My kid was at Phish on July 19th in Chicago. "This is your first Phish concert ever, man? Wow. Hey guys it's his first time! Man you are so lucky. This will be the best night of your life." He liked the music pretty well and the funny old people even more so.
Ha! Pretty funny. I might've said that to someone who saw their first show in the mid to late 90s, but they're not playing at the same level anymore. Regardless, I'm glad he had a good time.
Nice thread... I saw my last concert 2005 with my father, name was something "Carmen Miranda" but i decided to watch this sunday a new concert "Angra" , also i got a ticket for this. Hope it will be a nice show!
Dr. John and the Night Trippers Preservation Hall Jazz Band Copley Square, Boston I went primarily to see Dr. John, and was delighted to get a whole evening of top class musicianship, for free no less.
Dickie Betts & Great Southern The Hamilton, Washington, DC July 28th, 2013 I last saw Dickie at Jaxx in Springfield, VA ten years ago and he was damned good to the point where I didn't understand from a musical standpoint, at least, why he had been ejected from the ABB. However, tonight was like watching a past-his-prime Willie Mays stumbling in the outfield as a 40-year old. The show was a just a few blocks away from the Laughing Man Tavern where we watched the Gold Cup final. We lingered at Laughing Man for a round or two after the game before heading to the Hamilton about ten minutes before 8:00. The stated start time was 7:30 and for the first time in my life a show started at its designated start time and we missed at least three songs by the time we got in. The rest of the first set sounded like a bad Allmans cover band, including a fairly lackluster "Blue Sky." The second set was an improvement with decent to good performances of "Elizabeth Reed," "No One to Run With" and "Back Where it All Begins" but Betts screwed up the lyrics to "Rambling Man" and otherwise generally seemed physically diminished and overly reliant on his band to get through the songs. I know the man is 69 but I just saw a 71 year-old Paul McCartney knock it out of the park a few weeks ago. Despite Gregg Allman's physical problems over the last few years, the Allmans still deliver a helluva show. Betts, on the other hand, is a shadow of what he was a decade ago and I seriously doubt I'll bother to see him again if he continues to tour.
The only down side was that it was an outdoor event, and it rained hard for about two hours from when we got there. Fortunately, it stopped, and there was a rainbow, and then Dr. John started to play.
Lee Bains III & the Glory Fires 27 July 2013 Bottletree Birmingham, Alabama One of my favorite local bands. I believe Bains resides in Atlanta now, but he still considers himself and Birminghamian/Alabamian.
Bruce Hornsby and the Noisemakers Railroad Earth 6 August 2013 Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden Richmond, VA Beautiful setting for any show in the middle of a meadow next to a lake in a botanical garden. First time Hornsby had played this venue and they saw the largest crowd ever for a concert. Very fun night of music with Railroad Earth joining Bruce and band for a large chunk of his set.
Vieux Farka Toure 06 August 2013 The Walnut Room Denver, Colorado Finally got to see VFT after years of wanting to see him. Had tickets to see him in DC in 2008 and the show got cancelled because of visa problems. The Malian guitar genius (and son of Ali Farka Toure) put on a stellar show. Cannot recommend seeing him highly enough.
Belatedly: The Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood Friday, August 2 Strauss, Death and Transfiguration Beethoven, Piano Concerto #4 Poulenc, Stabat Mater As with the Dr. John show the previous Friday, the weather was a big part of the event with a powerful thunderstorm ending just in time for the concert to go on as scheduled.
This is a concert I went to yesterday Fiesta DI Giglio. We just got it from Italy never lifted before Beautiful. Check out this video on YouTube:
Phoenix / Dinosaur Jr. 07 August 2013 1stBank Center Denver, Colorado This was such a mixture of joy and sadness for me. My girlfriend and I were going on vacation to Colorado regardless of any shows happening. We did, however, choose the dates of our vacation around when certain shows were happening. We'd never seen Phoenix and are both huge fans (and I'm a huge Dinosaur Jr. fan...her, not so much) so it seemed like the perfect choice (Phoenix was the headliner.) The show was supposed to be at Red Rocks. Going to a show at Red Rocks has always been a dream of mine. Fans and performers both always rave that it's one of the best venues on earth and we were excited to check it out when a band we loved was playing there. Phoenix at Red Rocks is WHY we chose our vacation dates. To keep a long story short, based on the weather forecast the promoter told Phoenix that they could move the show inside or cancel it. The band opted to move it inside. They were great, the show was amazing despite it being in a minor league hockey arena (blech.) The dagger though? It didn't rain a damn drop that night in the Denver metro area. We travelled all that way and there turned out to be no reason at all to move the show. We actually got lucky we found out. We'd been up in the mountains all day waaaay off the grid and had no cell service. We rushed back to the hotel to change and go to the show and I got a text from a buddy back home saying he was sorry to see the show got moved. The venues were about 35 miles apart so I'm glad he tipped us off or we would've missed Dinosaur Jr.
Bunch of shows to mention. Somehow got to lagging on posting... Hunx and His Punx / Hunters 15 August 2013 Bottletree Birmingham, Alabama Jim James / Maria Taylor 06 September 2013 Iron City Birmingham, Alabama Mumford & Sons / The Vaccines 09 September 2013 Oak Mountain Amphitheatre Birmingham, Alabama Dailey & Vincent 11 September 2013 Hoover Library Theatre Birmingham, Alabama Dent May 24 September 2013 Eclipse Montevallo, Alabama Sigur Ros / Julianna Barwick 27 September 2013 The Woods at Fontanel Nashville, Tennessee Local Natives / Wild Nothings 01 October 2013 Iron City Birmingham, Alabama
X/Blondie September 9 930 Club Washington, DC I hadn't seen X in over 25 years and it was the first time I'd seen them with Billy Zoom back in the lineup for an even longer period. They were every bit as good as when I saw them back in the 80's. It's hard to realize that Zoom is 65 years old now! Blondie was quite entertaining and Deborah Harry still does it for me even though she's now 68. The back-up band was solid but the newer members sort of looked ridiculous, like they were wearing Halloween costumes of what a rock band member was supposed to look like.
When I saw X back in the last century, they had Dave Alvin from The Blasters on guitar. At one point, he adopted the classic Billy Zoom wide stance*, which Exene didn't seem to find as funny as we did. *not to be confused with the wide stance adopted by closeted Republican politicians
Kylesa 02 October 2013 Bottletree Birmingham, Alabama Sigur Ros 04 October 2013 BJCC Arena Birmingham, Alabama Was nice to get to see Sigur Ros and sleep in my own bed without having to drive several hours to do so.
Virgin Freefest Music Festival September 21 Merriweather Post Pavilion Columbia, MD Highlights were Avett Brothers and MGMT. Lowlights were pouring rain and infernal mud. Unfortunately the latter was really my takeaway from the show, so I hope to see those two acts in some drier venue someday.
Two, both today, neither precisely fitting the traditional definitions. I spent this afternoon at Honkfest! a gathering of left wing marching bands, which began with a parade from Davis Square in Somerville, Mass to Harvard Square where the bands in the parade then spread out through the neighborhood for individual concerts. For me the stand outs were Os Siderais (who started out with P-Funk and moved on to Brecht/Weil and more), the Detroit Party Marching Band, and the Riverhawk Party Band. The second, was a reunion gig of Peter Weiss and the Rock Band at Radio in Somerville, Mass. No, I've never heard of them either, but their drummer is an old friend of mine, and I found out about the show just in time to go. The sad part was that I had to tell my friend the drummer that Mrs. MCFC passed away in May.
Air Canada Centre Toronto, Canada 26 May 2009 Elton John & Billy Joel An excellent show all around, no intermission...really need to get into the habit of attending live music performances, I am currently too much of a couch potato.
Arctic Monkeys 09 October 2013 Iron City Birmingham, Alabama Wasn't sure how many people would turn up to this one, but they sold out the 1,300 seat venue and the place was going nuts. Kid Congo & the Pink Monkey Birds 15 October 2013 Bottletree Birmingham, Alabama Great set despite a dismally small crowd (literally 16 people were there excluding employees.) Figured a guy that was guitarist in The Cramps, The Gun Club, and Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds would be a bit more of a draw, but I guess not.
Yeah, it was a pretty strong show. The new album is fantastic. They played 8 of the 12 songs off of it.