New Gig Thread

[ice nine]

Just came back from a beautiful concert given by Joan Baez. My father liked her and he left me a few of her albums. After listening to them and learning she was coming to town I figured I go to the show. Maybe it would give me good karma. I didn't really know what to expect from the show. Joan doesn't have any hits that I would recognize. Luckily almost half the show were covers. Her second tune was 'Scarlet Tide', she did a couple of Steve Earle songs (her new album is produced by him), and the encore was comprised of 'Imagine' and 'The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down'. Her voice sounded exactly like it did on my father's albums. She regailed us with a few stories of Woodstock. Excellent show!!

[so lacklustre]

I Have the following lined up:

8 March - Ruth Notman (English Folk)
18 April - Eliza Carthy (English Folk/Crossover)
22 April - Elvis Costello with Brodsky Quartet (English Chamber Music)
7 May - The Specials (70's Ska Revival rerevived)

[verbal gymnastics]

The Magic Numbers on Friday 27th in a pub in London which held about 200 people. Fantastic night and a privilege to be at such a small gig. They ended with a cover of His Bobness' I Shall Be Released.

Highlight of the evening was meeting up with BWAP for a few beers beforehand.

I've got

EC and the Brodskys (tour of duty!)
The Specials (with So Lack)
Billy Bragg and
Kasabian

lined up in the next few months with a couple more gigs on the horizon.

[Otis Westinghouse]

Elbow at Wembley. Utterly superb. One of the very best gigs of my life. Got the ticket free, thought I wouldn't enjoy it anywhere as much as at the Corn Exchange, but did even moreso. Not great seats - high up and to side of stage - but the show was such a fantastic mix of euphoric celebration and intense power that I wouldn't have missed it for the world. They still aren't playing 'Friend of Ours', sadly (it was great at Abbey Road), and the sublime 'Great Expectations' was absent, but what totally made up for it was a perfect 'Switching Off', one of my favourite Elbow songs, and in John Cale's Desert Island Discs selection, with the very special bonus of Guy explaining that the song is based on the idea that if when you die your entire life flashes before your eyes, then it should be possible to choose a moment during that life that becomes the thing you fixate on when dying. Being in a moment in a room with a woman and deciding 'this is the moment I want in my head at the time of my death'. A bizarre logic, but what a powerful idea, and totally helped make sense of what had been a fairly baffling lyric previously.

Also, Guy led the audience through a couple of lines from a new song, 'dear friends..., old friends...', that they were recording for use on the next record. So I'm going to appear on album 5. They will feel a lot of pressure to follow Seldom Seen Kid. Do they deliberately write more feelgood anthems, or even feelnotsogood ones, or see if they can take their huge new audience with them in new experiments? Or somewhere in between (most likely)?

'One Day Like This' with 12,500 people on their feet clapping and singing, with alarming quantities of silver ticker tape and streamers being showered in all corners was about as life-affirming as a concert could ever be. How brilliant that Elbow have reached that level. They support Coldpplay in the US in the summer and I'm sure will blow them out of the water night after night.

Richard Hawley came on for The Fix, which was great fun. Shame he wasn't support, though the band that were, Canadians The Acorn, sounded pretty good.

[bambooneedle]

Is Elbow really that good? I should check it.

Richard Hawley is a remarkably good guitarist. Played with Pulp at the end and helped Jarvis Cocker a lot orchestrating his solo album Jarvis and on tour.

I'd see them. Jarvis was a really good album, he is a such a good writer. Very funny guy.

Btw, things go better with a little bit a little bit alittle bit of Razzmatazz...



And there's another JC ("I am not Jesus though I have the same initials") solo album coming up in April, Further Complications, and touring to follow (with Hawley, I think). So far there's only 4 English dates set I think. A new Pulp album after that would be good... I'd look forward to a Jarvis or Pulp tour more than to see an overpriced Leonard Cohen on his maybe last tour... he just stands there; I know what he looks like, I might as well just get a live DVD of him (if there's one..!).

[Otis Westinghouse]

Is Elbow really that good? I should check it.

Better. They're playing Sydney, but sold out.

[bambooneedle]

Ah, they'll come around... like Oasis.


I'm not quite as attentive as SoLack (or even Mr Average) when it comes to staying on the pulse for the latest gigs...

[so lacklustre]

I also managed to get a ticket for Dylan at the Roundhouse on 26 April.

[verbal gymnastics]

That will be a fantastic gig.

I'm now also going to see The Fratellis and Paul Weller gigs at Shepherds Bush Empire as part of the Island 50 gigs.

I can't believe my luck sometimes

[johnfoyle]

I'm just in from The Jk Ensemble's evening of music at The Village , Dublin. The highlight of these recordings for the Lyric FM radio show was a preview performance by Julie Feeney of her new album ( in May) 'Pages'. A follow up to '13 Songs' ('05) it has the same lyrical inventiveness but this times with a breath taking range of extra musical elements.After this one listen, with a 7 piece string/wind ensemble, it boggles the mind to think what the fully orchestrated version will be like. Watch out for it!

http://juliefeeney.com/blog/

[johnfoyle]

I saw David Byrne in concert last night. In the rather over-formal National Concert Hall , the all white wearing band 'n dancers, choreographed moves 'n all, seemed a bit over-rehearsed and lacking in spontaneity. The more straight forward down'n dirty rock show he did in the National Stadium years ago was far more enjoyable.

[so lacklustre]

I'll be seeing the wonderful Eliza Carthy this coming Saturday. Hoping for lots from the quite exceptional Dreams of Breathing Underwater including this track (don't be put of by the first line reference to Marianne Faithful)

[verbal gymnastics]

I've now been offered a corporate ticket ie hospitality for Oasis at Wembley Stadium. I'm not sure if I should go. I wasn't blown away by them at Wembley Arena although it's worth going to see Kasabian and The Enemy. Maybe I should go home after Kasabian.

[pophead2k]

Just got tix for U2 and Muse here in Raleigh on October 3. I didn't even know they were coming. Just dumb luck, seeing an advertisement by accident the day after the tickets went on sale!

[Who Shot Sam?]

I've now been offered a corporate ticket ie hospitality for Oasis at Wembley Stadium. I'm not sure if I should go. I wasn't blown away by them at Wembley Arena although it's worth going to see Kasabian and The Enemy. Maybe I should go home after Kasabian.

No more gigs at Wembley during football season. That pitch yesterday was shocking.

[colrow26]

Just got tickets for Elvis and Brodskys at Bridgewater Hall in Manchester April 27th -looking forward to it!

[so lacklustre]

Eliza Carthy was brilliant on Saturday night. A nice compact theatre at the University of Kent with about 300 seats. Two sets totalling over 2 hours, sound very good, band tight and Eliza on top form both vocally, musically and with the spiel. Accompanied by a drummer, a double basser, and piano accordianist Eliza herself switched between fiddle, baby electricc guitar and her own squeeze box. Most of Dreams .... was played (although some excellent arrangements - and different from when we saw her last year) along with some rare oldies and a couple of new songs. Highly recommended, catch her if you can.

[so lacklustre]

My first experience of live Dylan. Enjoyed the show, but can't say it blew me away.

London, England
Roundhouse

April 26, 2009






1.
Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat (Bob on keyboard)

2.
Don't Think Twice, It's All Right (Bob on keyboard)

3.
Tangled Up In Blue (Bob on keyboard)

4.
Million Miles (Bob on keyboard)

5.
Rollin' And Tumblin' (Bob on keyboard)

6.
Tryin' To Get To Heaven (Bob on keyboard)

7.
Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum (Bob center stage)

8.
Sugar Baby (Bob on keyboard)

9.
High Water (For Charley Patton) (Bob on keyboard)

10.
I Don't Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met)
(Bob on keyboard)

11.
Po' Boy (Bob on keyboard)

12.
Highway 61 Revisited (Bob on keyboard)

13.
Ain't Talkin' (Bob on keyboard)

14.
Summer Days (Bob on keyboard)

15.
Like A Rolling Stone (Bob on keyboard)





(encore)




16.
All Along The Watchtower (Bob on keyboard)

17.
Spirit On The Water (Bob on keyboard)

18.
Blowin' In The Wind (Bob on keyboard)







Band Members
Bob Dylan - keyboard, guitar, harp
Tony Garnier - bass
George Recile - drums
Stu Kimball - rhythm guitar
Denny Freeman - lead guitar
Donnie Herron - violin, electric mandolin, pedal steel, lap steel

[Boy With A Problem]

No new ones?

He's playing here in July with Willie Nelson and Johnny Cougar Mellon Balls.....outside in Pawtucket - tickets on sale next week.

[pophead2k]

Same tour is stopping here at the ballpark in Durham. I haven't seen Bob or Willie for a few years, and I've never seen Mellencamp, so I'm going to go.

[Otis Westinghouse]

Lloyd Cole in the intimate Junction 2 200-seater. Third time in 18 months. Similar to last time, but with two impressive new songs and some nice covers, e.g. I Just Don't Know What To Do WIth Myself and Tower of Song. Personal favourites like My Other Life, That Boy, I'm Gone were all utterly compelling, and all the old Commotions chestnuts were wonderful too, with some nice reworking of guitar parts on Rattlesnakes and Perfect Skin. Voice and guitar on fine form as ever. Picked up the two live Folksinger CDs in the foyer, £13 a pop. he was signing copies at the end, and I did my usual thing of not wanting to feel like a sycophant and so have brought mine home unsigned.

It would be nice to see him tour with a small band again, or even have Neil Clark on guitar, but I'll go and see him solo every time he chooses to come back here (he quipped about how they can't keep him away from it, and it's the venue he's played most times in recent years).

Unfortunately, he was way too interested in how Chelsea did, and dedicated Are You Ready To Be Heartbroken? to Lionel Messi, so Lloyd does have a flaw, after all.

[Boy With A Problem]

I Have the following lined up:


7 May - The Specials (70's Ska Revival rerevived)

Green with envy - saw the set lists, read the reviews .....wish I could be there.

[so lacklustre]

The Specials were fucking excellent.

[BlueChair]

On the horizon:

May 21 - Harry Shearer, Michael McKean & Christopher Guest: Unwigged & Unplugged (the trio plays acoustic versions of the songs they made famous as Spinal Tap. Also The Folksmen.)

June 10 - Canadian Songbook: A Tribute to Neil Young's Live at Massey Hall (a bunch of mostly Canadian artists perform Live at Massey Hall, track-by-track, in it's entirety)

August 4 - Fleet Foxes

Augusst 28 - Elvis Costello & The Sugarcanes

All four of these shows are at the wonderful Massey Hall. Hoping to squeeze in a few more shows over the summer. Mose Allison is appearing at the Toronto Jazz Festival. I bet that'd be something.

[mood swung]

June 18, the Wailers doing all of Exodus.


Maybe Shooter Jennings on the 4th.