An ongoing, updated page on some music events I have been to. From bars and clubs to stadium shows, I'll write down here what I thought.
Steve Earle is one of the most under-rated American exports of the last 25 years. His onstage personality is complimented by his philanthropic characters on TV shows 'The Wire' and 'Treme'. The more I read about him the more I seem to like him. As per usual, I brought the average auditorium age down by a few years. Unfortunately, the sound at the venue was particularly poor, an artist can only be so good, the rest is down to the skill of the engineers and the building dynamics...both seemed to fail.
His philanthropic persona was evident from his on stage stories and he and the band were up for kicking back and ready to mix with the crowd after the performance, if it were only just to sign merchandise. Stories about hurricane Katrina and the occupy wall street demos complimented sombre and meaningful songs like 'This City', 'The Mountain' and 'Is that all you got'. I was dying to hear 'Billy Austin', my favourite from his catalogue but that performance was kept until one of his shows in London later in the month.
4/5
The second show we have seen at the new 'Glee Club' venue in Nottingham was seeing the visiting American musician Alejandro Escovedo. The turn out was small tonight, maybe due to his obscurity this side of the pond but it gave us chance to get a front row seat and a couple of beers in without breaking sweat. It didn't matter though as Alejandro took control of the stage and small audience immediately. His slight statue and weathered face reminded me of Mickey Rourkes character in 'The Wrestler', someone who has seen the world and has been close to the top of his entertainment profession yet never quite sold out to superstardom. Instead, there is a cult legend standing on that stage beating out song after song for nearly 2 hours with intertwinned stories from his life and experiences. He spoke of his son who plays in a heavy metal band and tells his dad 'your music is old man music, nobody wants to listen to that anymore'.
I tell you what, his son could do with taking a few lessons from his Dad as the music tonight was fantastic. There is always a wholesome feeling when two people on stage play acoustic guitar well and goes to show a big raucous band isn't needed when you have a no frills approach to creating music.
4.5/5
Like 99% of the audience, we heard/know of 'The Webb Sisters' through them being the backing singers for Leonard Cohen (on tour in 2009) and enjoying the show he put on, we thought we would support the musicians he has mentored. This was our first visit to the new 'Glee club' comedy venue come music venue when it feels like. As Emma does for me, she decided the bar was suitable to bring friends to and had the trendiness and unique edge for us to return.
I enjoyed the Webb sisters performance and thought there was an air of honesty and charm about them additional to the bucket loads of talent between them. But I can't help but feel the only stand out song of the evening was the rendition of 'If it be your will' which they sung on tour with Leonard Cohen. Something is just screaming out for just a few of their personal songs to have something a bit extra. The final touch of the evening was for them to sing (without mics) their final song of the set whilst walking around the outside of the back row of seats such that their voices would circle around the room, novel: granted, but it just didnt make the spine tingle like it perhaps should have done.
3/5
I heard of Josh Ritter on a whim, after watching a youtube video of him covering 'The River' by Bruce Springsteen and thought it sounded pretty good and thus the rest of his music must be pretty good also. As it turns out his music is excellent and he is one of those few artists whose live performances are as electric and as exciting as listening to one of his new albums for the first time. Josh has a real Idaho twang to his voice accompanied by a cheshire cat's smile and a lust for his performance which most artists just don't show.
The concert was in the Albert Hall in Nottingham, my only experience of this venue was seeing Nottinghamshires Magdelene Choir sing some opera, a first on both accounts. As Josh described the hall alike to a 'giant faberge egg' his endearing personality began to show inbetween songs. There is an edge to his music that I'm yet to exactly put my finger on it but it's the mix of a bleak Americana sound with folk, rock and a hint of almost New Orleans magic which brings it together. Songs such as 'Girl in the War', 'Folk Bloodbath' and 'Idaho' exemplify this well and draws bleakness as well as excitment in dark songs whilst extremely catchy songs 'Me & Jiggs', 'Wolves' and 'Kathleen' bring a whole lot of fun and romance to his show.
His ability of his songs to catch the audience and their imagination without being pretentious or condescending to them is his great strength. But where Josh really shines is his fantastic and infectious enjoyment and desire for what he does. Just a modest cult following at the moment, I can't imagine this guy not taking off over here like he has done in Ireland.
5/5
Two legends of rock and blues, I kind of had to check out these guys for my own curiosity. Not cheap, but we found ourselvesseven rows from the front so we could really see how good they are at guitar. The show was Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck together and apart so we got three seperate shows in one.
4/5
The second show we went to was in the magnificent ampitheatre outside Santiago (Monte do Gozo). As we were with Jonathan we decided not to queue up too early and just enjoy the afternoon with some beer and tapas. Having got there to quite a large queue (nearly 3000 people long) we soon learnt that the Spanish don't do queuing quite like us Brits and thus we decided against joining the queue and just getting close to the actual gate. It paid off and we ended up on the barrier separating the main section from the front pit section. Later we found out that the venue had over filled and there were hundreds of people who didn't even make it in.
The actual show was as good as any, and for some reason Bruce seems to lap up the Spanish crowd more so than the British crowds. The whole place was electric, right through the setlist and went bonkers when Bruce did a first encore starting with an acoustic 'No Surrender' and a second encore with a full on kick-ass E street Band 'Born in the USA'. Oh how I had been waiting for that moment, a song which as huge as it was in the 80's never made his staple setlist since I have been seeing him.
It just so happened to be the last time Clarence 'the big man' Clemons would play in Europe. Now 2 members of the ESB down.
5/5
It was about time I was right at the front of an E Street Band show and so I picked the London Hyde Park show to make that happen. Arriving in Hyde Park at midday the day before the gig most certainly did help and we met others waiting at the entrance and a queue was formed. The Hard Rock Calling event was over three days and the headline performance tonight was Neil Young, but during the afternoon slot we had to sit down whilst listening to some mediocre sounding band cover 'Beat It' in tribute to the late Michael Jackson. But time passed and our concerns turned more towards sleeping arrangements and whether we would be allowed to stay in the park to queue. We stepped out for a few hours having gotten our numbers 12 and 13 in the queue and decided to go home and pick up the car and park in Mayfair, just across from the park. My only experience with Mayfair was on the Monopoly board and such I knew it was very expensive. However, street parking after 19.00 and all day Sunday was free. So after driving down a few one way streets and waving at irrate taxi drivers we found a space and dropped down the back seats and made a bed. We could then walk back over to the civilised queue and check in to let people know we were there, listen to some Neil Young and walk back again to have a snooze in the car. It worked out very well and even managed to get an early breakfast in next door McDonalds before joining the queue again at 6.00 am.
Bruce fans are all very polite and there is an air of understanding between folk. The people who organise the queue have a marker pen to write down your number in line and roll calls are made every few hours to make sure people are around. Miss 2 roll calls and you get kicked out of the queue. Fair is fair. This all works well, even when mid morning there are 2000+ people in the queue (no need for roll call anymore) there is an orderly queue. But just an hour before the gates open a group of people jump to the front of the queue claiming that they aren't here to see Bruce but to see Dave Mathews Band who is on before. That entitles them in their opinion to skip the queue and be at the front. As you can imagine all hell broke loose and those goons were set upon by a very angry mob. It was going to be down to the security staff to sort this one out, and with the support of the security bloke who was around in the middle of the night he rallied the troops to prevent those DMB fans or wankers (which was the better phrase) from getting in until at least a fair few hundred queuing Bruce fans had gained entry. A very enjoyable experience all round. I was also first through the gate and first to reach the front barrier...central spot for me then.
What can I say though about the performance...performances i whould add. My god, I thought I was going to die having to sit through shit band after shit band. Gaslight Anthem were the only highlight and actually managed to get the crowd going, even more so when Bruce joined them to play 'The 59' Sound'. But my god... James Morrison?? what a load of crap. A smug git who evidently only cares about getting laid using the sounds of his awful love songs as bait. I mean seriously, whoever thinks they like his music... take 30 seconds out to listen to the inspirational lyrics and then some to listen to the voice of a recently castrated cat and tell me its worth listening too. This was a perfect time to eat my sandwich. It was also a good time to turn around and have a chat to other Bruce fans. There must have been several people on the front row chatting away to friends behind them. I did enjoy watching the follow up documentary with him saying how he is so impressed with Bruce playing for 3 hours with so much energy... yes it is called a performance. What you gave was something more suitable for TV which could be edited and then re-edited to give you time to sit down and mull over how shit your music is and then sell it the gullable masses.
Much to the disappointment to the DMB fans, he was not a huge amount better either. The drummer was probably about the highlight of the set, someone who could actually forcibly and rhythically play the darn things. But again a ridiculously high voice with little actual attitude. I was waiting to hear 'Crash' the only song I know of his... when I did, it was time for another sandwich.
Then for the motherload, the one and only, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. Jeepers, it was worth the wait and just about time as the numbness in my backside was setting in. On the band came taking their positions and then on came Bruce with a character from Star Wars... oh no, wait, just Clarence. BOOM! straight into Joe Strummers 'London Callin' and the crowd wakes up. The performance is a cracker (as with nearly all Bruce shows) although his voice was a little burnt out from the months of prior touring. The DVD of the show is available, and we make a crowd shot appearence about 40 seconds into 'Rosalita'.
5/5
This was the second time I went to see AC/DC play. My good, hard rocking friend, Shabba and I had 'rafter' seat tickets for a show at the O2 arena. But being up with the gods, we did have access to a bar with rather expensive beer, so all was not awful.