly, I was amazed to find myself able to score a pair of tickets for such a mythical event. But score I did… indeed do… er, yeah…

So Thursday night I headed over to my old stomping grounds to check out a couple local acts and one of my all time favorites. The evening started with a French pop outfit from New York City, La Laque. And what can I say? I’m a sucker for anything related to French New Wave movement. The real selling point for La Laque is front woman Devery, who plays the part of the sexy chantreuse so perfectly it’s almost shocking that she’s American. But beyond pulling off the look and vibe, her voice is fantastic.

The band has a fun and frisky sound, but obviously don’t want to be pigeonholed as evident by Ben Shapiro animalistic drumming or Michael Leviton’s screeching vocals on one of the tracks. I’ll need to re-visit these guys as I get acquainted with the 5 track EP they were selling.

Next up was another local act, Salt & Samovar. Right off the bat I’ll let it be known that I get a little nervous when “local acts” take the stage, because too many of them turn out to be just another generic, punk/indie/rock band that cranks the volume knob to make up for a lack of talent. But these guys… damn… what a show. Everything they played seemed to be coming from a familiar place, yet was fresh and new at the same time. It was like watching Dr. Dog cover the Allman Brothers or Bob Dylan’s cousin deciding the alt-country scenes wasn’t psychedelic enough.

The guitar work… the harmonizing… damn. So yeah, I highly recommend checking them out. And my car is getting quite familiar with their debut full length, “Old Joy, New Joy.”

At this point the evening was already a smashing success. Moby could have walked on stage and done a twenty minute a cappella version of “Body Rock” followed by half an hour of Britney Spears and Mariah Carrey covers and it still would have been fun. But he wasn’t about to be shown up by these “youngsters” and pulled no punches in a rocking set that saw him cover the likes of Lou Reed, Bruce Springsteen, and, yes, even Billy Idol.

When it comes down to it, the man loves to play. Chris from Music Snobbery covered it very well with his intro to Moby and commented on just why he would come to such a small venue. This is what it’s all about for a musician. I spoke to him after the show and told him it was yet another great performance (my third time) and how much fun he looked to be having. He said it was such a shame having to come down off that stage. I believe him. Whenever an artist can laugh at mistakes, they must be having a good time:

Probably the highlight of the evening was the rousing rendition of “Honey” (WARNING: Very loud and very NSFW introduction):

For full details on the evening, and the great story behind how it all came together, make sure to read Music Snobbery’s account. A hearty thank you goes out to Chris for making it happen and, of course, to Moby for putting on another incredible show.

Pat Metheny Trio at The Keswick Theatre

Published
by
Thom
on March 18, 2008
in Concerts
. Closed

I feel woefully inadequate to write a review of jazz music, much less of an actual jazz concert. As much as I enjoy jazz, it has never been a big part of my collection which can make it very difficult to talk about when knowledge is so integral to the experience. Nevertheless, when I saw that Pat Metheny was touring with Christian McBride and Antonio Sanchez, it was a show I had to check out.

For those unfamiliar with Pat Metheny, he is a guitar virtuoso. And that’s putting it mildly. He does things with the guitar that can leave you scratching your head. The music can be subtle and gentle yet at the same time intense and engaging. His work under the Pat Metheny Group has an almost dream-like quality that I was first introduced to, believe it or not, while watching the pseudo-classic 80s film Fandango. But this show was a tad different as it featured a true jazz trio.

To start things off, Metheny came out on the stage and played a couple solo guitar works. These pieces meandered to and from melodies that had a familiar sound but avoided anything cohesive enough to get a labeled as a song… well, maybe the latin-tinged one might, but the definitely not the first. While they were pleasant enough, I was anxiously awaiting what was to come with his third guitar swap - the donning of the Pikasso I. In a way, that 42-string monstrosity demonstrates everything there is to know about Metheny - it is complex and beautiful and appears impossible to play yet produces amazing music. He certainly did not disappoint.

The main course was yet to come, as McBride and Sanchez joined Metheny on stage as the last notes of the Pikasso I died out. For the rest of the night, musicianship was in top form and on center stage. While Metheny is truly the star of this trio, McBride’s endeavors on the bass may have been the most impressive performance of the night. His fingers moved faster than I thought possible on such a large instrument, and his solos had such a sweet vibe to them. Being a Philly crowd, the crowd definitely got behind one of their own, but I can only imagine that his playing would be greatly appreciated in any city. Sanchez was a different matter. While I loved his interplay with the rest of the trio, his first solo felt divergent from the music - almost like he was fighting the urge to break into a cacophony of rock breaks. But as the night wore on, he seemed to settle more and more into the feel of the trio.

All three of these gentlemen are superb musicians, and great musicians love to play with and around others like them. Watching the interplay as they added flourishes to each other’s solos, took over and gave back control of songs, and just generally bounced ideas off one another was incredible. One of the highlights was the final encore when Metheny had already donned an electric guitar for the end of “When We Were Free” and McBride joined in for another piece with an electric bass. Suddenly the music took on a jazz/rock fusion element and the energy for the evening was renewed again.

Overally, this was far more free form than I am used to; which runs the danger of becoming tedious (just ask my wife who joined me). It’s definitely not for everyone as the music can become overwhelming and even boring for those wishing for a melody. The few true “songs” that were played from the new album (such as “Is This America?” and the above-mentioned “When We Were Free”) definitely put their album Day Trip on my wish list. As brilliant as the live performance is, I still tend to cling to more structured music on my own. Nevertheless, this was a wonderful experience, and definitely one I would repeat.

A flashback of sorts

Published
by
Thom
on February 11, 2008
in Concerts and Nostalgia
. Closed

So I’m sitting here listening to some classic Soundgarden, and it sure does take me back. It may seem a tad silly to get so nostalgic when you haven’t even made it through another decade, but albums like Superunknown and the unjustly overlooked Down on the Upside came at a major turning point in my life. Grunge… alternative… loud obnoxious shit… whatever you want to call it, this music was the real thing when my life changed in a rather profound and musical way.

Specifically these sounds take me back to November 16, 1996. A Saturday night when a college buddy of mine and I found ourselves debating about a concert across the river in New York City that night. Of course we didn’t have tickets for Soundgarden. We were both rather inexperienced concert-goers at the time. But we were emboldened by our recent trek to the ultimate show at the time: Pearl Jam. Hell, if we were able to make it to such a huge event as that one, why not give this one a try?

And so we headed for the PATH trains and walked all the way up to Roseland (about 20 some odd blocks) hoping that the scalpers wouldn’t kill us. When the first guy asked for over 100 bucks each, our hopes were almost shot. But we pressed on and watched the prices continue to drop until someone let us know that 20 dollar tickets were still available at the box office.

Holy crap! Was it really this easy? Here we were going to college just a 20 minute train ride from The City, and we could just hope over and gets tickets for a band we loved… I think I was hung up on the days of my sisters camping out all night for Peter Gabriel and didn’t realize just how many concerts went on regularly for us to immerse ourselves in the live experience without being forced to sleep on concrete.

But that was it. We were in. We rocked ourselves silly and moshed like there was no tomorrow. We screamed and shouted and even tried to sing along with “Black Hole Sun”. I helped some girl catch a guitar string and high-fived total strangers. Like I said, it may seem a tad silly, just a smidge over dramatic, but that night changed how we looked at music. We were no longer on the outside looking in. We were banging down the doors and joining in all of the fun.

From then on, we were… cool. Well, at least I used to be cool…