Concerts never start on time. Sometimes there are two opening bands, other times there’s one, but even when there’s no opening band, you’re guaranteed forty minutes before the main act starts. During my 1st Ben Folds concert, for example, I arrived at DAR Constitution Hall at 8:15, fifteen minutes after the time listed on the ticket, sixty minutes before Folds actually came on stage.
It made perfect sense then to arrive at my 2nd Ben Folds concert at 7:40, forty minutes after the time listed on the ticket. When I entered at the Kennedy Center, however, I found that Folds had been on stage for forty minutes! He then walked off the stage at 8:20, without an encore, performing for less than ninety minutes total! I paid an $18 parking fee for that?!
Irritating as all of this was, the worst part was recognizing how good the show would have been if I’d been there the whole time. Every song he played, he was accompanied by a full philharmonic orchestra! This lent serious songs like “The Luckiest” and “Hope is a Fool” gravitas and made playful songs like “Narcolepsy” and “Jesusland” hilarious. (To get why playful songs were funnier with the philharmonic, picture a well-known Jay-Z song, which Folds frequently covers, and add an oboe, flute, and French horn…)
The final bitter note of the concert sounded the next morning when I looked up the setlist online. Apparently he had played “Fred Jones Part 2” and “Rockin’ the Suburbs,” two of my all-time favorite songs! Oh well, next time he comes to DC, at least I know to arrive forty minutes early…
Grade: C-
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
THE FIRST ENTRY: For the First 18 Years of My Life...
I did not listen to music. It was embarrassing.
People would whip out their headphones, their CD players, their Nirvana references...and I'd be at a loss. My parents were part of the problem: "You listen to music," they insisted. "Sinatra and Gershwin are ten times better than that the junk they play on MTV!" I bore equal responsibility, though, because I did little to correct the problem. My boldest attempt at breaking into the modern music world was buying a Creed cd senior year. Scott Stapp would so make me cool.
Somehow, though, as I entered William and Mary, I did not feel musically secure. Why had Creed not given me more cred?!
The big change came with Weezer a month into freshman year. Listening to “Undone,” “Say It Ain’t So,” “Buddy Holly,” and the rest of the blue album, I found rhythm, emotion, wit, wisdom…everything I could ask for in music. After that came Foo Fighters. And then early Dylan, Chili Peppers, Wilco, and fifty more. By the end of college, music had become the most important thing in my life.
Influential as music had become, I still had never traveled to a live show. As soon as I graduated, though, I made a pact to correct that: concerts would become what music had been in college. A month after graduation (
44th concert – Wilco. I made a full circle.
If you choose to browse this blog, you will be able to trace that circle – to follow the concerts from the first to the last. I had wanted the blog to go live right after
My suggestion is that you glance at the “Current Concert List” box at the top right corner of the page, type a band you’re interested in into the search bar at the top left corner of the page, and click on that entry. If you’re able to find two or three songs you connect with, awesome. If you’re not able to find any, well, at least you’ll see I’ve moved past Creed…
Scott Stapp totally belongs in the photo...
What to Do After Reading The First Entry
If you’re interested in the “
47 / 48 / 49/ 50 -- Jet / The Bravery / Blink 182 / Weezer – The Virgin Mobile Freefest – Sun, Aug 30, 2009 – Merriweather Post Pavilion – Columbia MD
INTRO
Fortunately, Jim Dunleavey, Matt Decarlo, and Chuck Abbott were willing to pay for online scalper tickets, so I was still able to have some friends at the show.
JET
I had not prepared for Jet because I intended to be at the Hold Steady show for most of the performance. I never made it the Hold Steady, though, because the only available parking space was at
Grade: B
THE BRAVERY
Grade: B
BLINK 182
Blink was a bit disappointing. One of my former students, who I later found out had attended the show, said this was because the lead singers, Tom Delonge and Mark Hoppus, couldn’t sing. I had not noticed a big dropoff from the vocals on the album. What I did notice was the fifty mindless curses disguised as edginess or humor. In certain cases, profanity can be artistically useful: the few choice words in "Lose Yourself" come at just the right moments, adding further drive and urgency to the song. The many choice words in Carrie-Anne Moss' speech in Memento come like a relentless attack, adding further shock and anger as we realize that she is such a...not nice person.
With Blink on stage, though, they just seemed to dump out as many F words and sex jokes as they could -- as if by the 55th one the audience would finally think, "NOW I get it -- they are so punk." Sorry, Mark and Tom, 'punk' is about being rebellious and clever, not repetitive and lame.
Off-putting as their shtick could be, the actual performance was strong. Delonge had a few nice guitar riffs, Hoppus had some good bass lines, and drummer Travis Barker was able to show off more than just his $30,000 tattoos. And in the end, the best thing Blink had going for them were there actual songs – perhaps the best non-Green-Day pop-punk catalog ever. “Fell in love with the girl at the rock show / She said ‘What?’ and I told her that I didn’t know / She’s so cool…”
Grade: B
WEEZER
They played “The Good Life”!!! Acoustically, lyrically, it is my all-time favorite Weezer song. They’re so reluctant to play anything off Pinkerton, though, and this was one of the album’s more obscure tracks…yet they played it! I was on cloud nine.
Other things I liked about the show: (1) Rivers’ amusing attempt at push ups during “Pork and Beans” (2) The amusing scent that still filtered through the crowd during “Hash Pipe” (3) How catchy their new single, “I Want You To,” was in concert (4) How loud everyone could bellow “Say It Ain’t So” (4) The fact that Rivers abandoned the awful hat/mustache, returning to the classic NYU glasses (5) The fact that they didn’t end on “Buddy Holly.” They did a solid version of “Buddy Holly,” jumping on and off a trampoline between beats (!), but made it the second-to-last song. By ending on a “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” cover, they kept it interesting – they avoided going stale.
Now all they need to do is have a straight Pinkerton show, and my life will be complete…
Grade: A-
46 -- Green Day – Mon, July 27, 2009 – Madison Square Garden -- NYC
I am pretty sure there were two distinct groups in attendance at Green Day’s Madison Square Garden concert: those who loved the band’s crowd-pleasing antics – and those who hated them. The latter group saw the gleaming lights, fire balls, and…t-shirt launches (!) as evidence that the band had become a corporate joke. According to them, Green Day was now as Punk as Rob Thomas was Rock.
Fortunately, I had not grown up with Kerplunk / Dookie, fell in the former group, and loved the show. I would admit they could be a bit hypocritical at times: railing against the “Mass Hysteria” of the “Static Age” when you appeared on the finale of American Idol? Really? Overall, though, they were exactly what I expected them to be: high-caliber Arena Punk. When they repeatedly prompted the crowd with “wayyyy-o,” they were not unconsciously crying “sellll out;” they were pumping everyone up!
And they certainly were able to rouse everyone: I don’t think the crowd remained seated for more than five minutes of the three hour show. Why would they, when there were so many opportunities for participation? Two songs in, they opened the gates and allowed everyone in the upper levels two minutes to sneak onto the floor level. Five songs in, they invited Drake, this hilariously cocky little kid, on stage to dance to “Long View.” The fact that they tore him a new one once he went off stage made it even more adorable.
Band-crowd connections continued throughout the night. Billie Joe told this amusingly profane story about taking down a cab driver who dared to insult Green Day. He also took fifteen-second song requests, incorporating Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man,” Led Zeppelin’s “Thank You,” Guns ‘n Roses “Sweet Child of Mine,” Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger,” and Lynrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama” into an absurd, inspired, ten-minute jam.
Moreover, he invited all types of fans to play on stage. A thin, monotone, middle-aged man stumbled through “Basket Case” before diving effortlessly into the crowd. A heavy, vocally-gifted teen nailed all of “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” before thudding on top of crowd. Unquestionably the most impressive fan of the night, though, was the girl who performed “Jesus of Suburbia.” She took lead vocal and lead guitar and hit everything!
In the end, that was what made the concert rock. It may not have had the in-your-face, underground charisma of Rise Against, but it was not an empty corporate show. Finding a girl who can mesmerize Madison Square Garden for nine minutes means you’re looking for soul. It means you still care.
Grade: A
Fortunately, I had not grown up with Kerplunk / Dookie, fell in the former group, and loved the show. I would admit they could be a bit hypocritical at times: railing against the “Mass Hysteria” of the “Static Age” when you appeared on the finale of American Idol? Really? Overall, though, they were exactly what I expected them to be: high-caliber Arena Punk. When they repeatedly prompted the crowd with “wayyyy-o,” they were not unconsciously crying “sellll out;” they were pumping everyone up!
And they certainly were able to rouse everyone: I don’t think the crowd remained seated for more than five minutes of the three hour show. Why would they, when there were so many opportunities for participation? Two songs in, they opened the gates and allowed everyone in the upper levels two minutes to sneak onto the floor level. Five songs in, they invited Drake, this hilariously cocky little kid, on stage to dance to “Long View.” The fact that they tore him a new one once he went off stage made it even more adorable.
Band-crowd connections continued throughout the night. Billie Joe told this amusingly profane story about taking down a cab driver who dared to insult Green Day. He also took fifteen-second song requests, incorporating Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man,” Led Zeppelin’s “Thank You,” Guns ‘n Roses “Sweet Child of Mine,” Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger,” and Lynrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama” into an absurd, inspired, ten-minute jam.
Moreover, he invited all types of fans to play on stage. A thin, monotone, middle-aged man stumbled through “Basket Case” before diving effortlessly into the crowd. A heavy, vocally-gifted teen nailed all of “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” before thudding on top of crowd. Unquestionably the most impressive fan of the night, though, was the girl who performed “Jesus of Suburbia.” She took lead vocal and lead guitar and hit everything!
In the end, that was what made the concert rock. It may not have had the in-your-face, underground charisma of Rise Against, but it was not an empty corporate show. Finding a girl who can mesmerize Madison Square Garden for nine minutes means you’re looking for soul. It means you still care.
Grade: A
45 -- Rise Against -- Sun, July 26, 2009 -- Roseland Ballroom – NYC
How do you build on an A+? I thought I’d be in for at least some disappointment considering how Rise Against blew my mind the first time I saw them, but there was no dropoff. If anything, they were better this time.
The first show I was mainly impressed they didn’t suck. This time I came in knowing that they’d be far better than on their albums, but I was also looking forward to a number of specific tracks: “Long Forgotten Sons,” “Re-Education (Through Labor),” “Swung Life Away,” even “State of the Union” – for its sheer, decibel-breaking gall. These tracks – and virtually all others – were incredible. I was able to mosh and scream and pump with a thousand other maniacs to songs I actually knew/liked.
The overall high point of the concert was the first song. Tim McIllrath walked onto a dark stage, waited a few seconds to heighten the anticipation, and then pounded into “Collapse [Post-Amerika].” The visuals were, as usual, stunning: McIllrath, bathed in neon light, ran, jumped, and flailed across every part of the stage. The crowd was happy to follow his lead, transforming into a single seething mass before the song even hit the chorus. The added awesome effect this time was that I actually knew the chorus: “this is not a test; this is cardiac arrest.”
Close behind “Collapse” was the last song before the encore, “Prayer of the Refugee.” Powerful as that song is, I love that they didn’t put it dead last. (“Ready to Fall” fit perfectly in that slot.) It still launched the crowd into an inhuman frenzy (“don’t hold me UP now; I can stand my OWN ground”), but did so at an unexpected moment. (Jimmy Eat World, Alkaline Trio, take note: place “The Middle” and “Radio” somewhere else!)
“Prayer of the Refugee” actually threatened to accomplish what “Collapse” had promised: “cardiac arrest.” As soon as the song ended, I felt dizzy and started to have trouble breathing. (Ninety seconds of rage’ll do that to you…) I eventually recovered for the remaining seven (!) songs after the encore, but it was touch-and-go for a few seconds.
The new measure of a great punk rock concert? Cardiac arrest.
Grade: A+
The first show I was mainly impressed they didn’t suck. This time I came in knowing that they’d be far better than on their albums, but I was also looking forward to a number of specific tracks: “Long Forgotten Sons,” “Re-Education (Through Labor),” “Swung Life Away,” even “State of the Union” – for its sheer, decibel-breaking gall. These tracks – and virtually all others – were incredible. I was able to mosh and scream and pump with a thousand other maniacs to songs I actually knew/liked.
The overall high point of the concert was the first song. Tim McIllrath walked onto a dark stage, waited a few seconds to heighten the anticipation, and then pounded into “Collapse [Post-Amerika].” The visuals were, as usual, stunning: McIllrath, bathed in neon light, ran, jumped, and flailed across every part of the stage. The crowd was happy to follow his lead, transforming into a single seething mass before the song even hit the chorus. The added awesome effect this time was that I actually knew the chorus: “this is not a test; this is cardiac arrest.”
Close behind “Collapse” was the last song before the encore, “Prayer of the Refugee.” Powerful as that song is, I love that they didn’t put it dead last. (“Ready to Fall” fit perfectly in that slot.) It still launched the crowd into an inhuman frenzy (“don’t hold me UP now; I can stand my OWN ground”), but did so at an unexpected moment. (Jimmy Eat World, Alkaline Trio, take note: place “The Middle” and “Radio” somewhere else!)
“Prayer of the Refugee” actually threatened to accomplish what “Collapse” had promised: “cardiac arrest.” As soon as the song ended, I felt dizzy and started to have trouble breathing. (Ninety seconds of rage’ll do that to you…) I eventually recovered for the remaining seven (!) songs after the encore, but it was touch-and-go for a few seconds.
The new measure of a great punk rock concert? Cardiac arrest.
Grade: A+
Willie Nelson / John Mellencamp / Bob Dylan / Blink 182 / Weezer / Taking Back Sunday
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