tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44611820805881803622024-03-19T05:55:13.135-07:00The Little House of Concrete MusicUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger189125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461182080588180362.post-40667519364928349402018-02-07T17:29:00.000-08:002018-02-27T14:16:38.094-08:00Roger Waters, Brisbane Entertainment Centre, 7 February 2018<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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A purist would beg to disagree, but I have, <u>effectively</u>, now seen what I never expected to see: a Pink Floyd concert.<br />
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Mr or Ms Purist would, of course, base their objections on the principle that it couldn't be Pink Floyd without the presence of Messrs Gilmour, Wright and Mason on the stage.<br />
That point is what prompts the use of the word <i>effectively</i>.<br />
<br />
Rick Wright's not with us anymore, and anyone familiar with the history of the long-term split between Roger Waters and everyone else would know not to expect a reunion that amounted to anything more than a one-off anytime soon.<br />
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Since the split, there have been entities touring out there under the Pink Floyd moniker, and they've attracted the predictable criticism that it ain't Pink Floyd without Waters and, probably, <i>Shine On You Crazy Diamond</i> as a nod back to the band's founder.<br />
Given my 'druthers, I'd have seen the "real "Pink Floyd, the classic quartet sometime back before <b><i>The Wall</i></b>, with those long, moody instrumental pieces, immaculate musicianship and the odd special effect here and there.<br />
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If I had, I mightn't have been inclined to see last night's show, dismissing it with a <i class="">he'll</i><i> probably load the setlist with his solo stuff</i>.<br />
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It's easy to be critical that way, but you could put that down to a reluctance to shell out a couple of hundred for the ticket, add on airfares and accommodation and time away from home in the cyclone season.<br />
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The Understanding Reader will see where I was coming from.<br />
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But the long and short of it is that if I had stuck with the <i>I'm not going to pay $270 to see Roger Waters</i> I'd have missed a damn fine show and one of the most spectacular displays of special effects the average punter will ever see.<br />
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At that point, one returns to what your average punter would have expected at a Pink Floyd show, regardless of who was present on stage.<br />
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So let's tick off the boxes:<br />
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Most of <b><i>Dark Side of the Moon</i></b>, for a start.<br />
<b>Tick.</b><br />
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<i>Another Brick in the Wall</i>, a song that I've always had <i>issues</i> with, but whose sentiments I sympathise with. If only one could replace <i class="">teacher</i> with <i>education department bureaucrats and opportunistic politicians</i> and still make the line scan.<br />
But, <b>tick.</b><br />
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Impeccable musicianship.<br />
<b>Tick.</b><br />
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<i>One of These Days</i>.<br />
<b>Tick,</b> and a mightily thunderous rendering it was.<br />
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Some special effects, including a flying pig.<br />
<b>Tick,</b> and note that as the pig made its way around the arena airspace, it was only a small part of a stunning visual experience.<br />
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And, finally,, given the need to synch the special effects to the musical content (well, maybe not the pig itself) a show that operates on almost precision timing. <i>The guitar solo can only be this long because the aircraft explodes at the end, and the SFX engineer needs to press the button at 7:58 on the timer.</i><br />
<b>Tick,</b> noting that there was minimal interaction between those on stage.<br />
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Seasoned observers would expect some eye contact, a nod here and there as players moved in and out of solos, a gesture from the leader towards the next featured player.<br />
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There was none of that, and given the other considerations, you wouldn't expect it.<br />
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You would, on the other hand, have expected some pointed remarks about current affairs, and they were there in spades, throughout the show.<br />
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With a <i>big show</i> count approaching forty, and a disinclination to make comparisons and rankings, it's hard to rate last night's show, except to note that I've never seen anything like it.<br />
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One avoids using terms like "best ever" when you're lining something up against Leonard Cohen, or the legendary Springsteen Brisbane 2014 show that has been rated by those who are inclined to do things like that as possibly the best Springsteen show ever.<br />
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But it had all the polish and precision of the Cohen.<br />
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It also had the pointed commentary that lies under much of the recent Springsteen, but where that bubbles under, here it washed across the audience in, at times, a sonic wall of righteous anger and almost venomous outrage.<br />
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Hardly the quiet pastoralism of, say <i>Grantchester Meadows</i> or <i>Fat Old Sun</i>, but we weren't expecting that, were we?<br />
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And, despite the reservations that have seeped in through the preceding seven hundred odd words, one of the very best shows I'm ever likely to see.<br />
Period.<br />
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Setlist:<br />
Intro: <i>Speak to Me</i><br />
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Set I: <i>Breathe</i>; <i>One of These Days</i>; <i>Time</i>; <i>Breathe (Reprise)</i>; <i>The Great Gig in the Sky</i>; <i>Welcome to the Machine</i>; <i>Déjà Vu</i>; <i>The Last Refugee</i>; <i>Picture That</i>; <i>Wish You Were Here</i>; <i>The Happiest Days of Our Lives</i>; <i>Another Brick in the Wall Part 2</i>; <i>Another Brick in the Wall Part 3</i>.<br />
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Set 2: <i>Dogs</i>; <i>Pigs (Three Different Ones)</i>; <i>Money</i>; <i>Us and Them</i>; <i>Smell the Roses</i>; <i>Brain Damage</i>; <i>Eclipse</i>.<br />
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Encore: <i>Mother</i>; <i>Comfortably Numb</i>.<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461182080588180362.post-71856198244373335032017-10-18T18:13:00.002-07:002017-10-18T18:14:28.250-07:00Richard Thompson :"Acoustic Rarities"<br />
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Here's further proof (as if any is needed) that Richard Thompson sits somewhere towards the very top of the singer-songwriter pecking order. It's hard to figure what defines a <i>Rarity</i> in RT's view—presumably something that didn't fit in somewhere else or ended up on the back-burner, setlist-wise. </div>
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In some cases (<i>What If?</i>), it's fairly obvious why, but skim through the rest.<br />
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These, remember, are, more or less, the castoffs.<br />
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Your average singer-songwriter would use something like <i>They Tore the Hippodrome Down</i> as the centrepiece of an album. Here, it's the start of a steady build through the classic <i>Never Again</i>, a long-time favourite (<i>The Poor Ditching Boy</i>), the bleak masterpiece that is <i>End of the Rainbow</i> and a couple of Fairport Convention classics in <i>Sloth</i> and <i>Poor Will</i>.<br />
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The rest of the material ain't too shabby either.<br />
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And remember, folks, these are, in effect, the also-rans. <b>Outstanding</b>.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461182080588180362.post-11964679988833023112017-02-20T16:49:00.003-08:002017-02-20T16:49:31.416-08:00Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band: Hope Estate, Hunter Valley 18 February 2017From our guest reviewer, the Non-Venerable Bede.<br />
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Catching the Rover Coach from Thornton, I chatted with the local Novocastrians about their expectations for the concert. There were first timers and one or two seasoned Brucenics. Some were annoyed that chairs had been banned and wanted to talk about the legalities of the last minute regulation change.<br />
The 40 minute drive through wine country was a relaxed way to get to the show, although all the time keeping an eye on the cumulus build up on the horizon. The day before had seen a violent lightning storm bringing heavy rain, and the prospect of a repeat in the Hope Estate open air venue was causing some trepidation.<br />
Our friendly bus driver gave us tips on finding the bus at shows’ end. Better to be prepared after having “turped up”, he advised.<br />
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As we arrived, Deisel was belting out his set list ahead of schedule….maybe the organisers were worried about an afternoon storm. And so they should have been! Hail and rain descended before Jet’s show and kept the 11,000 crowd crouching under makeshift cover for about 20 minutes. The rain came again after Jet – this time a short encore. As we approached 7 pm, the assembled took their seats or positions in the GA areas. It was wet underfoot but not diabolical.<br />
The clock ticked to 7:30 pm and still no Bruce. A cloud build up to the south-west kept the threat of another storm front of mind, but all that was blown away by the time Bruce and the E Street Band emerged at about 7:40 pm.<br />
A hat tip to the Hunter Valley and the storm and Bruce led the way with <i>Who’ll Stop The Rain</i>, the band crashing in for the second verse to provide an appropriately contextual opener. Then <i>Badlands</i> – a ripping and fresh version that signalled tonight’s set list would have a different feel to the previous Tuesday in Brisbane.<br />
This was a concert for the outdoors, for the fun and sheer joy of it. This was a celebration – the last show in Australia for 2017 – and a distinctly relaxed Bruce was going to make the most of it. Crowd sing-alongs followed with <i>Out in the Street</i> and <i>Waiting On A Sunny Day</i> after a sign request had brought a relic with the cover of <i>I Fought The Law</i> – Bruce instructing the band “in the key of G!”.<br />
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<i>Mary’s Place</i> was a welcome return with its Van Morrison-like punch and swing. It was the pre-cursor to the very rare <i>None But The Brave</i> – a throwback to the early 80s and the style Bruce adopted with the soaring ballads of that time and reminiscent for this listener of the work of Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes.<br />
Then came <i>Wrecking Ball</i>. I love this song live. It has a determination and punch that makes it a live special. It led the crowd into the darker portion of the set which seems to have occupied most of Bruce’s concerts this time around. <i>Death to My Hometown</i>, <i>The River,</i> <i>Youngstown</i>, <i>The Promised Land</i>. Then back into the light with the joys of <i>Working on the Highway</i>, <i>Glory Days</i> and <i>Darlington County</i>.<br />
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Two other centrepieces – <i>Because the Night</i> and <i>The Rising</i> – shone for their artistry and sheer musical force. There was a nice touch with a young man, Bill, joining Bruce on stage to sing and play <i>No Surrender</i>, dedicated to his father in New Jersey. Bruce donned an Akubra hat for some of the encores – it looked good on him, with a harking back to some of <b><i>The Ghost of Tom Joad</i></b>-era photos.<br />
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The encores proceeded apace like a wound up ‘57 Chevy hurtling down the highway, the highlights being <i>Shout</i> (recalling the great Johnny O’Keefe) and <i>Bobby Jean</i> - now transformed into a fond farewell to the crowd.<br />
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And the crowd, they cheered for more:<br />
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<i>Heard the singers playin', </i><br />
<i>How we cheered for more.</i><br />
<i>The crowd had rushed together, </i><br />
<i>Tryin' to keep warm.</i><br />
<i>Still the rain kept pourin', </i><br />
<i>Fallin' on my ears.</i><br />
<i>And I wonder, </i><br />
<i>Still I wonder </i><br />
<i>Who'll stop the rain?</i><br />
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Well, Bruce did. And he farewelled us with a beautiful Thunder Road, replete with a lyrical misstep (“..like a vision, she crosses….”). But it didn’t matter. Nothing else mattered. Here are a man and his band who continue to fuel a musician/listener love affair that just seems to get stronger and provide us with a chance to experience the rush moment that’s worth living for.<br />
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<i>Who’ll Stop The Rain</i></div>
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<i>Badlands</i></div>
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<i>Out in the Street</i></div>
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<i>I Fought The Law</i></div>
<div>
<i>Jole Blon</i></div>
<div>
<i>Waitin’ on a Sunny Day</i></div>
<div>
<i>I’m Goin’ Down</i></div>
<div>
<i>Hungry Heart</i></div>
<div>
<i>Mary’s Place</i></div>
<div>
<i>None But the Brave</i></div>
<div>
<i>Wrecking Ball</i></div>
<div>
<i>You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch)</i></div>
<div>
<i>Death to My Hometown</i></div>
<div>
<i>The River</i></div>
<div>
<i>Youngstown</i></div>
<div>
<i>The Promised Land</i></div>
<div>
<i>Working on the Highway</i></div>
<div>
<i>Glory Days</i></div>
<div>
<i>Darlington County</i></div>
<div>
<i>Because the Night</i></div>
<div>
<i>The Rising</i></div>
<div>
<i>Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)</i></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
*****</div>
<div>
<i>No Surrender</i></div>
<div>
<i>Born to Run</i></div>
<div>
<i>Dancing in the Dark</i></div>
<div>
<i>Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out</i></div>
<div>
<i>Shout</i></div>
<div>
<i>Bobby Jean</i></div>
<div>
<i>Thunder Road</i></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461182080588180362.post-74359290953919744082017-02-17T16:59:00.000-08:002017-03-01T14:45:20.523-08:00Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band Brisbane Entertainment Centre 16 February 2017<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1iV4Y7d6liymUPA6JfLfeKoK5q_5stHh8Omsy-Lm96I0DDwvuTMpnF0T_5_27J2s-NrOn0eDg5BzoveJbyKncFg70aksG0JWZ_30RG8bhaBoVv9I9Yz309Wi57lb1O9f6AUsWhZ_0rTc/s1600/IMG_2158.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1iV4Y7d6liymUPA6JfLfeKoK5q_5stHh8Omsy-Lm96I0DDwvuTMpnF0T_5_27J2s-NrOn0eDg5BzoveJbyKncFg70aksG0JWZ_30RG8bhaBoVv9I9Yz309Wi57lb1O9f6AUsWhZ_0rTc/s1600/IMG_2158.JPG" /></a></div>
<br />
<div>
The train out to Boondall hadn't quite reached Fortitude Valley when I looked out to the right and realised that the basement of a building just over there must have housed Brisbane’s legendary Red Orb disco back in the sixties.</div>
<div>
Back when The Purple Hearts were Brisbane's answer to the Rolling Stones and The Pretty Things.</div>
<div>
That got me thinking.</div>
<div>
I'd noted somewhere along the line that <b><i>Little Steven’s Underground Garage</i></b> radio show had gone out from the Hard Rock Cafe at Surfers Paradise on Wednesday. </div>
<div>
Subsequent online checking revealed that it goes to air on a Sunday, so at the time of writing that there is no way to check the actual details, but the thought process went like this:</div>
<div>
There is every possibility the contents would include something with a direct link to Brisbane. </div>
<div>
The Saints, possibly. </div>
<div>
Or The Purple Hearts, if Mr Van Zandt wanted something a tad more obscure.</div>
<div>
There were, I think, three Purple Hearts singles, one of which (<i>You Can't Sit Down</i>) had been part of the E Street Band repertoire. </div>
<div>
A quick heck on BRUCEfanatic revealed it had been played relatively recently, twice in 2012 and three times in 2009, out of a total of 30 appearances in setlist stretching back as far as 1975.</div>
<div>
I floated the theory past The Rug Man, who’d slotted himself into the seat behind mine on a reasonably packed commuter service. He conceded it that was a possibility but would not go any further than that.</div>
<div>
Which is wise, because with Bruce you go to expect the unexpected.</div>
<div>
What you get, though, under the label of <i>unexpected</i>, is the unanticipated result of the thought processes of someone who is writing (or rather, improvising) a spur of the moment agenda within fixed parameters with which the rest of the world is, unsurprisingly, not entirely <i>au fait</i>.</div>
<div>
So, needless to say, <i>You Can't Sit Down</i> failed to get a guernsey.</div>
<div>
And, at the last city show of the Australian leg of this tour, you might expect something like the tour's greatest hits, a setlist starting with <i>New York City Serenade</i> that wound up with the regular features.</div>
<div>
That would probably do if the sole object of the exercise was to send twelve or thousand fans out into the night around 10:45 with the echoes of the <i>de rigueur</i> encore echoing in their ears.</div>
<div>
In between those semi-compulsory elements is where you expect to find the odd surprise. </div>
<div>
Under those circumstances, you might anticipate a collection of numbers drawn from the set lists of the previous eight shows. </div>
<div>
Sort of like, <i>hey folks these are the ones that we dug playing as surprises this time around</i>.</div>
<div>
But, of course, you don't get that either. </div>
<div>
What you do get is a situation where the official set list had Hughesy adding five numbers to the song matrix, which now contains 119 selections played over 16 shows. </div>
<div>
We’ll be back to that point and related matters even at the post-tour wash up that will be posted after I return to the physical, rather than the metaphorical, <b><i>Little House of Concrete</i></b>.</div>
<div>
So, five new additions and a surprise, non-sign request version of <i>Jole Blon</i>, which might have turned up and set list twice last year but still hardly counts as standard fare.</div>
<div>
And you can throw in, on top of that, a version of <i>Growing Up </i>which may not have been exactly the way it seemed at the moment. </div>
<div>
On the surface, it looked relatively straightforward. </div>
<div>
There's a kid in the audience with a sign about skipping school asking whether he can get up onstage and play guitar on <i>Growing Up</i>. </div>
<div>
Bruce supposedly spots it, gives things a moment’s consideration, puts a <i>what do you guys reckon? t</i>o the audience, receives the required approval, and the teenage kid gets his moment in the rock'n' roll spotlight.</div>
<div>
Like the rendition of <i>Brown Eyed Girl</i> in Adelaide, the whole thing goes off with the smoothness that might suggest to a cynic the whole thing was staged, but who cares?</div>
<div>
It was a great little vignette that added an intriguing dimension to another outstanding show, the kind of stuff people will use in years to come to tag Brisbane #2 2017.</div>
<div>
Brisbane #1 was, of course, <i>the night he played all those special songs for Valentine’s Day</i>.</div>
<div>
This one will be <i>the night when he got that kid up to play guitar on Growing Up</i>.</div>
<div>
And why not? </div>
<div>
It looks cool, worked better than you might expect it to, and gave everyone in the audience oodles of warm fuzzies.</div>
<div>
But as I made my way out of Central Station on the way back to the hotel, I ran across the Rug Man again. </div>
<div>
He had a distinct impression that the whole thing was staged.</div>
<div>
I was sitting way too far away to have picked it up, unless, of course, I happened to spot it on one of the big screens, but Rug Man reckoned the kid was wearing a wire.</div>
<div>
If it was true, it meant he had an in-ear connection to the sound monitors, so he could hear how things sounded. That, in turn, meant he must have been given it at some point before he clambered onto the stage.</div>
<div>
But, of course, we'll probably never know. </div>
<div>
There may well be some confidentiality agreement that would preclude the kid going out and divulging the details.</div>
<div>
It away, it reminded me of stories about The Man in Black, a semi-legendary figure from, I think, 1999 tour. </div>
<div>
This guy was apparently dispatched to find dedicated fans sitting up in the nosebleeds and offer them <i>el primo</i>, much better, seats.</div>
<div>
That happened for a while and then seemed to stop as if the practice lost the desired effect as the stories started to circulate.</div>
<div>
Now, there is no way I will ever know for sure, not being someone who is going to take large chunks out of the day to go through the arcade rituals associated with Bruce’s pit procedure.</div>
<div>
But it seems fairly obvious that either Bruce himself or some dedicated underling reconnoitres the queue around the time the wristbands are handed out.</div>
<div>
We've had several references to different countries <i>represented in the pit tonight</i>, a rapid-fire recitation of nationalities that needs data from somewhere if it's not reasonably well-founded guesswork.</div>
<div>
So it might have gone down something like this. </div>
<div>
The kid, along with his sign, is lined up along with everyone else for the GA lottery. </div>
<div>
Bruce or his representative spots the sign, with its reference to skipping school. </div>
<div>
Well, that bit has to be true. </div>
<div>
He's a school-age kid, and it is well and truly within school hours. </div>
<div>
Whoever it is sidled over on the quiet, asks if the kid would really like it to happen, and things are set up from there. </div>
<div>
They're called it even be a little mini rehearsal during the soundcheck, just to get a better idea of whether this thing is likely to fly.</div>
<div>
But who knows? </div>
<div>
And, in a way, who cares?</div>
<div>
Unless, of course, you're a fan with a burning ambition for something or other seeking a way to achieve it. In that case, I hope Hughesy’s unfounded speculation hasn't spoiled it for anyone.</div>
<div>
But there is no reason why my hypothetical postulation should spoil it. </div>
<div>
Because a couple of things seem to be self-evident.</div>
<div>
For a start, these things only happen once in a while, and they only happen when the opportunity presents itself.</div>
<div>
Second, if they are going to happen at all, it will be because Bruce has decided it's a good idea.</div>
<div>
Third, once the opportunity has presented itself after Bruce and company decide it's a good idea, and it's prearranged, and there's a rehearsal required, tha will provide a mixture of a safety net and a get out clause. </div>
<div>
Running through the idea in private, or at the sound check, gives everyone involve the opportunity to say, <i>Sorry, this hasn't quite worked out the way we thought it would</i>.</div>
<div>
And, after that, if the participants need to be wired into the sound system, that's going to make it all sound better.</div>
<div>
But although in Brisbane show #2, 2017 may go down in Bruce mythology as <i>the kid on stage to play the guitar and sing on Growing Up show</i>, that wasn't main, or, indeed, the only highlight.</div>
<div>
Once the audience had received the now customary <i>Serenade</i>, the next mini bracket of four songs, the spot where Bruce is wont to slot in an obscurity or two, got four of them. </div>
<div>
<i>Working on a Dream</i> was a pleasant surprise, <i>Roll of the Dice</i> was another one, and <i>Long Time Coming</i> had been.</div>
<div>
It had been coming, in fact, for two-and-a-half years, a long time for a solar significant enough to be included on <b><i>Chapter and Verse</i></b>, and, just before it, <i>Jole Blon</i> went within a whisker of making Hughesy's night.</div>
<div>
And, after <i>Growing Up</i>, we got that little mini bracket of crowd pleasers. </div>
<div>
<i>Out on the Street</i>, <i>No Surrender,</i> <i>Hungry Heart</i> and <i>Mary's Place</i> were there, more than likely, to tick a few boxes and make sure the crowd went home having heard a few of their favourites.</div>
<div>
But then we were back with the semi-obscurities. </div>
<div>
If <i>Fire</i> didn't make my night, it was only because we'd already had <i>Jole Blon</i>. </div>
<div>
After that, <i>Follow That Dream</i> was a bonus as we segued into the sequence of career highlights and show-stoppers that bring you to the point where the house lights are up, the asterisks appear in the set list, and you realise you've landed right slap bang in the encore.</div>
<div>
<i>Jungleland</i> may have got an airing in Perth and Sydney and at Hanging Rock, but there was allegedly someone in the pit who'd been to many shows without hearing it. </div>
<div>
That was probably true, but even if it wasn't the selection worked brilliantly as a lead into a close to stock standard encore bracket.</div>
<div>
And a full band <i>Thunder Road</i> was an almost perfect way out of it.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
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<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<i>New York City Serenade</i> (with strings)</div>
<div>
<i>Working on a Dream</i></div>
<div>
<i>Roll of the Dice</i></div>
<div>
<i>Jole Blon</i></div>
<div>
<i>Long Time Coming</i></div>
<div>
<i>Growin' Up</i></div>
<div>
<i>Out in the Street</i></div>
<div>
<i>No Surrender</i></div>
<div>
<i>Hungry Heart</i></div>
<div>
<i>Mary's Place</i></div>
<div>
<i>Fire</i></div>
<div>
<i>Follow That Dream</i></div>
<div>
<i>The River</i></div>
<div>
<i>American Skin (41 Shots)</i></div>
<div>
<i>The Promised Land</i></div>
<div>
<i>Downbound Train</i></div>
<div>
<i>I'm on Fire </i></div>
<div>
<i>Because the Night</i></div>
<div>
<i>She's the One</i></div>
<div>
<i>Badlands</i></div>
<div>
<i>Rosalita</i></div>
<div>
<i>* * *</i></div>
<div>
<i>Jungleland</i></div>
<div>
<i>Born to Run</i></div>
<div>
<i>Dancing in the Dark</i></div>
<div>
<i>Tenth Avenue Freeze-out</i></div>
<div>
<i>Shout</i></div>
<div>
<i>Thunder Road</i></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461182080588180362.post-14094883107620131102017-02-14T18:14:00.000-08:002017-03-19T15:32:28.570-07:00Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band Brisbane Entertainment Centre 14 February 2017<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3iKATtOznjl0X_P95XSqT4YyczJRX8UB7f3bgndlacYigndvqkoaY7RulOXC65otpTfTzm2kWW099WGqlC1H4_njRwcXUX7Lbb6zljgdchFn2K1w9WbCDKFH20BLaKhpJTa9QZ44aCUg/s1600/image1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3iKATtOznjl0X_P95XSqT4YyczJRX8UB7f3bgndlacYigndvqkoaY7RulOXC65otpTfTzm2kWW099WGqlC1H4_njRwcXUX7Lbb6zljgdchFn2K1w9WbCDKFH20BLaKhpJTa9QZ44aCUg/s1600/image1.JPG" /></a></div>
<br />
Well, after all, it was Valentine's Day.<br />
And Bruce was quite insistent about the need to send flowers at the beginning of a <i>Back in Your Arms</i> that underlines how willing Springsteen and company are to shake things up and, effectively, fly by the seat of their pants.<br />
They don't do it all the time, of course.<br />
A glance down last night’s twenty-six song set list will reveal plenty of what you might term <i>the usual suspects</i>.<br />
Anyone who had been following the way things have unfolded over the nine shows to date would have spotted the music stands and anticipated the starter.<br />
And, at the end of the regular set, five-sixths of the encore good reasonably be described as pretty standard fare, more or less what your common or garden Springsteen fan expects.<br />
They are, after all, the vast majority of the crowd in a sold-out venue, and if they’ve splashed out a couple hundred dollars for a ticket and fronted the merch booth you drop a couple of multiples of $50 on T-shirts and such oh good businessmen will ensure that they go home happy.<br />
So they get the encore, with its <i>Dancing in the Dark</i> set piece, which is another prime example of a savvy performer who knows what works. It's the sort of thing that ensures the pit continues to be a source of primal energy that helps drive what goes down onstage.<br />
And, just under halfway through the main set, you know you're going to get <i>Hungry Hear</i>t, and the associated bit of crowd surfing if the conformation of the venue permits.<br />
On the way into the Brisbane Entertainment Centre, around the entrances to the pit, you'll see signs informing attendees that crowd surfing is strictly prohibited is that offenders will be rejected. Probably unceremoniously.<br />
But those sanctions only apply to lesser mortals.<br />
Glancing at the seat in the details on my ticket, I had figured Row AC on the floor would have to be around twenty-nine back from the front.<br />
That would equate, pretty much, to where I was sitting for the two Sydney shows and leave vision dependent on the goodwill of those in front of me.<br />
When I arrived, I found that I was actually three rows back and maybe four seats across from the platform Bruce departs from for his crowd surfing exploits.<br />
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<br />
The seat on my right was occupied by the non-Venerable Bede, a long-time fan whose Bruce obsession that goes back to <b><i>Born to Run</i></b>, but hadn't been able to catch any of the earlier shows on the tour.<br />
On that basis, what might expect a detailed discussion of how things had panned out over seven shows, I that, but was told, was a no no.<br />
He had deliberately avoided the details of the tour to date, then wanted to be surprised by the setlist as it unfolded. It was an attitude I found difficult to comprehend, knowing that after <i>New York City Serenade</i>, which would either open or slot in around number seven, there were four or five almost inevitable no-brainers (<i>Hungry Heart</i>, <i>Youngstown</i>, <i>Because the Night</i>, <i>The Rising</i>, and <i>Badlands</i>) in the main set, and the encores were more or less obvious if you took any time at all to consider such matters.<br />
And, on his right, there was a woman who'd gone to school in Proserpine a couple of years behind the inimitable Staggster, who I just happened to be interacting with on Facebook. It's a small world, and it continues to shrink.<br />
The seat to my left remained unoccupied throughout, which may or may not have been related to an interesting snippet that emerged when one of the seats in the row in front of us was occupied by a gentleman with an American accent and an inclination to chat.<br />
Since most of the row was unoccupied at that point, Hughesy, ex-Prossy Lady and the non-Venerable One were the obvious candidates.<br />
And it seemed our new friend Leon, who had a ticket for Thursday but not, initially, one for tonight had rocked up to the venue an hour ago, asked whether anything was available and landed a single seat in a prime position.<br />
On that basis, one might assume the seat of my left remained unoccupied because no one had turned up and asked.<br />
At least I hope that was the explanation.<br />
Given what was to come, you wouldn't want someone to have missed out through illness or misfortune.<br />
So the lights went down, Professor Bittan appeared on the screens, the libraries tinkled and we were serenaded once again. N<i>ew York City Serenade</i> continues to sparkle as a sublime opener, a glass of prime bubbles to go with the canapes, but your average punter wouldn’t have anticipated what came next.<br />
But that's not quite right either.<br />
Your average Bruce familiar punter would have expected surprises and would still have been surprised by what eventuated.<br />
<b><i>BRUCEfanatic</i></b> reports that <i>Lucky Town</i> had not been played since 2005, while <i>Janey Don't You Lose Heart</i> has been played once in 2015 and 2013, and twice in 2009 after multiple airings in 2008.<br />
You could hardly describe either as an obvious candidate.<br />
<i>Rendezvous</i> and <i>Be True</i> had turned up in tandem in Sydney but the real surprise and, for me, the highlight of the show (and possibly the whole tour) came after Bruce grabbed a sign advocating <i>Back in Your Arms. </i><br />
What followed underlined just how many risks Bruce and company are willing to take they are in the mood to be adventurous.<br />
Lesser mortals might not even have attempted it, though one note it has turned up from time to time. More adventurous souls may have embarked on it and ground to an embarrassed halt when things went awry.<br />
Bruce, on the other hand, admitted that things had gone wrong, enlisted Mr. Lofgren to help bring it all back together, and brought the whole thing to a climactic conclusion.<br />
It was the sort of performance that makes you wish Bruce’s official website would release selected video footage along with the audio recordings of most shows. <i>Back in Your Arms</i> would be an obvious candidate for that sort of treatment, but in the absence of an official source, the semi-inevitable YouTube footage will have to do, assuming somebody has the wherewithal to post it.<br />
<i>Better Days</i> was another sign request, and while, thereafter, the foot stayed down while things kept motoring, your average optimistic punter would probably not have been expecting too many further surprises.<br />
So we got <i>Leap of Faith</i> for the first time since two inclusions in 2014 and the encore kicked off with <i>Secret Garden</i>, which had a play count of just four since a debut at Madison Square Garden in 2000.<br />
It was that sort of night.<br />
And, for Hughesy, a further highlight came with a <i>Candy's Room</i> that roared and soared, burning with the passion that it deserved.<br />
If I had my way, it would appear, on average, in every second or third set list.<br />
And that's about all that needs to be said except to note that the Nils Lofgren solos in <i>Youngstown</i> and <i>Because the Night</i> had me wishing that an electric <i>Ghost of Tom Joad</i> would find its way back into the equation with Nils handed the guitar shredding duties formerly assigned to Tom Morello.<br />
So that was it.<br />
Eight down, one to go, and I doubt you would have found too many dissatisfied customers on the way out.<br />
<br />
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<br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>New York City Serenade</i> (with strings)<br />
<i>Lucky Town</i><br />
<i>Janey Don't You Lose Heart</i><br />
<i>Rendezvous</i><br />
<i>Be True</i><br />
<i>Back in Your Arms</i><br />
<i>Better Days</i><br />
<i>The Ties That Bind</i><br />
<i>Out in the Street</i><br />
<i>Hungry Heart</i><br />
<i>Wrecking Ball</i><br />
<i>Leap of Faith</i><br />
<i>The River</i><br />
<i>Youngstown</i><br />
<i>Candy's Room</i><br />
<i>She's the One</i><br />
<i>Because the Night</i><br />
<i>The Rising </i><br />
<i>Badlands</i><br />
<i>Rosalita</i><br />
<i>* * *</i><br />
<i>Secret Garden</i><br />
<i>Born to Run</i><br />
<i>Dancing in the Dark</i><br />
<i>Tenth Avenue Freeze-out</i><br />
<i>Shout</i><br />
<i>Bobby Jean </i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461182080588180362.post-34310637050533446112017-02-11T19:08:00.000-08:002017-02-21T19:26:30.512-08:00Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, Sydney, Thursday 9 February 2017<br />
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<br />
The train was on its way out of the station when I consulted the iPhone and noted that the time was 11:01.<br />
On that basis, I’d been right when I'd remarked to the male half of the duo who had claimed the seats beside me that I thought the show had been <i>a little short</i>.<br />
For once, I had an accurate note of the starting time (7:47), and the most recent time check during the concert, around 10:20 had been just over the two-and-a-half-hour mark.<br />
From there, Bruce has surprised a few people with an acoustic <i>Thunder Road</i>, after that the venue had started to empty, I'd made my way to the station, and we’d had a bit of a wait before things got moving.<br />
So it seems fair to say but the interval between the gospel number coming over the public address and the train's departure was comfortably over fourteen minutes.<br />
Consequently, it seems safe to assume that the concert room comfortably short of three hours.<br />
I did not, however, raise the point because people might think I was confusing quantity with quality.<br />
As far as shows go, this was one of the best, despite the odd distraction in the neighbour department.<br />
A seat on the floor at the back of section D had me more or less across the way from where I’d been sitting on Tuesday, but this time the view to the front remained clear.<br />
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<br />
When I arrived, I found a couple two seats away on my right. Preshow discussion revealed he was either an American or had stayed there long enough to add an American inflection to his accent.<br />
And he was Deadhead, with a concert count roughly equivalent to Hughesy’s tally of Springsteen shows.<br />
But it was his first time for Bruce.<br />
She was less inclined to chat, but I suspect she was Australian, which probably explained why her other half was in the country.<br />
The seats on my left were taken by an Indian couple who were unsure about the visual side of things, being at the back of the floor and all. They were also new to the Bruce live experience.<br />
He was, however, big Rolling Stones fan, and seemed to rate Bruce alongside Mick Jagger as far as reputations about live performances were concerned.<br />
They both remained seated throughout the show, with his better half occasionally getting to her feet for a brief look at things that weren't coming up on the video screens.<br />
And it was well into <i>Lonesome Day</i> when the two seats on my immediate right were occupied by two large gentlemen bearing beer and a liberal supply of sideways conversation which may not have been Bruce related.<br />
In between regular resupply runs, they remained on their feet for much of the show which, in turn, raised issues for me as far as standing was concerned.<br />
I could've spent much of the concert on my feet, but that, in turn, would've blocked Mrs. India’s view of the three screens.<br />
Seated, she was never going to see much of the stage.<br />
But, not to put too fine a point on it, I was very much the worse for wear and quite happy to remain seated for most of the show.<br />
It had been very hot during the day and I would probably have been better off making my visit to the Australian National Maritime Museum yesterday rather than today.<br />
Weather permitting, of course.<br />
But it didn't, so I did, and paid the price during the night.<br />
There were frequent yawns through the twenty-seven song set and encore, but they nothing to do with boredom.<br />
How can you get bored in a Springsteen show that adds three numbers to your song matrix, includes <i>Rosalita</i>, and it is completely devoid of kids being hauled on stage to sing a verse of <i>Waiting on a Sunny Day</i>?<br />
Sure, we had the regulation crowd surf during <i>Hungry Heart</i> and the inevitable selection of dancers from the pit at the end of <i>Dancing in the Dark</i>.<br />
But they’re probably inevitable and are all part of the show.<br />
Equally inevitable, it seems, is <i>Shout</i>, and tonight confirmed notions about its value in the set list.<br />
No <i>Shout</i>, would probably have meant no <i>Bobby Jean</i> and quite possibly no acoustic <i>Thunder Road</i> to finish it off.<br />
Running through the setlist itself, <i>New York City Serenade</i> sparkled the way it always does.<br />
I just wish Bruce would find somewhere else to use those strings.<br />
From there, the four-song, up-tempo salvo got everything moving before things dropped back a notch with <i>Spirit in the Night</i>, played with the usual infectious groove.<br />
<i>Out in the Street</i> lead nicely into the night's second set piece (that's assuming you count the opener as the first) while <i>Death to my Hometown</i> slotted in around where it fits best<br />
<i>Adam Raised a Cain</i> was a sign request, probably a definite one since it hadn't been played it since Berlin in June last year.<br />
<i>The River</i>, <i>Youngstown</i> and <i>The Promised Land</i> could be rated among the usual suspects<br />
Throwing in <i>Rendezvous</i> and <i>Be True</i> shook things up a little before the rising crescendo that reached its peak with a boisterous <i>Rosalita</i>.<br />
With the house lights on but no other indication that it was encore time if <i>Born to Run</i> was predictable, the <i>Detroit Medley</i> wasn’t.<br />
But, boy did it fit!<br />
The <i>Dancing in the Dark</i> routine depends largely on the calibre of the dancers Bruce hauls out of the pit and this bunch was better than average.<br />
And, from there, things almost proceeded by numbers.<br />
Until, of course, the acoustic <i>Thunder Road</i> that should have had people who'd made their way out of the venue while the band was taking their curtain call kicking themselves.<br />
Hughesy is cagier.<br />
While I’ll start making my way towards the exit, there's no way I'm going to leave until that the gospel number comes across the PA.<br />
At that point, you can be reasonably assured that the show is over.<br />
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<br />
<i>New York City Serenade (with strings) </i><br />
<i>Lonesome Day</i><br />
<i>The Ties That Bind</i><br />
<i>No Surrender</i><br />
<i>My Love Will Not Let You Down</i><br />
<i>Spirit in the Night</i><br />
<i>Out in the Street</i><br />
<i>Hungry Heart</i><br />
<i>Death to My Hometown</i><br />
<i>Adam Raised a Cain</i><br />
<i>The River</i><br />
<i>Youngstown</i><br />
<i>The Promised Land</i><br />
<i>Rendezvous</i><br />
<i>Be True</i><br />
<i>Working on the Highway</i><br />
<i>Because the Night</i><br />
<i>The Rising</i><br />
<i>Badlands</i><br />
<i>Rosalita</i><br />
<i>* * * </i><br />
<i>Born to Run</i><br />
<i>Detroit Medley</i><br />
<i>Dancing in the Dark</i><br />
<i>Tenth Avenue Freeze-out</i><br />
<i>Shout</i><br />
<i>Bobby Jean</i><br />
<i>Thunder Road</i> (acoustic)<br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461182080588180362.post-78793548674178351142017-02-07T23:23:00.000-08:002017-02-07T23:23:34.462-08:00Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, Sydney, Tuesday 7 February 2017<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
If you're inclined to be superstitious, you might be inclined to approach Springsteen show #13 with a degree of trepidation.<br />
On the other hand, experience over the previous twelve suggests that you're not likely to get a show you would rate too far below excellent in terms of performance.<br />
Some are more stellar than others, but even when things don't quite click you can be reasonably confident of a good time.<br />
Of course, experience also shows that the enjoyment of the performance can be affected by your environment, particularly those around you.<br />
And, at the start, things did not particularly good. My seat was on the floor in Section E, well back on the end of Row 22.<br />
Alarm bells started ringing when the bloke on the right-hand side of the bald-headed gentleman in front of me remarked that <i>he could stand all night because there was no one behind him</i>.<br />
But I can't help thinking he had one eye pointed in my direction, waiting to see if there was any response.<br />
Hughesy, of course, was diplomatic.<br />
There's always a <i>wait and see</i> approach, and if things panned out so that I had to spend three hours on my feet, I'd be spending three hours of my feet.<br />
That's not a problem, complaints can be passed forward to the gentleman in front.<br />
In any case, the video screens at Qudos are very well elevated, and if you don't always need to be able to see the stage to enjoy the concert vibe.<br />
But it helps.<br />
Anyway, the gentleman in probably made his intentions quite clear by spending the ten minutes before the show actually started on his feet.<br />
As The Professor hit the keyboards, I thought he was going to remain on his feet through <i>New York City Serenade</i>, but sanity prevailed, and those behind me got to see the whole of the stage for the first number.<br />
That, however, was never going to last and as the keyboard duo strapped on the accordions for <i>American Land</i> he rose to its feet and that stayed there for the duration.<br />
For my part, I went with the flow, standing with those around me stood and resuming the seat when I realised they had done so.<br />
The easiest way to avoid minor irritations is to lose yourself in the flow of the concert and ignore anything on the periphery.<br />
Even when the periphery includes an ignorant bastard standing to slap bang in front of you.<br />
Mind you, there was a point what I nearly tapped him on the shoulder.<br />
A particular section of the bank of lights above the stage had a nasty habit of shining right in my eyes. If Inconsiderate Standing Dude would be so kind as to move about ten centimetres to his left this would no longer be a problem.<br />
Of course, I didn’t.<br />
My teeth are not particularly good, but I would prefer to keep them attached to my gums rather than having them repositioned at the back of my throat.<br />
Losing yourself in the flow of the concert isn't particularly difficult.<br />
Not when <i>American Land</i> flows almost straight into <i>The Ties That Bind</i>, which in turn segues into <i>No Surrender</i> and <i>Out in the Street</i>.<br />
And at this point, we return to a suspicion expressed previously.<br />
The last couple of shows seem to have seen the return of the sign request, but I'm not sure that everything is the way it seems on the surface.<br />
There have not been too many genuine obscurities selected.<br />
After <i>Out in the Street</i>, Bruce plucked aside advocating <i>My Love Will Not Let You Down</i> out of the audience.<br />
Half a dozen songs into the set is probably a reasonably natural niche for this minor classic, and I suspect it could have been lurking there in the set list all along.<br />
Straight afterwards, Bruce grabbed another sign referring to <i>a wife and kids in Baltimore, Jack</i>.<br />
Right in the slot where one would expect to find <i>Hungry Heart</i> and the associated piece of crowd-surfing back to the stage.<br />
But I'm not suggesting that it's all preplanned.<br />
The next sign, the third alleged sign request in succession, was for <i>Long Tall Sally</i>, and curiosity about the spontaneity factor saw the consult the iPhone and the <b><i>BRUCEfanatic</i></b> app, which is revealed 11 performances with the most recent in Milan in 2013.<br />
And that was the first time the song had been played since August 1989.<br />
I think you <i>can</i> count that one as a genuine that sign request.<br />
It took a minute or two to get things set up for the song, just like it did for <i>Joel Blon</i> at the first show in Melbourne last time around, but the band roared through it in fine style. One can't help suspecting there's some arrangement combining a database and electronic prompts to remind those on stage of lyrics and chords and the like.<br />
But that was really the only surprise in the three-hour set.<br />
I could have sworn I had experienced <i>American Skin (41 Shots)</i> in concert before, although it didn't appear in the song matrix until I added it earlier this morning.<br />
You couldn't really count <i>Candy's Room</i> as a surprise either, although Bruce doesn't play it as often as I'd like.<br />
Personally, I'd have it in the set list ahead of <i>Downbound Train</i>, <i>I’m On Fire</i>, or any of those crowd favourites from <i>Born in the USA</i>.<br />
But then, as stated before, I'm not the person who has spent $300 to see Bruce for the first time.<br />
On the other hand, Bruce, old buddy, old pal, next time you've got a setlist with more than two of those <b><i>Born in the USA</i></b> workhorses, drop one of them answer in the Candy's Room in its place.<br />
As long as you're not dropping <i>My Home Town</i>.<br />
Scan through the set list below and you'll see <i>She’s The One</i> straight after <i>Candy</i>, around the same slot it occupied when it turned up in Adelaide.<br />
Somewhere over the last week or so, I saw that given as a sign request, is what prompted suspicions about the current practice regarding sign requests.<br />
Here, it sat nicely as a worthy but slightly less played, inclusion among the what could really be described as the usual suspects.<br />
The blurry line between the main set and to the encore continues, with the house lights not coming up until after <i>Jungleland</i>.<br />
And from there, the run home might have been predictable but underlines the valuable spot occupied by <i>Shout</i>. Bruce, I suspected at the time, couldn't have gone straight from <i>Tenth Avenue Freezeout</i> into Bobby Jean, and further investigation through <b><i>BRUCEfanatic</i></b> reveals that sequence has never happened.<br />
Yet.<br />
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<br />
<i>New York City Serenade</i><br />
<i>American Land</i><br />
<i>The Ties That Bind</i><br />
<i>No Surrender</i><br />
<i>Out in the Street</i><br />
<i>My Love Will Not Let You Down</i><br />
<i>Hungry Heart</i><br />
<i>Long Tall Sally</i><br />
<i>Wrecking Ball</i><br />
<i>Darkness on the Edge of Town</i><br />
<i>American Skin (41 Shots)</i><br />
<i>Youngstown</i><br />
<i>The Promised Land</i><br />
<i>Mary's Place</i><br />
<i>Candy's Room</i><br />
<i>She's the One</i><br />
<i>Downbound Train </i><br />
<i>I'm on Fire</i><br />
<i>Because the Night</i><br />
<i>The Rising</i><br />
<i>Badlands</i><br />
<i>Thunder Road</i><br />
<i>* * *</i><br />
<i>Jungleland</i><br />
<i>Born to Run</i><br />
<i>Dancing in the Dark</i><br />
<i>Tenth Avenue Freeze-out</i><br />
<i>Shout</i><br />
<i>Bobby Jean</i><br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461182080588180362.post-41557295875557627992017-02-05T21:33:00.000-08:002017-02-05T21:33:26.694-08:00Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, Melbourne, Saturday 4 February 2017<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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With 27 songs in the set list for the fifth show of this nine concert cross-country extravaganza, you would have to say that the halfway point for the whole thing comes around song number 14.<br />
That, as it turns out, was <i>Death to my Hometown</i>, which turns out to be appropriate given the political comment that underpins much of the song selection.<br />
Scan down the set list and there are plenty of obvious examples from the opening <i>American Land</i> scattered through the set. And there are plenty more where the comment can be inferred although it has not been explicitly stated.<br />
And halfway through the nine show run is a handy point to stop and consider some of the themes that have emerged across five shows in three cities over eleven days.<br />
It has been a solid batch of prime, no frills Springsteen, delivered by the core, nine-piece E Street Band.<br />
No Tom Morello means no electric <i>Ghost of Tom Joad</i>, and it probably explains the absence of a couple of other numbers the featured prominently over the previous two tours.<br />
Some will have missed the horn section and the backing singers who added light and shade and brought the possibility of jazz, New Orleans and gospel elements into the mix.<br />
So we're unlikely to see an <i>Apollo Medley,</i> <i>Pay Me My Money Down</i>, <i>Shackled and Drawn</i> or <i>We Are Alive</i>.<br />
The reduced numbers are fairly obvious when the band lines out across the stage for <i>American Land</i> and <i>Death to my Hometown</i>.<br />
The sixteen or seventeen-piece ensemble stretched out right across the stage, complete with sousaphone.<br />
This time around, with Max Weinberg stuck behind the drum kit the remaining eight don't fill the space in quite the same way but they rock just as hard, possibly harder.<br />
Fire in the belly tends to do that, and there's no shortage of fire in the belly.<br />
And show number five underlined the variations and random nature of the concert experience.<br />
This time, seated on the shady side of the stadium on the end of a row, the neighbour factor turned out much better, even though I only had neighbours on one side.<br />
Having tracked down the big black self-propelled wheelchair, and paid my respects to the Queen of all Tramps, I was in my seat for most of Diesel’s opening set, and all of Jet.<br />
The row of seats to my left remained mostly vacant except for a couple in the middle, and fill gradually until an older couple arrived to claim the fourth and fifth seats. Those arrangements were adjusted when a younger woman arrived bearing beer. The bloke moved into the third seat in the row and explained that She Who Had Arrived With Beer was their stepdaughter, who had shouted Mum and Dad their concert tickets.<br />
She had also bought the first round.<br />
I don't have a stepdaughter and am never likely to acquire one, but should one materialise, I'll have one just like that thank you very much.<br />
Mum and Dad, as it turned out, were from an unspecified part of Tasmania and had frequently crossed Bass Strait to catch concerts in Melbourne.<br />
They'd also seen Leonard Cohen in Hobart, which provided an excuse to discuss three-hour concerts in general.<br />
And Bruce in particular.<br />
Dad was an obvious fan, had been before, and understood certain people’s motivation for attending a run of nine shows.<br />
He was also a diplomatic family man and carried on separate conversations with Mum and Daughter and his itinerant not quite neighbour.<br />
Around twenty minutes before the show was likely to start, the vacant seat was occupied, and I had someone else to talk to.<br />
The indigenous bloke in the seat in front of me joined in as his female companion got caught up in an across the aisle conversation with two girls who could well have been relatives.<br />
Or people with a significant number of mutual acquaintances.<br />
You don't need to eavesdrop to figure out that sort of thing. Snippets like <i>She's getting married in April</i> allow you to draw fairly obvious conclusions.<br />
Then the neighbour appointed out the band in procession from the dressing rooms to the backstage<br />
Area, and a minute or two later we were on.<br />
I'd already pointed out the music stands, stage left of Max’s drum kit, but as the two keyboard players donned accordions and headed for the front of the stage it was obvious where we were starting from.<br />
<i>Lonesome Day</i> was another addition to the song matrix, and if anyone needs convincing about the depth of Bruce’s unreleased back catalogue I would point them straight towards <i>My Love Will Not Let You Down</i>.<br />
<i>Out in the Street</i> rocked the way it should, and while they may have been planning to play <i>Sherry Darling</i> all along, there was a sign in the audience, a request to dance beside the drum kit, and an excuse to make things look like the sign that was responsible.<br />
Personally, I could have done without <i>Hungry Heart</i> and <i>Glory Days</i>, but I'm not someone who has just shelled out $300 to see Bruce for the first time.<br />
<i>This Hard Land</i> was a sign request and one for the hard-core fans while <i>New York City Serenade</i> with the strings worked, as it has done every time.<br />
The problem comes with those two words: <i>every time</i>.<br />
The 78 intro to <i>Prove It All Night</i> seemed to be another sign request and it went down just fine up where I was sitting. It was good to get Trapped again, as was the case with <i>Cadillac Ranch</i> and <i>My City of Ruins</i>, but the rest of the main set was, I thought, an exercise in covering the bases and keeping the mainstream fans happy.<br />
That was probably the case when <i>Waitin' on a Sunny Day</i> made its reappearance, though one suspects a certain amount of dissent from a certain senior East Streeter about its place in the set at all.<br />
Or maybe he was just kidding around.<br />
But the crowd loves it, so I guess it stays.<br />
The other thing that has been reasonably interesting has been the slow and continuing evolution of <i>Shout</i>, first played (according to <b><i>BRUCEfanatic</i></b>) in Clarence Clemons’ New Jersey nightclub back in 1982.<br />
A look at the numbers played in seventeen appearances at the venue reveals a predominance if old rock and R&B numbers. The old Isley Brothers rave-up would appear to be right at home in the setting.<br />
Then, again according to the app, it was played once in the States in 2012, around eighteen times across Europe, South America and South Africa in 2013 and made its Australian debut in Perth around three years ago.<br />
Since then it has gone on to become a regular feature in the encore, with the play count, according to <b><i>BRUCEfanatic</i></b> around the 116 mark.<br />
So it turns up frequently these days, and without checking too closely, it usually slots in straight after <i>The E Street Shuffle</i>.<br />
As anyone who has attended a show recently will know, <i>The E Street Shuffle</i>, with its visual tribute to Clarence Clemens and Danny Federici, slots in towards the very end of the encore.<br />
But it can't really <i>end</i> the encore.<br />
It needs something after it.<br />
One option, which I seem to recall from 2014, is to wrap things up with a solo acoustic number, a gentle wind down from what has gone before.<br />
Alternatively, follow <i>E Street</i> with another rocker and you have a possibility of finishing with another. <i>Rosalita</i>, for example.<br />
Or, as we've seen recently <i>Twist and Shout</i>.<br />
And that is where <i>Shout</i> fits in.<br />
It can close the show, and send everybody on their way home in a positive frame of mind, or it can wind the crowd up a little further for another frenetic finale.<br />
For Australian audiences, it can also be seen as a nod towards legendary Australia rocker Johnny O’Keefe.<br />
That, at least, was how I read it the first couple of times.<br />
Actually, it almost seemed like a throwaway, something tacked on to the end to better things out a little longer. Or maybe, I just wasn't paying enough attention.<br />
What has be obvious in the last couple of shows is that the shelf is evolving. The evolution of a have started earlier, and in fact, it probably did. But the developments took some time to register, and they're not going to be obvious on a recording because a lot of the evolution lies in the visual schtick that has come to be part of the package.<br />
It is, I guess, a fairly natural process that Bruce has been employing throughout his career.<br />
He adds something to the onstage performance, usually as a spur of the moment thing, and if it works he tries it again.<br />
Maybe it works really well, ad then goes on to become something of a trademark, associated with that song.<br />
A show that has evolved over 40 years will contain any number of examples of that sort of thing, and they are probably littered all the way through any given set list.<br />
And the process is probably happening all the time.<br />
But it's interesting to register what's happening and observe the development.<br />
One final point.<br />
If you're going to register that sort of thing, you need to be watching.<br />
Not heading back towards the bar to buy another round.<br />
I've always found the need to head off, several times, in the middle of a show for another round of overpriced blues in plastic cups be mystifying. I<br />
like to drink as much as any given next man, and certainly more than most.<br />
I'm not going to leave my $300 seat for a drink while Bruce or any other artist I've paid big bucks to see is playing.<br />
But, from my seat on the end of the row, I was surprised by the number of people who will.<br />
<span style="background-color: #f3a8a3;">Hang on</span>. Let's refine that.<br />
<i>I'm not going to leave my $300 seat for a drink while Bruce or any other artist I've paid big bucks to see is playing. Unless there is absolutely top shelf liquor involved.</i><br />
Penfold's Grange in a plastic cup might be sacrilegious, but it would tempt me to leave my seat.<br />
During <i>Waitin' on a Sunny Day</i>.<br />
While the kid's onstage.<br />
<br />
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<br />
<i>American Land</i><br />
<i>Lonesome Day</i><br />
<i>My Love Will Not Let You Down</i><br />
<i>Out in the Street</i><br />
<i>Sherry Darling</i><br />
<i>Hungry Heart</i><br />
<i>Glory Days</i><br />
<i>This Hard Land</i><br />
<i>New York City Serenade (with strings)</i><br />
<i>Prove It All Night ('78 intro)</i><br />
<i>Trapped</i><br />
<i>Youngstown</i><br />
<i>Cover Me</i><br />
<i>Death to My Hometown</i><br />
<i>My City of Ruins</i><br />
<i>Cadillac Ranch</i><br />
<i>I'm Goin' Down</i><br />
<i>Waitin' on a Sunny Day</i><br />
<i>Because the Night</i><br />
<i>Badlands</i><br />
<i>Thunder Road</i><br />
<i>* * *</i><br />
<i>Born to Run</i><br />
<i>Seven Nights to Rock</i><br />
<i>Dancing in the Dark</i><br />
<i>Tenth Avenue Freeze-out</i><br />
<i>Shout</i><br />
<i>Twist and Shout </i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461182080588180362.post-56241262290333510122017-02-02T17:03:00.002-08:002017-02-02T17:03:23.699-08:00Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, Melbourne, Thursday 2 February 2017<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
<br />
I walked out of AAMI Stadium, after what was probably the least enjoyable of my ten Springsteen shows to date reflecting on the neighbours, the luck of the draw and daylight saving.<br />
In the states where it applies daylight saving it is not, of course, a consideration when the concert you are attending is an indoor venue.<br />
Once you are inside your indoor venue, the sun becomes immaterial. Nothing it does can affect your enjoyment of the show.<br />
Here, we were through an opening number that had, according to the BRUCEfanatic app, never been played before, <i>American Land</i>, and into <i>The Ties That Bind</i> when I posted the photograph above on Facebook with the comment: “That sun’s a real bugger.”<br />
And it was.<br />
Even after it had sunk below the level of the scalloped roof on the western side of the stadium it was still an issue.<br />
And there were people up towards the nose bleeds above me who would've had those issues for much longer.<br />
Order of the first things I did when I got back to base was to check the ticket for Saturday night. Thursdays entry point was Gate Two, on the eastern side.<br />
On Saturday, it is Gate Seven, so that should not be an issue.<br />
But that's the luck of the draw.<br />
Some days you eat the bear, some days the bear eats you. What you lose on the roundabout you make up for on the hurdy-gurdy.<br />
It's all part of life’s rich pageant.<br />
And then there are the neighbours.<br />
For a start, it's nice to have them.<br />
Chatting to those around you help to deal with the preshow adrenaline, which, of course, is one of the reasons why I do it.<br />
But you can't talk to them if they're not there.<br />
Admittedly I had arrived early and had taken a look around for the big black self-propelled wheelchair that would have contained one of the leading the identities all the Bruces Place mailing list.<br />
Cheryl has been dubbed the <i>mother of all tramps</i> by another leading participant, and I wanted to catch up with her and see how she was going with her quest for access to the E Street Lounge.<br />
But big black self-propelled wheelchairs were in short supply, so after an initial reconnaissance, I adjourned to the eastern veranda, where the Richmond bar was dispensing $12 plastic cups of Wild Yak.<br />
It was far too early to take a seat in the sun, but there were seats in the shade near the beer booth, so I paid for a Yak and sat down.<br />
When it was empty, I took the plastic cup across to a convenient wheelie bin, which gave a couple of concertgoers a chance to grab seats where I had been sitting. I<br />
headed back, working on the principle that I had bought the semi-obligatory beer and was reasonably entitled to sit for a while longer before I resumed the reconnaissance.<br />
Apologies ensued, and I ended up on the edge of the bench chatting to a couple from Port Fairy who were about to experience their first Springsteen show.<br />
Interesting folks, who would have been good neighbours when the show started.<br />
So we turned awhile, I completed another circuit of the stadium, and with a continuing absence of wheelchairs of any description, I figured it was time to find my seat.<br />
A dull roar outside indicated that the reformed Jet had hit the stage, so while there was a definite case for locating the seat, it might not have been time to actually occupy it.<br />
But it would be handy to know where it was.<br />
That was the point where I discovered I was actually on the wrong level.<br />
Proceeding upstairs, I made a couple of interesting discoveries.<br />
For a start, my seat was in the very back row of a narrow section, and issues with glare made it impossible to see anything that was happening onstage or any close-up detail on the big screens.<br />
And It was hot.<br />
On the other hand, when I ascended the stairs I had found myself in a large, enclosed and air-conditioned space. With seating, a bar at one end, and another in the middle.<br />
There could well have been a third at the other end of the room, but I did not need to go that far to investigate.<br />
After what may have been five minutes and certainly felt like it that was probably much shorter it was obvious that inside was the place to be.<br />
I shelled out for another Wild Yak, found a seat and sat out the rest of the opening set.<br />
I could even see the big screen is through the window.<br />
While Jeff rocked really righteously, unfamiliarity with the material meant that I found their set fairly a nondescript and rather formulaic exercise.<br />
What's it was done, I waited for awhile on the off chance but the row I could see through the window might start to fill.<br />
Bladder considerations meant I was disinclined to shell out another $12 for a third Wild Yak so eventually I bit the bullet and headed out into the late afternoon sun.<br />
At that point, despite word that Bruce was due on stage around 7:15, my section of the venue what's very sparsely populated.<br />
It took a while to fill.<br />
When neighbours finally arrived, the seats on my left were occupied by a chubby couple all the indeterminate sexuality although one was undoubtedly female.<br />
They arrived bearing copious quantities of food drink, which they consumed slowly throughout Bruce’s set, in between canoodling, air punches, assorted yee-hahs, and frequent <i>stand-up and boogie</i> episodes that usually seemed to end up in canoodle mode.<br />
Not that I was watching, you understand.<br />
But it was the sort of annoying distraction that diverts your attention away from what's going down on stage.<br />
The seat on my right initially remained occupied, and it was well into the set, possibly around <i>No Surrender</i> before I realised that there was someone there.<br />
And while the left side neighbours were extrovertedly distracting, the right side had a black-clad dude who would've stood around six feet five in the old money who seemed to spend the entire two-plus hours dispassionately watching what was going down on stage with his arms folded.<br />
Taking all those factors into consideration, it is probably no wonder that I'd have to describe my concert experience as a sub-optimal although there was nothing wrong with the performance.<br />
One could not help suspecting that the opening <i>Don’t Hang Up</i> was a late inclusion in the setlist since the music stands were there again.<br />
<i>New York City Serenade</i>, complete with the obligatory swing section, worked almost as well as light and shade in between <i>Wrecking Ball</i> and <i>Atlantic City</i> as it did as an opener in Perth and Adelaide, though there was a bus of conversation around me that probably wouldn’t have been there at the start of the show.<br />
A set with plenty of crowd favourites from the <b><i>Born In The USA</i></b> album could be described that's relatively unexciting but provided plenty of opportunities for the shapely girl with the attractive derriere to get up and shake it.<br />
Fortunately, she left a clear window between herself and the stage from where I was sitting. The view may not have been as unobstructed from the seat of my right.<br />
Maybe that's why black-clad dude was so obviously unimpressed.<br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
<i>Don't Hang Up </i>(solo acoustic)<br />
<i>American Land</i><br />
<i>The Ties That Bind</i><br />
<i>No Surrender</i><br />
<i>Two Hearts </i><br />
<i>The Promised Land</i><br />
<i>Glory Days</i><br />
<i>Hungry Heart</i><br />
<i>Wrecking Ball</i><br />
<i>New York City Serenade</i><br />
<i>Atlantic City</i><br />
<i>Johnny 99 </i><br />
<i>Murder Incorporated</i><br />
<i>Death to My Hometown</i><br />
<i>The River</i><br />
<i>Mary's Place </i><br />
<i>Darlington County</i><br />
<i>Working on the Highway </i><br />
<i>I'm on Fire</i><br />
<i>Because the Night</i><br />
<i>The Rising</i><br />
<i>Badlands</i><br />
<i>Land of Hope and Dreams</i><br />
<i>* * *</i><br />
<i>Long Walk Home </i>(solo acoustic)<br />
<i>Born to Run</i><br />
<i>Dancing in the Dark</i><br />
<i>Tenth Avenue Freeze-out</i><br />
<i>Shout</i><br />
<i>Twist and Shout</i><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461182080588180362.post-80997501930859639492017-01-31T20:54:00.002-08:002017-02-20T17:14:16.794-08:00Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band Adelaide, Monday 30 January 2017<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
Chatting to the neighbours during the interval between when you take your seat and the start of the show continues to bring out interesting bits and pieces.<br />
As I took my seat high up to the right of the stage, there seemed to be an array of seven or eight objects that may well have been music stands over on the other side of Mighty Max’s drum kit.<br />
I'd already exchanged pleasantries with the youngish bloke on my way, and, working on the principle but his eyesight was probably better than mine, asked him if you could see anything over there, and, If he could, what do he reckoned they might be.<br />
He wasn't sure at first.<br />
And, a while later, he was convinced they were. and, in between, the discussion brought forth a couple of interesting points.<br />
I'd explained that the presence of music stands suggested a string section, which in turn suggested in <i>New York Serenade</i> as the opening number.<br />
Predictable questions about whether I'd been to Perth and where else I was bound on the tour elicited my now well-polished account of the day when the tour was announced.<br />
I’d headed for the other end of The Little House of Concrete, expecting that the news would form the basis for continuing negotiations.<br />
Of course, The Supervisor’s response (<i>So, of course, you’re going</i>) might have rendered ongoing negotiation unnecessary, but it definitely produces interesting reactions when the exchange is recounted to third parties.<br />
Here, the bloke on my right turned to his missus with a <i>did you hear that?</i><br />
The response from his better half (though one might question the <i>better</i> under the circumstances) was interesting.<br />
The duo are Adelaide-based and would be doing three shows this tour.<br />
But her response, not to put too fine a point on it, was along the lines of <i>I can’t stand him. But I love my husband, so I go</i>.<br />
Interesting.<br />
The odd glance across that way during the show suggested someone with a toothache.<br />
And she’s going to both shows in Melbourne.<br />
Love is, indeed, a strange affliction.<br />
Equally interesting was the opinion from the unaccompanied woman who claimed the seat of my left. She was a definite fan who, for previous shows in Adelaide, had been seated behind the stage.<br />
She reported the view from there was good, Bruce and company gave them plenty of attention, and there was room to dance.<br />
They were cheaper, too.<br />
But they’d sold out quickly, So she had landed where she was.<br />
Equally interesting were the developments in the song count on Hughesy's matrix.<br />
Depending on whether you count a full band rendition of <i>The Promised Land</i> and a solo acoustic version as separate entries in the song matrix (I do, they fit into completely different and almost diametrically opposed vibes) the song count either reached or passed the hundred at this show in Adelaide.<br />
<i>Passed</i> means you count <i>Darkness On The Edge Of Town</i> as two separate entities depending on whether Eddie Vedder was on stage. I used to but, in hindsight, the presence of someone other than Bruce roaring a verse into a microphone and adding that one more voice to the chorus doesn't materially change the timbre of the performance.<br />
Adjustments to the matrix will be made shortly but the key point here is that account has cracked the ton.<br />
I had a suspicion it might when <i>American Land</i> followed the now routine opening <i>New York Serenade</i>. The odds shortened when the band roared through an impassioned <i>Trapped</i>.<br />
Both songs were pointedly dedicated to those detained under the new American president’s trumped up border security grandstanding.<br />
Bruce's introduction to American Land is worth citing (as reported in <b><i><a href="http://www.backstreets.com/news.html" target="_blank">Backstreets</a></i></b>):<br />
<i>Tonight we want to add our voices to the thousands of Americans who are protesting at airports around our country the Muslim Ban and the detention of foreign nationals and refugees. America is a nation of immigrants, and we find this anti-democratic and fundamentally un-American. This is an immigrant song!</i><br />
But that, along with the pointed introduction to <i>Trapped</i>, were the only two <u>overt</u> political references that I've picked up over three nights.<br />
There have been, of course, plenty of less direct ones.<br />
The other two new additions emphasise points already made elsewhere.<br />
One, <i>The Ties That Bind</i>, was yet another indication of the depth and breadth of the catalogue of Springsteen can draw on. He's probably played it a number of times in Australia, but not at a show I've attended.<br />
The same t\point applied when he opened the encore with a moving, almost heartrending rendition all if <i>I Should Fall Behind</i>.<br />
That song, back in the 1999 tours, featured repeatedly in an entirely different setting.<br />
At that point, it was a statement of communal East Street solidarity with each of the lead personalities (Patti Scalfia, Little Steven, Nils Lofgren and Clarence Clemons) taking a verse and chorus on their own, and each was delivered with a slightly different intonation.<br />
I know, because I've heard the bootleg tapes.<br />
The Adelaide rendition came with a pointed dedication.<br />
So that made two additions that could hardly be described as <i>surprising</i>.<br />
Unexpected, perhaps, but not as a complete surprise.<br />
Which brings us to another inclusion in the matrix, a cover of Van Morrison's <i>Brown Eyed Girl</i>.<br />
This one underlines the <i class="">you</i><i> never know what you're going to get</i> side of Bruce fandom.<br />
The story goes something like this: sometime during D<i>arlington County</i>, or possibly earlier in the piece, Bruce spots a cluster of people in fancy dress.<br />
There also seems to have been a sign involved. And the whole thing links to a 1950s sitcom called <b><i>The Honeymooners</i></b>.<br />
The long and short of it was that the group ended up on stage, mid-set, with one of them taking over the piano stool from Prof Roy Bittan. What ensued (you'll find video <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSQTOuGLMlo" target="_blank">here</a>) might not have been one of the all-time musical highlights, but it certainly provided an element of light relief in the middle of a performance that returned to regulation mode with blistering performances of <i>Murder Incorporated</i> and <i>Death To My Hometown</i>.<br />
Earlier, the now regulation opener had been followed by a crisp bracket of songs that had not featured in the two previous shows but underlined the political theme, <i>Land of Hope and Dreams</i> and an incendiary <i>Trapped</i>.<br />
From there, we got what amounted to a <i>greatest hits/ semi-obvious suspects</i> mini-set (<i>Spirit in the Night</i>, <i>Glory Day</i>s, H<i>ungry Heart</i>) and a return to earlier themes with <i>Wrecking Ball</i> and <i>Youngstown</i>. <i>Something in the Nigh</i>t was semi-sombre, <i>Darlington County</i> rocked along nicely, and the light relief that came with <i>Brown Eyed Girl</i> contrasted nicely with the impassioned duo that followed.<br />
But the absolute highlight, for Yours Truly was a magnificently moody <i>Racing in the Streets</i>.<br />
The main set finished with a series of knockout blows: <i>Because the Night</i>, which I am rapidly coming to consider one of Bruce's all time greatest songs; a <i>She's the One</i> that <i>might</i> have been prompted by signs in the pit; and semi-obligatory readings of <i>The Rising</i>, <i>Badland</i>s and <i>Thunder Road</i>.<br />
The almost direct segue from the main set into the encore wasn't as obvious this time around as the house lights went down, the band left the stage and Bruce delivered the aforementioned stark reading of <i>If I Should Fall Behind</i>.<br />
everyone returned for the regulation run home through <i>Born to Run</i>, <i>Dancing in the Dark</i>, the obligatory <i>10th Avenue Freezeout</i>, <i>Shout</i>, and, finally, <i>Rosalita</i>.<br />
It was, not to put to find a point on it, a fine show for the aficionado and, almost certainly, a sign of more good things to come.<br />
<br />
<i>New York City Serenade</i><br />
<i>American Land</i><br />
<i>The Ties That Bind</i><br />
<i>No Surrender</i><br />
<i>Land of Hope and Dreams</i><br />
<i>Trapped</i><br />
<i>Spirit in the Night</i><br />
<i>Glory Days</i><br />
<i>Hungry Heart</i><br />
<i>Wrecking Ball</i><br />
<i>Youngstown</i><br />
<i>Something in the Night</i><br />
<i>Darlington County</i><br />
<i>Brown Eyed Girl</i><br />
<i>Murder Incorporated</i><br />
<i>Death to My Hometown</i><br />
<i>Racing in the Street</i><br />
<i>Because the Night</i><br />
<i>She's the One</i><br />
<i>The Rising </i><br />
<i>Badlands</i><br />
<i>Thunder Road</i><br />
<i>* * *</i><br />
<i>If I Should Fall Behind</i> (acoustic)<br />
<i>Born to Run</i><br />
<i>Dancing in the Dark</i><br />
<i>Tenth Avenue Freeze-out </i><br />
<i>Shout</i><br />
<i>Rosalita </i><br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461182080588180362.post-67329354677019146272017-01-28T15:40:00.000-08:002017-01-28T15:40:32.700-08:00True Springsteen & The E Street Band, Perth Friday 27 January 2017<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
There are times when I wonder how people like the dude from <a href="http://backstreets.com/">backstreets.com</a> does it.<br />
<br />
Actually, when I stop to ponder the question, I'm pretty sure how he manages to come up with the quantity of purple prose you'll find <a href="http://www.backstreets.com/setlists.html" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
<br />
It's just that he seems to be able to do it night after night, tour by tour.<br />
<br />
It's probably down to practice and access, both to people behind the scenes and the statistical minutiae of performances over the last 45 years.<br />
<br />
Hughesy, of course, doesn't have access to either and is left, not quite grasping at straws, trying to wrestle impressions and half realised hypothesis into something readable.<br />
<br />
In that task, talking to the neighbours helps. This time the gentleman on my left and his partner were in for the first Bruce show and, it seemed, not entirely sure what they were in for.<br />
<br />
That was the way it looked in the preconcert conversation, though one suspects Mrs Next Door had more than a passing acquaintance with much of the material.<br />
<br />
Actually, a glance down the set list reveals a number of numbers you'd expect people who listened to the radio through the 70s and 80s to be familiar with.<br />
<br />
<i>Cover Me</i>, <i>Glory Days</i>, <i>Hungry Heart</i>, <i>The River</i>, <i>I'm Goin’ Down</i>, <i>Because the Night</i>, <i>Born to Run</i>, <i>Dancing in the Dark</i> and <i>Bobby Jean</i> all fit into that category.<br />
<br />
They are songs you would have expected to get a guernsey when it comes to setlist selection.<br />
<br />
But here are the play counts from Hughesy’s nine Springsteen shows to date: Two, Four, Five, Three, Two, Three, Nine, Nine and Five.<br />
<br />
So, two of them have turned up every night, as you'd expect them to, since they are probably Bruce's biggest hits Down Under.<br />
<br />
But the odd glance aside suggested Mrs Next Door wasn't unfamiliar with most of what emerged in the set list. Maybe she had access to all the albums but hadn't managed to get to a show before this one.<br />
<br />
In hindsight, I should have asked where they were from.<br />
<br />
And at the end of the show, when I asked for an impression Mr Next Door indicated an understanding some people’s need to attend multiple shows.<br />
<br />
Memory, of course, is an unreliable conveyance but I was pretty sure I had it right when I turned to the neighbour at the end of <i>Hungry Heart</i> and pointed out that everything between the opening <i>New York Serenade</i> and his <i>crowd traditionally sings the the first verse favourite </i>wasn't on the playlist last time.<br />
<br />
If I was the sort of person to check these things on-the-fly I would've realised but tonight's show delivered my first <i>Radio Nowhere</i>, and, later in the piece, my first <i>Drive All Night</i>.<br />
<br />
That was interesting since both of them were, I thought, likely candidates to turn up somewhere along the line. It just took them nine shows to do it.<br />
<br />
Unlike the dude from backstreets.com, I do not have access to the statistical resources that allow him to report that <i>Drive All Night</i> was making its southern hemisphere or to remark that three night runs in the one city are a relatively rare occurrence.<br />
<br />
Which raises an interesting point. A look at the set list from both nights suggests a clear separation between the main set and the encore.<br />
<br />
Didn't happen.<br />
<br />
Both nights, the house lights went up at the end of the main set (in this case during <i>Badlands</i> or <i>Land of Hope and Dreams</i>) and stayed on for the duration.<br />
<br />
The impression I got from my neighbour on Wednesday was that the general admission pit in Perth doesn't quite have the energy level you find elsewhere. He would have been down there if he'd been able to pick up two tickets before they sold out, so I assume he knows what he speaks.<br />
<br />
He and his wife will be in general admission in Melbourne on Saturday.<br />
<br />
And throughout the two nights, there was a decided lack of intensity in the applause between numbers. By and large, it rarely roared and generally faded fairly quickly.<br />
<br />
Under those circumstances, one suspects a band who have left the stage might have had difficulty coming back, so the treat everything as one long set probably makes sense.<br />
<br />
But then, if the crowd is relatively reserved, why the three night run in Perth?<br />
<br />
There are, I suspect, two obvious answers.<br />
<br />
First, because it's Perth, and touring acts tend to stick to the east coast. It's hard, after all, to justify the expense of shipping an international act and everything that comes with them back and forth across the Nullarbor. So they either play Perth on the way into Australia, or the way out.<br />
<br />
Stands to reason, doesn't it?<br />
<br />
Second, because it's Bruce, who has demonstrated the ability to sell out a venue the size of the Perth Arena at least once, probably twice, and in this case (and last time, if I recall correctly) three times.<br />
<br />
Last time, Adelaide also got two shows, and the second show in Melbourne was announced so late in the piece that I almost missed getting a ticket.<br />
<br />
And, when I did, it was very close to the back row up in the nosebleeds.<br />
<br />
What questions about second and third shows, on calls and levels of enthusiasm are secondary considerations. We are, after all, there for the music, and Bruce has failed to disappoint on any of the nine nights I’ve seen him so far.<br />
<br />
At the same time, I don't recall having been struck by the intensity of the performance as the band ruled through <i>Night</i> and <i>Saint</i>, and even <i>Cover Me</i> arrive with far more passion than one might have expected for what I've always regarded as a fairly nondescript mid-tempo radio-friendly rocker.<br />
<br />
<i>Radio Nowhere</i> fairly burned with intensity, and if the four song salvo wasn't prompted by some niggle or irritant, it certainly got the energy level up to where it needed to be.<br />
<br />
And that's where it stayed for the duration.<br />
<br />
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</div>
<br />
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<br />
<br />
<i>New York City Serenade</i> (with strings)<br />
<i>Night</i><br />
<i>It's Hard to Be a Saint in the City</i><br />
<i>Cover Me</i><br />
<i>Radio Nowhere</i><br />
<i>Glory Days</i><br />
<i>Hungry Heart</i><br />
<i>The River</i><br />
<i>Youngstown</i><br />
<i>Murder Incorporated</i><br />
<i>Johnny 99</i><br />
<i>Ramrod</i><br />
<i>You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch)</i><br />
<i>Death to My Hometown</i><br />
<i>Drive All Night</i><br />
<i>I'm Goin' Down</i><br />
<i>Because the Night</i><br />
<i>The Rising</i><br />
<i>Badlands</i><br />
<i>Land of Hope and Dreams</i><br />
<i>* * *</i><br />
<i>Backstreets</i><br />
<i>Born to Run</i><br />
<i>Seven Nights to Rock</i><br />
<i>Dancing in the Dark </i><br />
<i>Tenth Avenue Freeze-out</i><br />
<i>Shout</i><br />
<i>Bobby Jean </i><br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461182080588180362.post-75870121161817683602017-01-25T16:34:00.000-08:002017-03-05T18:40:29.314-08:00Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, Perth 25 January 2017Lying in bed, after around six hours’ sleep and an early morning delve into the Internet to seek out the set list, for some reason I could not help thinking of one of the innumerable cat related memes out there in cyberspace.<br />
<div>
You've probably seen the one with the blow by blow run through a cat's day, side-by-side with a similar exercise detailing the dog's reaction to the successive events in his daily routine. </div>
<div>
The cat delivers a misanthropic commentary delivered from the regulation aloof point of view, laced with snarky comments and statements about the inherent injustice in the feline-human balance of power.</div>
<div>
In contrast, each new event on the doggy day is greeted with capital letters, an abundance of exclamation marks, and a vocabulary largely comprised of wow, my favourite, and the best thing ever.</div>
<div>
Now, I'm <b>not</b> drawing any comparisons between the other however many thousand fans who packed into the Perth Arena last night and the canine fraternity. </div>
<div>
These remarks are an attempt to figure out, in retrospect, why my reaction when the bloke next door asked what I thought was along the lines of <i>I think it was the best show I've seen</i>.</div>
<div>
That's strange, because my previous show, in Brisbane at the end of the2014 tour, has, in some circles, been described as the greatest Springsteen show <b><u>ever.</u></b> </div>
<div>
On the surface in last night's performance, there was nothing unusual that stood out. </div>
<div>
Nothing that could even vaguely be tagged <i>unexpected</i>. </div>
<div>
Apart from a little slip half way through <i>Mary's Place</i> where The Boss forgot the words, sang the wrong verse, and admitted he had stuffed things up. </div>
<div>
It didn't affect the performance, though, and the actual slip was so slight that the average fan, caught up in the moment may well have missed it if Bruce didn't point it out.</div>
<div>
And, on the way out of the arena I couldn't help thinking that he'd run a tad under the three hour mark rather than landed in the territory between three hours and three and three quarters.</div>
<div>
THe only thing that even vaguely resembled a surprise came after Roy Bittan’s piano flourishes kicked off <i>New York Serenade.</i> </div>
<div>
The stage lights came up to reveal a string section, but that would not have been a surprise if I had delved into descriptions of Sundays show, which featured the same opener and probably included and identical string section.</div>
<div>
The other thing that was clearly obvious from the get go was that this tour features a well trimmed, hard-core E Street band. </div>
<div>
No Tom Morello. </div>
<div>
No backup choir and percussionist. </div>
<div>
The four or five piece sports section is gone, and Jake Clemons handles all those duties on his lonesome ownsome.</div>
<div>
But who knows? </div>
<div>
Some of those missing elements from the last two tours could be cooling that their heels stateside, waiting to fly out to join the tour’s east coast component.</div>
<div>
Or, alternatively, Bruce has made the package affordable for the Australian promoter by reducing the cost of accommodating of transporting the expended E Street Almost Orchestra.</div>
<div>
Interestingly, this nine piece version rocked just as hard, and possibly harder, then the 16 or 17 piece outfits from the previous tours.</div>
<div>
Equally interesting is the fact that in between Hughesy’s initial quest for last night’s setlist and this point of his review, this note appeared on <a href="http://backstreets.com/">backstreets.com</a>.</div>
<div>
<i>Night 2 of 3 in Perth may have been shorter, under three hours, but a vastly different set: 16 songs not played opening night including "Wrecking Ball," "My City of Ruins," "Murder Incorporated," and "Death to My Hometown.”</i></div>
<div>
Readers seeking an abundance of purple prose and a plethora of photographs are pointed towards the source of that quotation. </div>
<div>
Once the reviewer has delivered on his “more to come” there will be a far more detailed account than anything you will find here.</div>
<div>
So, some impressions from a quick run through the set list. </div>
<div>
First, after reports of explicit political statements on Sunday, last night Bruce said practically nothing. He delivered the standard food bank appeal in an identical almost word for word version that had Western Australia instead of the other state or city identifiers I've heard elsewhere.</div>
<div>
Second, it seemed the whole set list was preordained. </div>
<div>
Three or four songs in, I was about to remark to my right-hand neighbour that signs requesting songs were conspicuous by the absence. A few turned up later in the piece, but they were vastly outnumbered by requests for dance space on the stage beside various E Streeters.</div>
<div>
Third, there was no sign, not even an inkling, of <i>Waiting on a Sunny Day</i> and the show was much better for it. While the sight of some kid living out his or her inner rock star goes down well with the crowd, it also sucks the momentum built up through the rest of the show right out of the reader. </div>
<div>
Bruce and the band inevitably and invariably restore it, of course, but last night they didn't have to.</div>
<div>
Fourth, <i>My Love Will Not Let You Down</i>, which I have not experienced in concert before, <u>absolutely rocked</u>. As did <i>Mary's Place</i>, the other addition to Hughesy’s Springsteen Song Matrix.</div>
<div>
Fifth, as Bruce and the band stormed through the songs that deal with the factors that brought about the Trump ascendancy (particularly <i>Death to my Hometown</i>) they did so with a fire that rendered further political commentary basically unnecessary. </div>
<div>
<i>Atlantic City</i> may not have sat under that “political songs” banner before, but last night it definitely seemed to. Actually, it was probably there all along without anyone noticing until the landscape changed.</div>
<div>
And that, I think, is that for the first of nine shows on my version of Summer ’17 Down Under.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The setlist:</div>
<div>
<div>
<i>New York City Serenade (with strings)</i></div>
<div>
<i>Prove It All Night</i></div>
<div>
<i>My Love Will Not Let You Down</i></div>
<div>
<i>Two Hearts</i></div>
<div>
<i>Wrecking Ball</i></div>
<div>
<i>Out in the Street</i></div>
<div>
<i>Hungry Heart</i></div>
<div>
<i>My City of Ruins</i></div>
<div>
<i>Mary's Place</i></div>
<div>
<i>Atlantic City</i></div>
<div>
<i>Johnny 99</i></div>
<div>
<i>Murder Incorporated</i></div>
<div>
<i>Death to My Hometown</i></div>
<div>
<i>The River</i></div>
<div>
<i>Downbound Train</i></div>
<div>
<i>I'm on Fire</i></div>
<div>
<i>Because the Night</i></div>
<div>
<i>The Rising</i></div>
<div>
<i>Badlands</i></div>
<div>
<i>Thunder Road</i></div>
<div>
<i>* * *</i></div>
<div>
<i>Jungleland</i></div>
<div>
<i>Born to Run</i></div>
<div>
<i>Dancing in the Dark</i></div>
<div>
<i>Tenth Avenue Freeze-out</i></div>
<div>
<i>Shout</i></div>
<div>
<i>Rosalita</i></div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461182080588180362.post-26145044396947527042014-09-21T19:02:00.001-07:002014-09-21T20:11:26.037-07:00Steve Nieve Plays Elvis Costello, Melbourne Recital Centre 19 September 2014Judging by the number of vacant seats in Melbourne's Recital Centre on Friday night <b><i>Steve Nieve Plays Elvis Costello</i></b> is a difficult concept to sell. Not for this long-term Costello fan, of course. Not, for that matter for Hughesy's brother, who probably wouldn't recognise a Costello song if it came up and bit him in the leg. But he was impressed. So was I.<br />
<br />
But, judging by the number of empty seats in Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, we must be talking a very tiny niche market. Or something else that would draw off punters. Or inadequate or ill-directed publicity. Maybe they'd all stayed home to watch the AFL semi-final between Sydney and North Melbourne. Or something.<br />
<br />
Steve's keyboard work has, over the years, been one of the main ingredients in the Costello sound, And the "Joanna" segment, when the Spinning Songbook picked it out, has been a regular highlight of those musical extravaganzas. "Joanna" invariably signals a spell on the grand piano, which is what we were looking at here (predictably, a Steinway). The segment usually includes <i>She</i>, which didn't seem to appear here, <i>Shot With His Own Gun</i>, which did and provided one of a number of highlights, and <i>God Give Me Strength</i>.<br />
<br />
As one of my all-time favourite Costello numbers, you'd reckon Hughesy would have picked up on it if it was played on the night, but Steve did a rather good job of camouflaging some of the selections. The Astute Reader will no doubt pick up on that by the unidentified numbers in the set list.<br />
<br />
Some of the selections listed only appear because Steve identified them by name and narrative.<br />
<br />
Or maybe that's it. Maybe there's no market, or no interest, in reworkings of Costello material into grand piano extemporisations. Anyone looking for a by the numbers reproduction of the Costello catalogue would have been extremely disappointed. But from the opening strains of <i>Muriel on Main Beach</i> through to the end of <i>Beyond Belief</i> we got a good hour and a half of pianistic pyrotechnics. It was a performance that underlined the fact that the former Royal College of Music could probably have gone on to a fair career as a concert pianist.<br />
<br />
There's a bit more to it than that. According to one of the monologues that interspersed the musical selections Steve always wanted to be in a rock band, though the news that their eighteen-year-old son had become an Attraction apparently reduced his parents to tears. He was also the choir master or organist at the local church, and familiarity with the draw bars on a Hammond organ allegedly helped get him the keyboard job ahead of the competition.<br />
<br />
But, in the end, it all comes down to what was played, and the performance had Hughesy kicking himself at having skipped Brisbane and Sydney. Perth was probably a bridge or Nullarbor too far, but repeated exposure might have allowed me to fill in some of those question marks in the set list.<br />
<br />
In summary, an excellent performance by a master of his art. More please, though one notes the extreme unlikeliness of a repeat performance in Melbourne.<br />
<br />
Among the links below, on the other hand, there's a mention of an official release of recordings from the Australian tour (and possibly elsewhere. I'll be buying...<br />
<br />
<br />
Set list:<br />
<i>Muriel on Main Beach</i><br />
<i>Shipbuilding</i><br />
<i>The Birds Will Still Be singing</i><br />
<i>???</i><br />
<i>Accidents Will Happen</i><br />
<i>???</i><br />
<i>Country Darkness</i><br />
<i>The Loved Ones</i><br />
<i>Confident Again</i><br />
<i>The Long Honeymoon</i><br />
<i>Shot With His Own Gun</i><br />
<i>Alison</i> (request)<br />
<i>Welcome to the Voice</i><br />
<i>Oliver's Army</i><br />
<i>Beyond Belief</i> (request)<br />
<br />
Encore:<br />
<i>Five note improvisation</i> (C,F,A, B flat, F)<br />
<i>Five note EC themed improvisation</i> (D, D, F, E, C)<br />
<br />
Links:<br />
<a href="http://www.australianmusician.com.au/attraction-steve-nieve/" target="_blank">The Attraction Of Steve Nieve</a><br />
<a href="http://www.smh.com.au/national/melbourne-fringe-review-steve-nieve-plays-elvis-costello-20140921-10jwtd.html" target="_blank">Melbourne Fringe review: Steve Nieve Plays Elvis Costello</a><br />
<a href="http://performing.artshub.com.au/whats-on/national/performances-and-gigs/steve-nieve-plays-elvis-costello-174240" target="_blank">Performing Arts Hub</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461182080588180362.post-71557144129900990872014-05-05T12:45:00.001-07:002014-05-05T12:45:36.533-07:00Wilko Johnson & Roger Daltrey "Going Back Home" (4.5*)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Ask the average listener for the names of the most influential English rock acts of the early sixties and they'll probably rattle off three names: The Shadows (with or without Cliff Richard), The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. I'd like to respectfully submit a fourth. Johnny Kidd & The Pirates.<br />
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The Argumentative Reader might, of course, be inclined to dispute that last suggestion. That's in his/her nature, and the key element in the counter argument would probably be along the lines of limited commercial success, pointing to a single #1 hit in <i>Shakin' All Over</i> and a relatively slim discography (a mere sixteen singles listed in the <b><i>Wikipedia</i></b> entry <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Kidd_%26_the_Pirates" target="_blank">here</a>) between 1959 and 1965.<br />
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But let's look at those other candidates for a moment.<br />
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The Shadows were, admittedly, huge at the time, and prompted any number of would-be Hank Marvins to take up the guitar. You can, for example, cite the early Neil Young in The Squires and early recordings like <i>Aurora</i> and <i>The Sultan</i>.<br />
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But once you get past the actual era you tend not to hear too much that's obviously Shads-influenced. Or I don't, anyway.<br />
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In a commercial sense The Beatles turned the conventional wisdom of the early sixties on its ear, set the stage for much of what followed and lead the way through the sixties as far as combining an evolving experimentation in writing and recording with commercial success. We will never see their like again because we'll never see those times (and their antecedents) again.<br />
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But, over time, that leading the way fades into widespread, albeit very significant, background influence.<br />
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And The Rolling Stones were, at least at the start of things, The Anti-Beatles. I'd concede their ongoing legacies as the outrageous showmanship we've come to associate with rock stars (not that they were the first in that department) and a significant influence to the continuing genre I've tagged <i>teenage noise</i>, that glorious racket you loved as a kid because it got right up the nose of (and was incomprehensible to) everyone older than your age group peers.<br />
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So, why Johnny Kidd & The Pirates?<br />
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Simple. For a start, singer out the front, guitar bass drums behind. Not two guitarists, none of this lead and rhythm bit. One guitarist. Follow that template and you've got, among a multitude of others, The Who and the early Jeff Beck Group with Rod Stewart out front (who were, of course, the prototype for Led Zeppelin). You can add any number of similar outfits after that, but the most significant in this regard are, of course, Dr. Feelgood.<br />
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According to legend The Who were a two guitar outfit up until the time they opened for Kidd & The Pirates (Townshend: <i>They were a truly tight band, achieving a powerhouse sound with just lead and bass guitars and drums. We decided to go the same way, Roger allowing me to take over on lead guitar so he could concentrate entirely on singing</i>. That's lifted straight from his autobiography, where he goes on to describe Pirates' guitarist Mickey Green's influence on Townshend's emerging technique).<br />
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Remove the singer and give one of the remaining trio the vocal duties and you've got the classic power trio. Start with Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience and you can note any number of examples along the way, including The Jam, right up to Silverchair and beyond.<br />
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Start listing those who started out in one of those vocal/guitar/bass/drums quartets or a power trio and moved on elsewhere and you've got a whole extra stream of influenced artists.<br />
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And, of course, you've got what we're looking at here with the singer from one of the most obvious successors to Johnny Kidd & The Pirates in front of a power trio lead by one of their most significant torch bearers.<br />
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Given the backstory, of course, I was always going to buy this.<br />
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The January 2013 announcement that Wilko Johnson had been diagnosed with inoperable pancreatic cancer was one of the things that set me off to re-investigate the Dr. Feelgood back catalogue last year. That exercise rekindled a long-standing affection for the Canvey Island quartet that had me picking up a copy of <b><i>Oil City Confidential</i></b>, Julien Temple's 2009 Dr. Feelgood doco, and learning of this collaboration in the process.<br />
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<b><i>Going Back Home</i></b> dates back to a chance encounter at the 2010 awards ceremony where Johnson and Daltrey found themselves seated next to each other and bonding over a mutual admiration for Johnny Kidd & the Pirates. A collaboration was apparently mooted at the time, but seems to have been one of those things that would be tackled at some point in the future. The cancer diagnosis delivered a sense of urgency. With Johnson well enough to press ahead with the project when The Who finished a world tour the album was recorded in a week in November 2013 at Yellow Fish studio at Uckfield in East Sussex, near Daltrey's home.<br />
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Behind the guitar and vocals, Johnson's touring band of Blockheads bassist Norman Watt-Roy and drummer Dylan Howe were aided and abetted by Mick Talbot on piano and Hammond organ and Steve Weston's harmonica<br />
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The selection of material was a pretty straightforward exercise, with Daltrey happy to have a go at singing whatever Johnson threw at him, and Wilko obliging with a selection of ten Johnson originals covering the Feelgood era and his subsequent solo career as well as a cover of Bob Dylan's <i>Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?</i><br />
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From the start of <i>Going Back Home</i>, the song Johnson co-wrote with Pirates' guitarist Mick Green for the Feelgoods' <b><i>Malpractice</i></b> it's familiar ground with Johnson's trademark choppy riffs intersecting with the Daltrey growl in a meat and potatoes exercise in prime British R&B. <i>Ice on the Motorway</i> and <i>I Keep It to Myself</i> follow before a glorious reading of <i>Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?</i> Subtle it ain't but, boy does it rock!<br />
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<i>Turned 21</i> drops things back a notch, but things gradually kick back up through <i>Keep On Loving You</i>, <i>Some Kind of Hero</i>, <i>Sneaking Suspicio</i>n, <i>Keep It Out of Sight</i> and <i>Everybody's Carrying a Gun</i> before things wind up in an entirely appropriate manner with Johnson's ode to the Canvey Island oil refinery (<i>All Through the City</i>).<br />
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With eleven tracks on an album that nudges the scales at just under thirty-four and a half minutes there might be some inclined to quibble about length, but for mine it's just about right. You really don't want this stuff delivered in massive doses, keep it short and sharp, a series of short arm jabs rather than a lengthy pummelling.<br />
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You might, if you're inclined to be picky, take issue with the recording too. It's a crystal-clear rendering of Johnson's stabbed chords. Muddy might have been better, but this is a high-definition portrait, entirely appropriate when you're talking what amounts to an epitaph.<br />
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It's also entirely appropriate that the album appears on Chess, the former home of Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf. One suspects the only thing that could have enhanced a magnificently worthy collaboration would have been to record it in Chicago. On the other hand, while 2120 South Michigan is still there and, apparently, still operational, you can't beat the convenience of operating close to home in an environment where you're not working with the ghosts of blues men past looking over your shoulder. In the end, given the circumstances, it's all about convenience, and the only thing that matters, in the end, is what is delivered.<br />
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On that basis <b><i>Going Back Home</i></b> is a fitting way to wind up a remarkable career, a project that underlines the remarkable and often forgotten legacy of Johnny Kidd & The Pirates who were, after all, the inspiration behind The Who, Dr. Feelgood and so many others.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461182080588180362.post-45738740681531257552014-04-28T16:09:00.000-07:002014-04-28T16:09:24.188-07:00Aaron Neville/Dr John & The Nite Trippers, State Theatre Sydney 24 April 2014<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
It's mighty close to fifty years since New Orleans session musician and songwriterMac Rebennack relocated to Los Angeles, where he subsequently reinvented himself as Dr. John the Night Tripper. The departure came as the result of substance-related issues with New Orleans District Attorney Big Jim Garrison, who'd set out on a moralistic crusade to clean up the Crescent City and there was a significant musical diaspora that had coagulated around Harold Batiste in Los Angeles.<br />
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That new persona was largely an avenue to create an earner to support his fellow exiles, most of whom have passed on, and when you dig back over the man's biography there's a definite feeling that he's lucky to still be among us, and coming up towards age 74 a degree of frailty should come as no surprise.<br />
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And, for the first part of an hour-and-a-bit set that frailty seemed fairly evident. The figure who appeared after an enthusiastic introduction shuffled to the keyboards and ran through a couple of fairly obvious suspects (<i>Iko Iko</i> and <i>Didn't He Ramble</i>) before venturing onto the recent discography for a couple of numbers that gradually picked things up. <i>Goodnight Irene</i>, however, rocked quite magnificently, and things definitely took off with a moody reading of <i>Walk on Gilded Splinters</i>.<br />
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You didn't <i>quite</i> get the mists rising off the bayou, and the ornate architecture didn't <i>actually</i> start sprouting Spanish moss, but both phenomena weren't far away.<br />
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And having kicked things in towards overdrive the vibe continued through <i>In the Right Place</i>, <i>Let the Good Times Roll</i> and <i>Big Chief</i> before <i>Such a Night</i> brought the Doctor's set to an appropriate finish. Took a while to get going, sure, but from midway through things were just fine, and I, for one, was grateful to have been there for it. <i>Walk on Gilded Splinters</i> was just magnificent, one of the very best things I've seen or heard in a long time.<br />
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It's also close to fifty years since Aaron Neville's <i>Tell It Like It Is</i> delivered a hit that was, effectively, his bread and butter until the Neville Brothers shot to prominence. The passage of time, one might expect, would have taken its toll on that distinctive vocal tone, and while he's just a tad lower these days the melisma and vibrato are still there.<br />
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But it's a voice that needs breathing space, which it gets with the fraternal outfit where the four Neville Brothers share things around in the vocal department. Here, with brother Charles sharing a bit of the spotlight with some moody saxophone and a rather decent bunch of instrumentalists around him there was room for a breather or two, and he actually got to leave the stage during an impressive run through an instrumental that might not have been <i>Caravan</i>, but if it wasn't it was an almost identical twin.<br />
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A glance down the set list will reveal an interesting selection from what has become a reasonably extensive back catalogue, covering most of the obvious bases, very much the Aaron Neville set I'd have wanted to see if I was seeing him once, though I would have liked something else from <b><i>My True Story</i></b> in there.<br />
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Excellent band, front man in pretty good voice, slightly one paced, perhaps, but that's what he does, and he does it rather well.<br />
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Having been to the same venue for Elvis Costello & The Imposters the night before there was an interesting contrast in the demographics. The Dr. John/Aaron Neville crowd was noticeably older, and significantly less cross-generational and given the selections of material probably unlikely to change. One suspects that, should the opportunity to see either of them again in an hour and a bit setting neither set list is going to change all that much, which explains a conclusion that I'm not likely to see either of them again.<br />
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One wouldn't anticipate either of them making their way to Townsville or Mackay, and while they're both likely to be back in the country for Bluesfest, opportunities to catch them will depend on what else is going on around whatever times they're playing Brisbane, Sydney or Melbourne. Given the excuse to be in any of those centres around the time they're playing the possibility is there but it's not as if I'm tempted to see them at every opportunity because I know there's likely to be something very interesting on the set list each night.<br />
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Dr John & The Nite Trippers, State Theatre Sydney 24 April 2014<br />
<i>Intro: The Doctor Is In</i><br />
<i>Iko Iko > Shoo Fly Don't Bother Me</i><br />
<i>Didn't He Ramble</i><br />
<i>Kingdom Of Izzness</i><br />
<i>Getaway > Guitar (St James Infirmary)</i><br />
<i>Revolution</i><br />
<i>I'm the Big Shot</i><br />
<i>Cotton fields > Goodnight Irene</i><br />
<i>Walk on Gilded Splinters</i><br />
<i>In the Right Place</i><br />
<i>Let the Good Times Roll</i><br />
<i>Big Chief</i><br />
<i>Such a Night</i><br />
<br />
Aaron Neville, State Theatre Sydney 24 April 2014<br />
Instrumental intro: <i>Besame Mucho</i><br />
<i>Stand By Me > Cupid > There Goes My Baby > Chain Gang > Stand By Me</i><br />
<i>Bird on the Wire > Free as a Bird</i><br />
<i>Summertime</i><br />
<i>Everybody Plays the Fool</i><br />
<i>I Don't Know Much</i><br />
<i>Don't Go, Please Stay</i><br />
<i>Ain't No Sunshine</i><br />
<i>Fever</i><br />
<i>This Magic Moment</i><br />
Instrumental: <i>Caravan?</i><br />
<i>Three Little Birds > Stir It Up</i><br />
<i>Slow Down</i><br />
<i>Drift Away</i><br />
<i>A Change is Gonna Come</i><br />
<i>Down By the Riverside</i><br />
<i>Tell It Like It Is</i><br />
<i>Amazing Grace</i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461182080588180362.post-41794516195336365712014-04-28T16:03:00.003-07:002014-04-28T16:03:57.883-07:00Elvis Costello & The Imposters State Theatre Sydney 23 April 2014<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
At the risk of sounding like some<i> been there, done that, got the t-shirt, wrote the book, waiting to star in the movie</i> type, I have to say that the most interesting aspect of the fifth Costello and The Imposters concert I've caught since early December came before and after the actual concert.<br />
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That says more about Hughesy and the circumstances in which I live than it does about Costello but it says a fair bit about the man as well as quite a lot about the way popular music has morphed over the past fifty years.<br />
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All of which is interesting, at least from where I'm sitting.<br />
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Actually, <i>sitting</i> is a key factor in the experience this time around, since Elvis had a significant section of the crowd up, out of their seats and down in front of the stage very early in the piece. It was fairly obvious he was playing to, and feeding off the enthusiasm of, those right under his nose, which might affect your perception if you were one of those disinclined to stand who happened to have a seat towards the front of the stalls.<br />
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That was me, more or less, but the occupants of the seats at the end of Row L had headed for the front so it was easy enough to move to the side for an uninterrupted view of proceedings.<br />
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So you might have been underwhelmed if you weren't down towards the front, and you may well have been underwhelmed by a show that was slightly shorter (twenty-five numbers, as opposed to thirty-plus from the recent <b><i>Spinning Songbook</i></b> shows in Japan) than others you've experienced, or by a set list that was light on for a few of the usual suspects that seemed to be automatic inclusions in the <b><i>Spinning Songbook</i></b> roster, or by what you might see as a relative dearth of obscurities, or...<br />
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But you pays your money and you takes your chance, as the saying goes, and while what you'll get isn't always <i>totally, like stellar, man</i>, you won't get a performance that's phoned in, either. It all comes down to the interaction between expectation and on the night, doesn't it?<br />
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Cast an eye down the set list and you'll note a significant (five out of twenty-five) presence of <b><i>Wise Up Ghost </i></b>material, which might interact with some of those absences noted previously, but it is the current album, even if it isn't the current album <i>by this band</i>. What is interesting, as it has been since the first of the <b><i>Spinning Songbook</i></b> shows in Japan is how well those songs work with The Imposters rather than The Roots. Despite the fuss about <b><i>Wise Up Ghost</i></b> it wasn't quite the departure from previous form that some people painted it to be. I'll point The Dubious Reader towards <b><i>When I Was Cruel</i></b> and <b><i>Cruel Smile</i></b> and rest my case.<br />
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No, a good two hours, an interesting set list that didn't seem to hold too many surprises and a performance that was as committed as he almost invariably is. That <i>almost invariably</i> is based on eight experiences, none of which went anywhere near obviously phoned in.<br />
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And you expect a bit of variation when you're looking at an act that isn't pre-programmed. Compare a Costello show, any Costello show, to, say Leonard Cohen, who I've seen deliver close to the exact same show live (three years apart, and substantially the same as the <b><i>Live in London</i></b> DVD) and you know you're going to get variation. The question is how much is delivered, and how much you expect.<br />
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Consulting my Costello show song matrix (eight shows, 116 items) there were a couple of songs I hadn't encountered live before (<i>Watch Your Step</i>, <i>Stations of the Cross</i>, <i>Blame it On Cain</i>) as well as the heartfelt Jesse Winchester tribute (<i>Quiet About It</i>, <i>Payday</i>) and another seven that I'd only encountered twice, so I walked out a very contented punter, thank you very much.<br />
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But when it comes to looking back on the evening the rendezvous with The Pope of Pop and the early-twenties Popelet Twins will figure large in the memories. I've run across Popey before each of the three shows I've caught in Sydney, and a couple of pre-show beers at The Marble Bar isn't quite a ritual but could definitely head that way.<br />
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They've changed the backstage access arrangements at the State Theatre, which has effectively put the kibosh on Costello stalking activities and affected the post-show discussion, but what we had, with Hughesy, Popey and Papal offspring gathered around a table in what my learned colleague has described as <i>sort of like the Vatican in pub form </i>was an interesting mix of musical generations.<br />
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I go back to the halcyon days of the mid- to late-sixties. Popey doesn't quite go back that far but had older siblings with similar musical interests who did (from what I can gather) and seems to have been fairly thorough in giving his offspring an interesting musical experience along the way. They were eight or nine when they got their first dose of live Elvis, and obviously don't mind fronting up for more.<br />
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I don't get to hang out with too many folks with similar musical interests, and when I do they tend to be people from more or less the same generation, so the presence of a couple of well-informed and appreciative youngsters is bound to be something memorable.<br />
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Particularly if they're sufficiently well-informed (or polite enough, take your pick) to agree that an Easybeats/Purple Hearts tour of North Queensland would have been an interesting experience and one you'd regret having missed.<br />
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It contrasted nicely with the demographic profile at the Dr John/Aaron Neville show the following night, where a youngish couple who might have been in their mid-twenties walking down the aisle towards their seats would have reduced the average age in the audience by about half a day.<br />
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All of which explains that first paragraph, dunnit?<br />
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<i>Accidents Will Happen</i><br />
<i>Brilliant Mistake</i><br />
<i>Possession</i><br />
<i>45</i><br />
<i>Everyday I Write the Book</i><br />
<i>Watch Your Step</i><br />
<i>Stations of the Cross</i><br />
<i>Ascension Day</i><br />
<i>Viceroys Row</i><br />
<i>Suit of Lights</i><br />
<i>Good Year for the Roses</i><br />
<i>Blame it On Cain</i><br />
<i>Come the Meantimes</i><br />
<i>Watching the Detectives</i><br />
<i>Walk Us Uptown</i><br />
<i>I Don't Want to Go to Chelsea</i><br />
<i>I Want You</i><br />
<br />
Encore:<br />
<i>Quiet About It</i><br />
<i>Payday</i><br />
<i>Shipbuilding</i><br />
<i>Cinco Minutos Con Vos</i><br />
<i>Oliver's Army</i><br />
<i>Sugar Won't Work</i><br />
<i>Alison</i><br />
<i>What's So Funny About Peace, Love & Understanding</i><br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461182080588180362.post-23628895797523230922014-04-10T22:41:00.000-07:002014-04-10T22:41:32.932-07:00Harry Manx "Om Suite Ohm" (4*)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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A glance at the titles in the discography will suggest a certain preoccupation that’s reflected in descriptions of Manx as a <i>Mysticssippi</i> blues man though it probably wouldn’t spring to mind as you run through the African groove that drives <i>Further Shore</i> (co-written with African inspired Byron Bay based colleague Yeshe) and started life as an instrumental before Manx came up with the words. Take a listen to the words, however, and you’re right in that philosophical mode though it takes a while for the Indian tonalities Clayton Doley’s Hammond B3 drives things along.<br />
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The enhanced instrumentation continues through <i>Way Out Back</i>’s dreamy didjeridoo-driven excursion through the ancient Australian landscape, with lyrics spoken by Gunjurra Waitairie as Manx’s ethereal slide evokes the vastness of the Nullarbor and that B3 fills in underneath.<br />
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His take on Coltrane’s <i>A Love Supreme</i> emphasises the jazzman’s connection to Indian music (the main theme to the piece is taken from a traditional South Indian folk tune, or <i>dhun</i>). While Manx doesn’t attempt the whole four-part suite, using the <i>mantra</i> in <i>Acknowledgement</i> as the basis for his exploration of the piece works well as a slide exercise that ties the blues tradition to classical Indian ragas.<br />
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That exploration that continues through <i>The Blues Dharma</i> and <i>All Fall Down</i> as Manx lets the Eastern influences gradually rise to predominance. The same atmosphere continues through <i>Saya</i>, the atmospheric <i>The Moon Rose Up</i> and <i>Carry My Tears</i>, written for a friend who had passed on, reprised from his from his 2011 <b><i>Strictly Whatever</i></b> collaboration with Kevin Breit.<br />
<br />
<i>Reuben's Train</i> is another return to something from earlier in his career. It appeared on Manx’s debut album (<b><i>Dog My Cat</i></b>) while <i>Stay Tuned</i> winds things up in a suitably subtle, understated manner.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
There'a nothing particularly new hereabouts, no revelations or jaw-dropping moments but a few tweaks and quiet additions to Manx's sonic palette (the use of violins and other members of the string family is a first) add subtle light and shade to Manx's quiet virtuosity. While it won't jump out of the speakers and demand attention there's plenty on offer for the discerning listener, and repeated listens will deliver rewards.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461182080588180362.post-48335866557383292672014-03-22T13:00:00.003-07:002014-03-22T13:01:17.922-07:00Graham Parker "Heat Treatment"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
<br />
Coming less than a year after the debut album, you couldn’t help suspecting there are issues with the material, but when you’re talking something as strong as <i>Fool’s Gold</i>, that’s not an issue. It’s very much a <i>more of the same</i> exercise, with Parker’s impassioned vocals leading the way as The Rumour does a mighty job of matching The Band’s example in the ensemble playing department.<br />
<br />
A little more time might, of course, have been helpful when it came to assembling the material, but of the original ten tracks (the 2001 remaster tacked <b><i>The Pink Parker</i></b> EP’s <i>Hold Back the Night</i> and <i>(Let Me Get) Sweet on You</i> onto the end) the only two that might have been liable for the chop were <i>Something You're Going Through</i> and <i>Help Me Shake It</i>.<br />
<br />
The relevant <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_Treatment" target="_blank"><i>Wikipedia</i> article</a> cites Parker’s reservations on on one of his least favourite recordings, due to inexperienced <i>vocal technique, rushed songwriting</i> (see above), <i>and stiff production</i> by Robert John "Mutt" Lange who’d been slotted in by the record company instead of Nick Lowe, who’d looked after production duties on <b><i>Howlin’ Wind</i></b>.<br />
<br />
Lange was still new at the production caper, with a handful of credits (Richard Jon Smith, City Boy, Kevin Coyne and Mallard, drawn from Captain Beefheart’s Magic Band) but went on to significant success (Supercharge, The Motors, The Boomtown Rats, The Records, AC/DC, Def Leppard, The Cars, Michael Bolton and Shania Twain) so he must have been able to get some things right. But, despite the fact that he sat in the chair for the first album by The Rumour (1977’s <b><i>Max</i></b>) he may not have been the best man for this job.<br />
<br />
That’s fairly obvious when the horns kick straight in at the start of <i>Heat Treatment</i>, three and a bit minutes of impassioned R&B that doesn’t swing the way <i>White Honey</i> does at the start of <b><i>Howlin’ Wind</i></b>. The critics didn’t seem to mind all that much, though, and when the <b><i>Village Voice</i></b> compiled the critics poll of the year's best albums <b><i>Heat Treatment</i></b> finished second, with <b><i>Howlin’ Wind</i></b> coming in a very respectable fourth.<br />
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Not as much swing, but there’s definitely a bit of arrogant swagger in the Dylanesque putdown of an old lover in <i>That's What They All Say</i>, and while things drop back a notch for <i>Turned Up Too Late</i>, there’s a fairly withering assessment of a failing relationship in a cutting lyric in a song later covered by the Pointer Sisters.<br />
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<b><i>Howlin’ Wind</i></b> started with an upbeat and swinging <i>White Honey</i>, but <i>Black Honey</i> here is a dark, downcast, desolate outpouring of soulful emotion in <i>bitter lands</i> where the singer’s <i>a face without a voice</i>. Great melodic guitar work from Brinsley Schwarz, though.<br />
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Your mileage might vary when it comes to <i>Hotel Chambermaid</i>, depending on how you read the randy rooster strut. If you’re cool with that sort of thing you’ll find it spirited and celebratory, but I’m inclined towards the shuffle button. Sexist throwaway for mine, and reminiscent of a certain French politician from a few years back.<br />
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On the other hand, <i>Pourin' It All Out</i> is an anthemic statement of what Parker’s all about, a mission statement if you like.<br />
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And while <i>Hotel Chambermaid</i>, for mine, borders on the ugly, <i>Back Door Love</i> delivers a lighthearted strut that’s close to irresistible with a string of interesting rhymes at the start and stereo metaphors in the middle.<br />
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<i>Something You're Going Through</i>, on the other hand, along with <i>Help Me Shake It</i>, is a little too close to by the numbers proceeding through the motions. Two that mightn’t have made the cut if Parker and company hadn’t been in such a hurry. Just about anything off <b><i>Stick to Me</i></b> would have been a perfectly acceptable substitute for either.<br />
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But there’s no questioning the quality of the album’s concluding number. The anthemic <i>Fool's Gold</i> has Parker vowing to keep searching for perfection. He’s probably talking about a woman or a relationship, but you can apply the theme and the lyric to almost any search you know to be impossible, or likely to be regarded with a scratch of the head by friends and acquaintances..<br />
<br />
The 2001 remastered reissue tacks two bonus tracks from <b><i>The Pink Parker</i></b> EP after <i>Fool’s Gold</i>, a spirited cover of the Trammps’ <i>Hold Back the Night</i> and Parker’s <i>(Let Me Get) Sweet on You</i> which swings enough to have slotted nicely onto the first album. Pleasant enough ways to pad out the length and persuade someone to shell out for the reissue, but a slight letdown after that magnificent closer.<br />
<br />
Coming back to an old favourite after a long time doesn’t always work out the way it should, but here, having worked my way through <b><i>Howlin’ Wind</i></b> several times before progressing to the next, it’s obvious that advances had been made, both in terms of the writing, which has progressed towards what was to come later (<b><i>Squeezing Out Sparks</i></b>) and the playing, which I suspect, reflects a more collaborative approach between writer and band when it comes to arrangements. The sound is a lot fuller, and there’s a level of aggression that wasn’t there in <b><i>Howlin’ Wind</i></b>, which sounds subdued by comparison.<br />
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At this point Parker's still a relative novice at the songwriting caper, but there’s an increasing confidence that ties in with a degree of conviction that stood out like a beacon among the overblown likes of post-<b><i>Atlantic Crossing</i></b> Rod Stewart. He provided a template that was picked up and modified by the likes of Elvis Costello and Joe Jackson and, by the end of the second album, it’s close to fully formed.<br />
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There was, of course, still room for refinement.<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461182080588180362.post-943758426853610102014-03-22T00:08:00.003-07:002014-03-22T00:08:36.150-07:00Graham Parker "Howlin' Wind"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
What we have here is the intersection of a band looking for a front man, a singer-songwriter looking for a band and a musical environment shaped by the intersection of Bob Dylan, The Band, old school rhythm and blues or soul music, Van Morrison, the singer-songwriter movement of the early seventies and the London pub rock scene.<br />
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Graham Parker and The Rumour weren’t the only figures on this particular musical landscape and their debut album isn’t the only musical milestone that emerged from it.<br />
<br />
Shift the balance of influences slightly, downplay the Dylan/R&B and build up the singer songwriter bit (think Jesse Winchester) and you’ve got Chilli Willi & The Red Hot Peppers. Change London pub rock to New Jersey seaside bars and you’ve got Springsteen and Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes. Put those factors into an Australian setting and you’ve got Jo Jo Zep & The Falcons and The Sports.<br />
<br />
Together those acts represented some of the few lights on the horizon in the dire days of the disco-dominated pre-punk mid-seventies.<br />
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While <b><i>Howlin’ Wind</i></b> came out in 1976 to widespread critical acclaim and ended up in fourth place in the <b><i>Village Voice</i></b> critics poll of the year's best albums (the follow-up, <b><i>Heat Treatment</i></b>, ran second) it didn’t connect with the wider public and all involved ended up as also-rans despite the fact that they provided much of the template successfully employed by, among others, Elvis Costello, Joe Jackson and the New Wave end of the seventies punk spectrum.<br />
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The key point here is, I think, that The Rumour (Brinsley Schwartz survivors Brinsley Schwarz on guitar and keyboardist Bob Andrews, rhythm section Andrew Bodnar and Steve Goulding from an outfit called Bontemps Roulez, and Ducks Deluxe guitarist Martin Belmont) could definitely play, Parker could definitely write, and delivered a fine spray of impassioned vocals but the combination was never going to hit the heights unless something significant intervened.<br />
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They weren’t alone in that regard. While just about everyone cited above is still around and most of them have managed to create a niche in the contemporary musical landscape the only one who has managed to wangle his way into prominence is Springsteen, who accomplished the feat on the back of a string of marathon concert appearances between <b><i>Born to Run</i></b> and <b><i>Darkness on the Edge of Town</i></b> and the radio-friendly behemoth called <b><i>Born in the USA</i></b>.<br />
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But Parker & The Rumour could have been contenders, and <b><i>Howlin’ Wind</i></b>’s intelligent and artful blend of rock, R&B, reggae, and folk elements behind music, behind intelligent lyrics and impassioned vocals simultaneously suggests what could have been and indicates why it wasn’t.<br />
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<i>White Honey</i> opens the proceedings with three and a half minutes of Van Morrison-influenced bop and bounce, Bob Andrews’ Hammond crooning away to drive the groove and the horn section adding drive and punctuation. There’s a statement of intent in the soulful, brooding <i>Nothing's Gonna Pull Us Apart</i> and things are sweetened slightly by the swingingly infectious <i>Silly Thing</i>, uncharacteristically upbeat and affectionate..<br />
<br />
But the intensity’s back for a passionate <i>Gypsy Blood</i>. <i>Between You and Me</i> actually dates back to a 1975 pre-Rumour demo session, when Parker was cutting material future founder of Stiff Records Dave Robinson could shop around the record companies. They tried to re-record it later, but couldn't match the demo, so that’s what you get folks.<br />
<br />
Dave Edmunds sits in on guitar on <i>Back to Schooldays</i>, a three minute assessment of Parker's experience of the British education system and how he’d fix it if he was given the chance. There hadn’t been too much evidence of Parker’s supposedly angry young man persona to date, but it’s here in spades. It worked a treat for Edmunds too when he cut the track on the rather impressive <b><i>Get It</i></b> collection.<br />
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After that little statement, <i>Soul Shoes</i> comes across as an unremarkable but committed rocker, while <i>Lady Doctor</i> delivers a nice line in lighthearted carnal fun. Hardly a classic, but, boy, does it swing.<br />
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There’s a bit more intensity to <i>You've Got to Be Kidding</i>, a sort of half an hour later riposte to <i>Nothin's Gonna Pull Us Apart</i>, a cynical response to a question about longevity in a relationship delivered in a Dylanesque drawl. <i>Howlin' Wind </i>bristles with impassioned intent and <i>Not If It Pleases Me</i> is three more minutes of the same.<br />
<br />
But the album’s highlight arrives with the reggae groove of <i>Don't Ask Me Questions</i>. There are reggae influences elsewhere on the album, but here they come to the fore as Parker makes it perfectly clear that he’s not the one with the answers. As a closing track to a rather good album (Parker’s quite definite about it being the best album released in Britain in 1976 in the liner notes), it’s almost perfect. He revisited it a bit later on <b><i>The Parkerilla</i></b>, and that version, with the benefit of a couple of years road exposure is probably better, but the prototype packs plenty of punch.<br />
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Tacking the obligatory bonus track on the end diminishes that final punch slightly. You can see why <i>I'm Gonna Use It Now</i> missed the cut the first time around, but there’s still commitment aplenty on display.<br />
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As an announcement of a significant talent, <b><i>Howlin’ Wind</i></b> delivers the goods and most of the cuts survived in the live setting, even after newer material turned up. Parker’s still not, at this point, fully formed, and not quite as angry or dismissive of fools as he became later, but it would be unreasonable to expect anything more than this from someone who was still, at this point, sorting out the nuts and bolts of his craft.<br />
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Nick Lowe’s production delivers a tough, spare bar band feeling and the result is an invigorating fusion of traditional rock from a writer with significant singer/songwriter chops, and something that would be identified around a year down the track as punk spirit.<br />
<br />
One of the classic debuts of all time that manages to shine while suggesting significant room for improvement as a brash young man gets his direction sorted.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461182080588180362.post-19451023422800219492014-03-21T21:40:00.004-07:002014-03-21T21:40:43.758-07:00Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band Brisbane Entertainment Centre 26 February 2014<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
There are times when you know what’s coming, and this was definitely one of them. Of course, it has a fair bit to do with getting there early, which I tend to do for my own reasons, but I’d eaten down in the courtyard and made my way into the venue proper with a good hour and a half before the scheduled start when I recognised a familiar theme in the dull roar emanating from the main arena.<br />
<br />
<i>Familiar</i>, yes. <i>Fan-miliar</i>, not so. <b><i>Saturday Night Fever</i></b> summarised everything I cordially loathed in the disco-dominated pre-punk era, when Bruce, along with Southside Johnny and Graham Parker were some of the very few lights on the musical horizon.<br />
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But it was definitely <i>Stayin’ Alive</i>, and they were definitely putting in the work to ensure they got it right, because, having done two complete side to side sweeps around the corridors I decided to grab a seat near Door Twelve and watch the parade rather than being part of it myself. That was around six-twenty-five, and you could still hear that familiar chorus, with lengthy pauses in between.<br />
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At this point, you’re forced into two conclusions. First, the show won’t be getting away on time, and Second, it’s probably going to start with <i>Stayin’ Alive</i>.<br />
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You didn’t need to be a genius to figure that out. In between Sydney and Brisbane Bruce had done two shows in the Hunter Valley, opening with <i>Drinkin’ Wine Spo-Dee O-Dee</i> and <i>Spill the Wine</i>. What they’d just been working up had been a rather tricky little arrangement, so you’d probably tend to start with it fresh in the memory banks rather than try to wing it somewhere further down the line.<br />
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We weren’t going to be starting at seven-thirty, either. Not that it was ever likely, though as I pointed out to the couple on my left once I’d claimed my seat, he had kicked off Sydney last year a fair bit before everyone had found their places.<br />
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It was comfortably after eight (8:05 or thereabouts) when the show started, which was (<i>sort of</i>) fine with me provided things ran long (<i>tick</i>, nearly midnight when it ended), and the neighbours were talkative (<i>tick</i>, both sides). The couple on my right were Festival Hall veterans, but Bruce virgins, so there was plenty to discuss that way, and the woman who claimed the seat on my left had been to all the shows on tour, and was progressing on to Auckland in the morning.<br />
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There was a voice in the dark thanking Australian audiences for their support this time around before a spotlight picked up an acoustic-strumming Bruce and trumpeter Curt Ramm. <i>Well you can tell by the way I use my walk</i>…<br />
<br />
So we were right there. What I hadn’t entirely expected was the thunderous swagger as the rest of the band kicked in and the horn section went into overdrive, and the string section…<br />
<br />
There, on the riser behind Max Weinberg’s drum kit was a formally dressed eight piece string section, sawing away on the violins. Students from the Conservatorium, you’d guess, more than likely on the experience of a lifetime. Not sure how it’ll look on the old classical music CV though.<br />
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<i>Stayin’ Alive a la E Street Band</i> hit a monster Motown derived groove, apparently got a tick of approval from Barry Gibb via Twitter, and looked set to get the farewell party well and truly under way. It was followed, semi-perversely by a quartet of songs from <b><i>Greetings from Asbury Park</i></b> that sort of put the kibosh on earlier theories that the first album was too obscure to get the full album treatment.<br />
<br />
Four out of nine is close to half way. <i>Blinded by the Light</i> (twice last year), <i>Mary Queen of Arkansas</i> (not since 2009), <i>Lost in the Flood</i> (played in Melbourne, second show) and <i>For You</i> (last played Perth, 5 February) crop up in the rotation from time to time. <i>The Angel</i> (played just three times since 1972) is probably the only real obscurity.<br />
<br />
So as they worked their way through <i>It’s Hard To Be A Saint In The City</i> (great version, stinging back and forth guitar licks between Bruce and Miami Steve) and a downright funky <i>Does this Bus Stop at 82nd Street?</i> There was an inkling of a suspicion we were getting a <b><i>Greetings</i></b> album show by stealth. No one around me seemed to be objecting.<br />
<br />
There had been a fair bit of Bruce sits down to tell us a yarn action through Sydney and Melbourne, and we got it again at the start of <i>Growin’ Up</i>. This time around it took the form of a meditation on teenage life, sitting in a bedroom dreaming of being a superhero in between sporadic dates with a certain Mister Trusty, which is far as the sex quotient goes.<br />
<br />
The conclusion, of course, is that it’s all part of <i>Growin’ Up</i>, but it left this listener marvelling at the man’s ability to come up with a fairly coherent off the cuff rap on a regular basis (if three out of four shows qualifies as a regular basis. He’s always been known for story-telling, and he’s built that into some fairly monumental ones through the <i>roll those tapes, bootleggers</i> era (<i>Pretty Flamingo</i> being one) but now that we’re in the business of selling official concert downloads one assumes he’ll be needing a new one each time he sits down.<br />
<br />
Figuring that out is just another pre-concert task, along with all those other little matters that need attention, like spending three-quarters of an hour in the sound check sorting out <i>Stayin’ Alive…</i><br />
<br />
He was back in storyteller mode at the end, cutting back to the starter with something along the lines of <i>staying alive isn’t that easy … how do we stay alive?’ How do you stay alive inside?</i><br />
<br />
He’s building to something, and it’s fairly obvious that something is <i>Spirit in the Night</i>, and that was the way it turned out.<br />
<br />
But even where you think things are getting a tad formulaic there’s room for something new. <i>Spirit in the Night</i> gets regular airings in concert, and where the venue configuration gives Springsteen a walkway between the pit and the rest of the floor he’ll more than likely crowd surf back to the stage as Jake Clemons wails out a carbon copy of Uncle Clarence’s sax lines.<br />
<br />
So he does. When he’s safely back on stage, he noticed something unfamiliar in his back pocket as the percussive lead in to <i>High Hopes</i> starts up. It’s someone’s mobile. He’s landed a stuffed kangaroo as well, but this one’s got him intrigued. <i>That's a first. … I didn’t feel a thing</i>. And in true show biz connect with your audience fashion he can’t get the thing to work. He hasn’t sorted out the intricacies of his iPhone either, and he never reads instructions.<br />
<br />
That revelation came out earlier, but it’s more than relevant here.<br />
<br />
With someone else this bit might come across as forced or staged, but with Springsteen, as with Joe Camilleri when I saw him with the Falcons in Townsville back around ’78 there’s an overarching enthusiasm for the job at hand that’ll have most of the audience willing to suspend disbelief.<br />
<br />
But we are talking show biz, and there’s a new album, which means you get <i>High Hopes</i> and <i>Just Like Fire Would</i> around this stage almost every night. This is where I’d like to see an actual setlist as taped to the floor before the show begins. Just to see how structured these things are, and what goes in the spaces, you understand.<br />
<br />
Around this point, however, it’s fairly obvious that plans are likely to be going out the window. There’s a fair bit of grab the sign action, with four or five hauled in, though you can’t actually see what they are. That’s the way I remember it, anyway, typing away a fortnight after the event listening to the download.<br />
<br />
But you know there are four or five. You’re just not sure what they’re calling for. Other shows he’ll wave one. and it shows up on the big screen.<i> Jolie Blon</i>, for example. Here, you can’t see the detail, but you know there’s a bit of set list shake up on the horizon.<br />
<br />
So what do we get?<br />
<br />
<i>You Can Look (But You’d Better Not Touch)</i> with plenty of Bruce/Steve mugging action.<br />
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A great <i>Sherry Darling</i> with Ed Manion blasting away on lead sax.<br />
<br />
<i>Save My Love</i>, originally recorded for <b><i>Darkness on the Edge of Town</i></b> and released years later on <b><i>The Promise</i></b>. <i>That’s pretty obscure. It was just too fucking happy to get on that album</i>.<br />
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<i>Fade Away</i>, with the revelation that it’s Miami Steve’s favourite song and needs to be played somewhere along the line every tour to keep him happy.<br />
<br />
And then we reach a critical turning point. It’s obvious the original plan was to run through <b><i>The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle</i></b>, and you’d guess the string section had been called in because they’d be needed late in the piece. But the <b><i>Greetings</i></b> material earlier on mightn’t have gone down as well as expected, the signs are delivering an interesting mix, so which way to go?<br />
<br />
The actual issue, and I’m being just a tad cynical here, might have been a curfew, but Bruce has been known to flout those. But it might be too late in the night to run through the album, presumably on the basis that he’d need a certain amount of usual suspects time to wind things up and send the punters away happy.<br />
<br />
<i>Maybe just the second side</i>. That’d be fine with me since it’d guarantee a <i>Rosalita</i>. Added benefit: would mean the string section gets to come back to do the job they’d probably been hired for, assuming <i>Stayin’ Alive</i> was an afterthought. <i>Yeah, we could do that, and the strings would fit in nicely, sort of thing</i>.…<br />
<br />
So there’s a choice. <i>The second album, or the signs? You decide</i>.<br />
<br />
Now, from where I was sitting, the response to each question was pretty much the same, which is why I suspect we ended up getting the second run through the album in E Street Band history. Hard core fan heaven, and in Brisbane, of all places.<br />
<br />
And so we’re off and running with a rousing <i>The E Street Shuffle</i> and a tender <i>4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)</i>, both pretty much the way they should be. An orchestrated <i>Kitty’s Back</i> swings mightily, a real treat, and then there’s another. <i>Wild Billy’s Circus Story</i>. Bruce: <i>Before we had horn players Garry Tallent played the tuba,</i> and he does, since the tuba part is a key ingredient of the song. He’s a bit rusty, and who wouldn’t be. <i>Wild Billy</i> last got an airing in Dublin in July last year. Before that, you need to go back to 2009. (twice), 2008 (once) and a string of airings in 2005. Interestingly, according to <a href="https://brucebase.wikispaces.com/" target="_blank">Brucebase</a> it wasn’t played at all between 1974 and 1990!<br />
<br />
And then it’s time for the second side, which is, in a word, magnificent. A stately <i>Incident On 57th Street</i>, a rumble through <i>Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)</i> and the string section back out to wind things up on <i>New York City Serenade</i>. Put that way it mightn’t sound that good, but I’d simply point The Inquisitive Reader towards the recording and remarks on the Bruce’s Place email list that this was, possibly, the greatest Springsteen show <i>ever</i>. And the run through <b><i>The Wild</i></b> is a key part of the performance.<br />
<br />
And, quite possibly, an explanation for what comes next. That album’s not likely to be over-familiar to much of the crowd, and that factor might have put the question mark beside the idea of doing it at all. In any case, having done it, and devoted some forty minutes to something that mightn’t have gone down that well with a fair chunk of the audience, the stops got pulled out for the next bit.<br />
<br />
A string of guaranteed favourites, with Bruce doing the walk around bit in <i>Darlington County</i>, a<br />
<i>Waitin’ On A Sunny Day</i> that features the bit I personally could do without but the crowd invariably love. <i>The Rising</i> is impassioned, <i>The Ghost Of Tom Joad</i> intense, and, again, Morello points to the Aboriginal flag on the shirt on that line.<br />
<br />
The roar of the audience singalong on <i>Badland</i>s is as impassioned as any I can recall, a joyful, fist-pumping <i>Glory Days</i> gets them in again, and the anthemic <i>Born To Run</i> rolls majestically.<br />
<br />
Playing through the recording again, <i>Bobby Jean</i> swaggers, <i>Dancing In The Dark</i> swings mightily, and Jake wails away through the play out that, as usual, has a good dozen people hauled out of the pit. You can hear the upswells of audience noise in the background.<br />
<br />
But then it’s the final leg, with a <i>Tenth Avenue Freezeout</i> that takes Bruce through the audience one last time and a <i>Highway To Hell</i> that brings Eddie Vedder out on stage. He’d apparently spent the show watching from the Pit, seems, um,<i> well lubricated</i>, but is definitely there to have a good time. As, of course, is everybody else, so why wouldn’t he?<br />
<br />
But the house lights are up, as they have been since around <i>Born to Run</i>, and there’s still time for one more.<br />
<br />
Actually, in official terms there isn’t, but curfew time was studiously ignored a fair way back and Bruce isn’t going anywhere. He’s already done the Food Bank pitch, just before <i>Highway</i>, but he’s got a bit to say about the beaches south of Surfers Paradise (I’m guessing Kingscliff as the actual spot referred to) and one more track to play, <i>Thunder Road</i>, the last of (count ‘em) 118 songs played over eleven nights around Australia.<br />
<br />
And it’s arguably the highlight of the four shows I managed this time around, stripped back, minimal acoustic guitar with the crowd in full voice. A magnificent end to the best show of the four.<br />
<br />
But you can always find something to gripe about, and in this case it’s lack of consideration shown by two girls who decided to stand up during <i>4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)</i> and <i>Kitty’s Back</i>.<br />
That’s not a crime in itself, and you mightn’t have objected if they’d got up to dance. But they were right in the front row of the floor section right behind (and above the level of) the pit. It’s not like there was anything in front to block their view. No one else standing anywhere on either side. Just two inconsiderate people who didn’t give a hoot about those immediately behind them…<br />
End of rant.<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>Stayin' Alive</i><br />
<i>It's Hard To Be A Saint In The City </i><br />
<i>Does This Bus Stop At 82Nd Street? </i><br />
<i>Growin' Up </i><br />
<i>Spirit In The Night </i><br />
<i>High Hopes </i><br />
<i>Just Like Fire Would </i><br />
<i>You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch) </i><br />
<i>Sherry Darling </i><br />
<i>Save My Love </i><br />
<i>Fade Away </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i style="font-weight: bold;">The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle</i>run through:<br />
<i>The E Street Shuffle </i><br />
<i>4th Of July, Asbury Park (Sandy) </i><br />
<i>Kitty's Back </i><br />
<i>Wild Billy's Circus Story </i><br />
<i>Incident On 57th Street </i><br />
<i>Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) </i><br />
<i>New York City Serenade </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Darlington County </i><br />
<i>Waitin' On A Sunny Day </i><br />
<i>The Rising </i><br />
<i>The Ghost Of Tom Joad </i><br />
<i>Badlands </i><br />
<i>Glory Days </i><br />
<i>Born To Run </i><br />
<i>Bobby Jean </i><br />
<i>Dancing In The Dark </i><br />
<i>Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out </i><br />
<i>Highway To Hell</i> (With Eddie Vedder)<br />
<i>Thunder Road</i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461182080588180362.post-88613745982076015002014-03-21T21:13:00.001-07:002014-03-21T21:13:06.582-07:00Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band Allphones Arena Sydney 19 February 2014<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
At this point we start to recognise that Bruce, or someone close to him, has a fair working knowledge of Australian rock history. Not necessarily a deep one, but with The Saints turning up in the setlist on a regular basis through <i>Just Like Fire Would</i> and nods to AccaDacca earlier in the tour you’d have to put a tick in the box beside <i>general awareness</i>.<br />
<br />
<i>Highway to Hell</i> kicked off proceedings in Perth, which, if I recall correctly (and I’m not inclined to check) was Bon Scott’s home town, and they did it again to start the first show in Melbourne, another city with a reasonable AC/DC connection.<br />
<br />
So you might not be surprised to find <i>Friday on my Mind</i> kicking off proceedings in The Easybeats’ home city, but it runs a little deeper than that.<br />
<br />
There was an interview in (I think) <b><i>RAM</i></b> magazine where Bruce rated it as one of the all-time great rock songs, said he’d love to play it live but had a monstrous degree of difficulty in figuring out the guitar part. That would have been back in the days when guitar duties were shared between Bruce and Miami Steve, who’s not the greatest technical exponent of guitar intricacies or between Bruce and Nils Lofgren, who’s considerably more proficient.<br />
<br />
But with (count ‘em) four guitarists available on stage and Soozie Tyrell if you happen to need a fifth, maybe some of those issues disappear.<br />
<br />
In any case it was an ideal opener, and following it with <i>Out on the Street</i>, which seems to have been his attempt to have been his attempt to work the same territory (according to <a href="https://brucebase.wikispaces.com/1995-04-07+-+SONY+MUSIC+STUDIOS%2C+NEW+YORK+CITY%2C+NY+%28interview%29" target="_blank">this interview</a> with, of all people, Molly Meldrum, <i>when I wrote it I was trying to copy one of my all time favourite songs, “Friday On My Mind” by the Easybeats … In my town, there was a particular place you drove to on Friday that was filled with teenagers and “Out In the Street” was my attempt at that writing about that image but with a Beatles type structure</i>) definitely kept the vibe going, as did <i>Cadillac Ranch</i>. Those two aren’t exactly obscurities, but they’re not numbered among the obvious suspects for the set list rotation either.<br />
<br />
Which is more than you can say for <i>High Hopes</i>,<i> Just Like Fire Would</i> and <i>Spirit in the Night</i>. The first two, however, are both on the new album, with The Saints’ cover apparently (I don’t listen to the radio) picking up airwave exposure. I could have done without either or both of ‘em, but if Bruce is going to preface <i>Spirit</i> with another reminiscence about something or other, that’s fine with me.<br />
<br />
This time around it was an exposition about toilet technology he claimed to have never seen before, and the man is obviously a rather talented story teller. In any case there are a couple of aspects that spring Spirit into the usual suspects particularly, as was the case here, in a setting that allows him to crowd surf back to the stage while Jake wails away on sax. Jake wasn’t actually doing the wailing this time, having returned to the States following a family bereavement, but Ed Manion worked the same territory just as well.<br />
<br />
Kinda corny once you’ve seen it a couple of times, but it still gets you in. Regular rituals and all that.<br />
<br />
And when we’re talking regular rituals, with <b><i>Born in the USA</i></b> and <b><i>Born to Run</i></b> getting <i>go to whoa</i> run throughs in Melbourne, you’d probably figure <b><i>Darkness on the Edge of Town</i></b> for the same treatment here. I hadn’t really been overwhelmed by the decision to run through <b><i>BitUSA</i></b>, though I was probably one of a very small minority in that regard. <i><b>BTR</b></i> is slightly different because there are tracks there that don’t quite qualify as the usual setlist suspects (<i>Night</i>, <i>Meeting Across the River</i>) and it does have the title track, <i>She’s the One</i> and <i>Jungleland</i>.<br />
<br />
But if I’d had to pick an album to get the treatment I would definitely have gone for <b><i>Darkness</i></b>. Like a shot. For one reason. <i>Candy’s Room</i>. But we’ll get to that, won’t we?<br />
<br />
For all the glorification of America and things American, there’s a grimness lurking under the veneer, and we’ve got some of the same here, which makes the bookends of <i>Badlands</i> and <i>Darkness</i> as appropriate in this time and place as they were when they were written in the mid-seventies.<br />
<br />
So we start with an incendiary <i>Badlands</i>, always a concert favourite, run the <i>angst</i> quotient up to the max with an angry Bruce guitar solo for <i>Adam Raised a Cain</i> and drop things back a tad as pianist Roy Bittan shines on <i>Something in the Night</i>.<br />
<br />
And then there’s <i>Candy's Room</i>, a perfect statement of obsessive lust. Every time I hear that rattling rustle on the cymbals …<br />
<br />
But it’s the sequencing and the light and shade that makes <b><i>Darkness</i></b> such a great album. After that howl of lust things drop back to everyday life and quiet despair for <i>Racing in the Street</i> and the reading here was magnificent, the instrumental ending stately and immaculately paced.<br />
<br />
From there, <i>The Promised Land</i> offered the usual affirmation, always a concert highlight because if you’re the sort of person who goes to Springsteen shows you do believe in the promised land, don’t you. And you’ll roar out the chorus with the rest of the believers. Anticipation of hope out of despair is what it’s all about, but the frustration and mixed emotions of everyday existence are still there, as <i>Factory</i> reminds us.<br />
<br />
<i>Streets of Fire</i> was committed and fiercely intense, <i>Prove It all Night</i> for my money did, especially during Nils Lofgren’s solo and <i>Darkness on the Edge of Town</i> wrapped things up neatly.<br />
<br />
And to think we weren’t that far past half way through the show…<br />
<br />
<i>Darlington County</i> balanced things up nicely after the intensity of <b><i>Darkness</i></b>, but it was a momentary thing. It did get Bruce off into the stalls eating potato chips and skolling beer but <i>Shackled and Drawn</i> delivers a reminder of what we’re still up against.<br />
<br />
Which brings us to <i>Waitin' on a Sunny Day</i>, which, to be honest, I wish it didn’t. Sure, it’s a joyous little singalong, and you can get a certain amount of interest seeing if you can spot the kid Bruce is going to grab out of the pit to have a sing. But it’s becoming formula, and while it gives the crowd a buzz I wasn’t sad to see it missing from the first show in Melbourne.<br />
<br />
There are probably those who feel much the same way about the Morello factor in <i>The Ghost of Tom Joad</i>, but it’s obvious that Bruce and Tom have a message, and it’s fairly pointed when Morello points to the Aboriginal flag on his shirt around the line about <i>if there’s someone struggling to be free</i>…<br />
<br />
It’s an activist song, and played with an activist rage and intensity.<br />
<br />
And it’s entirely appropriate to follow it with the anthemic <i>Land of Hopes and Dreams.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
That was it for the main set, but time wasn’t up yet. Take a bow, line the four guitarists out across the front of the stage, count the band into a chiming riff and watch the gradual recognition as the pincers realise they’re getting the INXS signature tune <i>Don't Change</i>.<br />
<br />
Actually, you can hear the recognition on the recording, and it’s a bloody good reading. As stated earlier, Bruce obviously has a fair working knowledge of classic Australian rock.<br />
<br />
The house lights were up for <i>Born to Run</i> and, for once, something went wrong on stage. The band were in full flight and suddenly the wheels fell off. Don’t know why, but Bruce called a halt, they started again, got it right and the song was followed by the announcement that it was <i>the fastest version ever</i>. Or words to that effect.<br />
<br />
But they still weren’t done. There isn’t a whole lot you can say about <i>Dancing in the Dark</i> and<br />
<i>Tenth Avenue Freezeout</i> once you’ve seen the routines a couple of times, but they get the crowd up and moving and <i>Shout</i> maintains the frenzy, which is what you want at the end, isn’t it?<br />
<br />
But if that side of things seems stage managed (and it certainly is) there’s room for spontaneity.<br />
<br />
There’s a bow, the band depart and Bruce appears, acoustic guitar and harmonica brace in place. Fine, we’re in for <i>This Hard Land</i> or something. Can’t be <i>The Promised Land</i>, that was on <b><i>Darkness</i></b>.<br />
<br />
But wait. There’s a sign requesting <i>Surprise Surprise</i>, for Eddie, who’s just turned twenty-three, the age at which, Bruce reminisces he’d just written <i>Blinded By The Light</i>, noting <i>my brain was fucking scrambled at the time</i>. And with <i>Surprise, Surprise</i> we’re still not done. He hasn’t done the Food Bank public service announcement, and he’s got to play something after that to finish off.<br />
<br />
Actually, after a remark about the song, you’d think <i>Blinded By the Light</i> might get a guernsey, but no, they wheel out a pump organ and it’s <i>Dream Baby Dream</i>, a mesmerising reading built around looped notes that gradually built until Bruce stepped away from the keyboard and let the machine do its thing as he belted out the lyrics. Stunning.<br />
<br />
Setlist:<br />
<i>Friday on my Mind</i><br />
<i>Out on the Street</i><br />
<i>Cadillac Ranch</i><br />
<i>High Hopes</i><br />
<i>Just Like Fire Would</i><br />
<i>Spirit in the Night</i><br />
<br />
<b><i>Darkness on the Edge of Town</i></b> run through:<br />
<i>Badlands</i><br />
<i>Adam Raised a Cain</i><br />
<i>Something in the Night</i><br />
<i>Candy's Room</i><br />
<i>Racing in the Street</i><br />
<i>The Promised Land</i><br />
<i>Factory</i><br />
<i>Streets of Fire</i><br />
<i>Prove It all Night</i><br />
<i>Darkness on the Edge of Town</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Darlington County </i><br />
<i>Shackled and drawn</i><br />
<i>Waitin' on a Sunny Day</i><br />
<i>The Ghost of Tom Joad</i><br />
<i>Land of Hopes and Dreams</i><br />
<i>Don't Change</i><br />
<i>Born to Run</i><br />
<i>Dancing in the Dark</i><br />
<i>Tenth Avenue Freezeout</i><br />
<i>Shout</i><br />
<i>Surprise Surprise</i><br />
<i>Dream Baby Dream</i><br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461182080588180362.post-87840867017542037592014-03-21T20:33:00.001-07:002014-03-21T20:33:05.995-07:00Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band AAMI Park Melbourne 16 February 2014<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
In the break between Hunters & Collectors and the start of the main set one couldn’t help speculating about the possibility of another album show this time around.<br />
<br />
As I pointed out to the knowledgeable gent on my left I could have done without <b><i>Born in the USA</i></b> the previous night, largely on the basis that everything on the album was so well known. Those considerations might not apply to another album, and if we were going to run through another album the question was which one.<br />
<br />
It was, I suspected, a no-brainer. <b><i>Greetings from Asbury Park</i></b> was possible, with most tracks appearing in the set lists reasonably regularly. Ditto for <b><i>The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle</i></b>. Both possible, but not that likely.<br />
<br />
<b><i>Born to Run</i></b> or <b><i>Darkness at the Edge of Town</i></b> would, on the other hand, be highly likely.<br />
<br />
Discount <b><i>The River</i></b>, unless they decided to do it in two parts, <b><i>Nebraska</i></b> probably didn’t fit into the E Street Band setting, we’d already had <b><i>Born in the USA</i></b> and everything after that was, I suspected, able to be ruled out on some basis or other.<br />
<br />
The eventual consensus was that if it was going to happen it would have to be a classic single album and, really there were only three of them. So it was a case of wait and see…<br />
<br />
And here’s what we got:<br />
<br />
<i>Born in the USA</i>, <i>Badlands</i>, <i>Lucky Town</i>, <i>Roulette</i>, <i>Growin' Up</i>, <i>Wrecking Ball</i>, <i>Death to my Hometown</i>, <i>High Hopes</i>, <i>Just Like Fire Would</i>, <i>Lost in the Flood</i>, <i>Spirit in the Night</i><br />
<br />
<b><i>Born to Run</i></b> in sequence: <i>Thunder Road</i>, <i>Tenth Avenue Freezeout</i>, <i>Night</i>, <i>Backstreet</i>s, <i>Born to Run</i>, <i>She's the One</i>, <i>Meeting across the River</i>, <i>Jungleland</i><br />
<br />
<i>Heaven's Wall</i>, <i>Waitin' on a Sunny Day</i>, <i>The Rising</i>, <i>The Ghost of Tom Joad</i>, <i>Land of Hopes and Dreams</i><br />
<br />
Encore: <i>We are Alive</i>, <i>Ramrod</i>, <i>Bobby Jean</i>, <i>Dancing in the Dark</i>, <i>Twist and Shout</i>, <i>This Hard Land</i> (solo acoustic)<br />
<br />
What we <i>didn’t</i> get was an official download. From what I can gather there were issues with the actual recording, which is interesting because everything sounded fine from where I was up in the nosebleeds. Better, on the run through <b><i>Born to Run</i></b> than it was through the early part of <b><i>Born in the USA</i></b> the night before. Strange.<br />
<br />
So where with the other shows I’ve been able to sit back and relive the evening over and over, tapping away as the sound washes over, with nothing to cue the memories, the memories haven’t been coming.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
Bruce hit the stage a little after everyone else, remarked he was <i>late for my own show</i> and the band kicked into <i>Born In The USA</i> and <i>Badlands</i> before hauling out <i>Lucky Town</i> and <i>Roulette</i>. That, from where I was sitting, looked to be pretty standard operating procedure. Two to kick things off, two for the hard core fans. Fine.<br />
<br />
Bruce didn’t actually pull up a pew as Roy Bittan’s piano picked out the introduction to <i>Growing Up</i>, but he did hunker down in story-teller mode with a tale about a grandmother and a toddler who was allowed to sit up watching TV until the wee hours. Watching through <i>The Late Show</i> into <i>The Late Late Show</i> and on to <i>The Late Late Late Show</i>, which preceded a <i>Superman</i> cartoon around three in the morning.<br />
<br />
These nocturnal habits, of course, weren’t conducive to standard sleep patterns and Bruce is able to attribute his lack of academic sense to Grandma’s failure to ensure he got to bed at a reasonable hour, Fortunately, of course, he ended up in a job that allows him to go to bed at three in the morning and get up at three in the afternoon.<br />
<br />
So there you are. It’s all Grandma’s fault.<br />
<br />
From there I couldn’t help feeling <i>Wrecking Ball</i> and <i>Death To My Hometown</i> had echoes of the sign request that delivered <i>Factory</i> the night before. <i>High Hope</i>s and <i>Just Like Fire Would</i> seem to turn up as a pigeon pair around this stage of proceedings, and there they were again. Must be obligatory to play something from the new album around here, and these two are the ones that work best.<br />
<br />
Or something.<br />
<br />
But after that dash of predictability, if that’s what it was, you might need to change things around a bit. A sign request delivered <i>Lost In The Flood</i> and another monologue, this time about getting a bit in the late fifties and early sixties, frozen over lakes, parked cars and the Jersey Devil lead nicely into a swaggering <i>Spirit In The Night</i>.<br />
<br />
More or less as anticipated, that led nicely into a run through the <b><i>Born to Run</i></b> album, pretty much a no-brainer after <b><i>Born in the USA</i></b> the night before. Actually, I enjoyed this one better than the previous one. Slightly more obscure songs in some places, and Bruce was going to need something other than <i>Thunder Road</i>, <i>Tenth Avenue Freezeout</i> and <i>Born To Run</i> in the run home at the end of the show. We were almost certain to get two out of those three anyway, so it was handy to knock them over a little early.<br />
<br />
But the full band <i>Thunder Road</i> rocked, <i>Freeze-out</i> was as good as it always is, and it’s always excellent. It was good to hear <i>Night</i> and <i>Backstreets</i> was one of the highlights of the night.<br />
<br />
There’s probably nothing you can say about <i>Born To Run</i> that hasn’t been said before, while <i>She’s The One</i> rocked its Bo Diddley beat as hard as nails. From there a stately <i>Meeting Across The River</i> and a stunning<i> Jungleland</i> demonstrated one of the good things about a non-<b><i>BitUSA</i></b> album show.<br />
<br />
You get a couple of relative rarities. Pity there’s no official recording to remind me of the highlights.<br />
<br />
And with the album out of the way it was time to shape things up for the run home and <i>Heaven’s Wall</i> definitely got that particular party started. We’d missed <i>Waitin’ on a Sunny Day</i>, with the seemingly obligatory <i>haul up a kid to sing the chorus</i> bit, and you can’t expect to get lucky two nights in a row. But at least it was two kids this time. Maybe he was making up for missing it the night before.<br />
<br />
But this is more or less set piece time, and while <i>The Rising</i>, <i>The Ghost of Tom Joad</i> and <i>Land of Hope and Dreams</i> certainly qualify in that department you can’t knock the intensity in the performance, particularly on <i>Tom Joad</i>, where the live environment provides an intensity at this stage of proceedings that you can’t turn on and off in the studio.<br />
<br />
All those critics who’ve complained about the album version missing something need look no further than that last sentence. You might take exception to Tom Morello’s guitar contortions too, but that hasn’t happened to me. Yet. After seven times. In fact, to be honest, I till rate it as a highlight.<br />
<br />
And <i>Land of Hope and Dreams</i> was a fine way to round off the main set.<br />
<br />
Now, from what I could gather, the standard practice through the rest of the tour had been to keep the thing rolling through to a single solo acoustic encore right at the end, but here, with two key agents in the formula delivered earlier, we got an actual encore break, during which, according to one report I saw, Bruce was handed a note to say the curfew kicked in in ten minutes.<br />
<br />
As if.<br />
<br />
Acoustic guitar in hand <i>We Are Alive</i> was dedicated to the spirits of the recently departed Nelson Mandela and Pete Seeger. With that attended to it was time to get the party started and there’s no doubt <i>Ramrod</i>, <i>Bobby Jean</i>, <i>Dancing in the Dark</i> and <i>Twist and Shout</i> did that.<br />
<br />
The people around me in the nose bleeds were starting to move by this time, and the lateness of the hour suggested it might be an idea to follow suit, but there was no way I was actually leaving the scene until the last notes had been played and sung.<br />
<br />
I was pretty close to the exit as <i>Twist and Shout</i> drew to a triumphant conclusion, but there were empty seats nearby, which proved very handy when it came to catching a threadbare and absolutely heartfelt reading of <i>This Hard Land</i>, another of the night’s highlights.<br />
<br />
And again, we’re left bemoaning the absence of the official recording. There’s a torrent out there somewhere though. We’ll have to wait and see how the bandwidth thing pans out over the rest of the billing period.<br />
<br />
<i>Born in the USA</i><br />
<i>Badlands</i><br />
<i>Lucky Town</i><br />
<i>Roulette</i><br />
<i>Growin' Up</i><br />
<i>Wrecking Ball</i><br />
<i>Death to my Hometown</i><br />
<i>High Hopes</i><br />
<i>Just Like Fire Would</i><br />
<i>Lost in the Flood</i><br />
<i>Spirit in the Night</i><br />
<br />
<b><i>Born to Run</i></b> in sequence:<br />
<i>Thunder Road</i><br />
<i>Tenth Avenue Freezeout</i><br />
<i>Night</i><br />
<i>Backstreets</i><br />
<i>Born to Run</i><br />
<i>She's the One</i><br />
<i>Meeting across the River</i><br />
<i>Jungleland</i><br />
<br />
<i>Heaven's Wall</i><br />
<i>Wait in' on a Sunny Day</i><br />
<i>The Rising</i><br />
<i>The Ghost of Tom Joad</i><br />
<i>Land of Hopes and Dreams</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Encore:</i><br />
<i>We are Alive</i><br />
<i>Ramrod</i><br />
<i>Bobby Jean</i><br />
<i>Dancing in the Dark</i><br />
<i>Twist and Shout</i><br />
<i>This Hard Land</i> (solo acoustic)Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461182080588180362.post-5065503967550315752014-03-21T20:13:00.001-07:002014-03-21T20:16:29.242-07:00Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band AAMI Park Melbourne 15 February 2014<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
Maybe it’s the statement of a jaded old cynic but I can’t help thinking the presence of not one but two opening acts in the tour’s largest venue had as much to do with the tour’s bottom line as it did with a desire to break an emerging act to a wider audience (Dan Sultan) or acknowledging a reunited musical icon (Hunters & Collectors).<br />
<br />
News that H&C were getting back together for the Melbourne shows on the Springsteen tour probably helped sell out the first show, which in turn meant a second became a possibility, but the thirty-odd dollar differential between roughly equivalent seats in Melbourne and Sydney multiplied by the thirty-two thousand or so probably comes to a fair bit more than the two opening acts collected for their afternoon appearances.<br />
<br />
I must admit Dan Sultan didn’t do a whole lot for me, delivering around fifty minutes of what I thought of as <i>heavy murri thunder</i> that rocked along but didn’t hit any peaks as far as I was concerned. I wouldn’t be going out of my way to catch his set the following night.<br />
<br />
The Hunters, on the other hand, rocked out, hit a couple of peaks and warmed things up nicely, if warmed up is the appropriate terminology given an hour or so before the headliner hit the stage.<br />
<br />
I’d been half expecting a repeat of last year’s setup, where Bruce’s pre-show playlist went out over the PA with <i>Big Boss Man</i> signalling the emergence of the Brucester, but here we had nothing over the PA with upswells of crowd noise as those in the pit sighted something that might signal the start.<br />
<br />
Having checked out set lists from Perth and Adelaide I wasn’t that surprised to find things heading off on the <i>Highway to Hell</i>, and if I’d checked the Melbourne gig guide I mightn’t have been surprised to find Eddie Vedder on stage roaring out the chorus and participating in the verse action.<br />
<br />
I saw a suggestion somewhere that it was <i>delivered with all the zeal of an encore</i>, but, really, that’s what you’re always likely to get at the start of a Springsteen show. Get that accelerator straight down onto the floor and don’t let it up too much unless you’re looking to add a little light and shade dynamics.<br />
<br />
Vedder was still on stage for <i>Darkness on the Edge of Town</i>, which maintained the momentum nicely and once he was gone there was a second set piece in the form of a <i>Badlands</i> that brought Jake Clemons into the spotlight. On the recording, you can hear the roar as he does.<br />
<br />
The recording also gives a sense of the audience involvement and having <i>got them in</i> the temptation would be to <i>hold ‘em</i> there. But it’s early on in a three hour show, and these things require some pacing, so he’s off onto a relative obscurity in the form of a gritty <i>Seeds</i> that rocks along mightily with a killer horn driven groove.<br />
<br />
There’s another set piece section as Max Weinberg rides the cymbals and percussionist Everett Bradley hits the front of the stage for <i>High Hopes</i> complete with the old Hendrix chews the strings bit in Tom Morello’s nod solo and an audience singalong in<i> Just Like Fire Would</i>.<br />
<br />
And then, for me, the highlight. We know Bruce does sign requests. Has been doing so for a while. Mixes things up very nicely, but <i>Jolie Blon</i>? Holy dooley!<br />
<br />
<i>Very obscure, very obscure!</i> remarks Bruce as he takes the sign. The drums roll, and then they’re off into a remarkably concise reading of a track originally cut for <b><i>The River</i></b> and then hived off to a Gary U.S. Bonds album. Remarkably, given the obscurity, he still gets the audience singing along. Not that the chorus is difficult, you understand, but getting the best part of thirty thousand people singing along to something they’ve never heard before takes some doing.<br />
<br />
Don’t believe me? It’s right there on the recording, as is the roar as another sign delivers <i>Hungry Heart</i>, followed by the crowd sing along at the start. And it’s not <i>that</i> far below what it was for <i>Jolie Blon</i>.<br />
I could, on the other hand, have done without the <i>go to whoa</i> run through <b><i>Born in the USA</i></b>, though there were probably thirty thousand people out there who’d disagree. Depends what you’re there for, and I’m there for the surprises and the view of proceedings which is kind of difficult when you’ve got three boogieing women in between you and the stage.<br />
<br />
There were some audio distortion issues through <i>Born in the USA</i>, and they’re there on the concert recording as well, but nowhere near as prominent as they were on the night.<br />
<br />
Hindsight’s a wonderful thing, and most of my objection to running through the album lay in the notion that it’s heavy on what you might term <i>the usual suspects</i>, tracks that turn up in the set list on a regular basis. Consulting my matrix, however, reveals just about everything except <i>Dancing in the Dark</i>, <i>Bobby Jean</i>, <i>Darlington County</i> and <i>Glory Days</i> has had a single airing at the seven shows I’ve attended to date.<br />
<br />
But no one else was objecting.<br />
<br />
There was the predictable roar of recognition as they started into <i>Cover Me</i> and <i>Darlington County</i>, and <i>Working on the Highway</i> kept the trio in front of me boogieing.<br />
<br />
I’ve never really rated <i>Downbound Train</i>, and again I guess I was in the minority, but <i>I'm on Fire</i> simmered nicely and <i>No Surrender</i> was gloriously triumphant. <i>Bobby Jean</i> maintained the momentum, <i>I'm Goin' Down</i> went as the script suggested it should, and <i>Glory Days</i> was back in the gloriously triumphant singalong mode.<br />
<br />
Which brought us to the haul ‘em up from the pit to dance on stage bit and <i>Dancing in the Dark</i>. It’s another one of the regular rituals that get spiced up occasionally. This time the spicing came in the form of a couple of cross-dressers in Afro wigs hauled up to dance with Afro’d backing singer Cindy Mizelle. I guess it takes all kinds, but according to Bruce it’s <i>Only in Australia</i>.<br />
<br />
But if there was a highlight in the album run through for me it arrived in a beautifully austere reading of <i>My Home Town</i>. It also set things up for what could only be interpreted as a political statement as Bruce grabbed a sign requesting <i>Factory</i> for all the workers in the car industry who have lost their jobs.<br />
<br />
We didn’t just get <i>Factory</i>. There was a Bruce reminiscence about his father’s days working in the Ford plant in Brunswick New Jersey back when Bruce was just a little tacker, a broadside at the reckless and greedy people who tipped the world into turmoil during the Global Financial Crisis and a meditation on the meaning of work and the importance of work in your life before calling for the song <i>in the key of F</i>.<br />
<br />
After that, <i>Shackled and Drawn</i> came as absolutely no surprise and an impassioned <i>The Ghost of Tom Joad</i> worked the way it doesn’t (quite) on the <b><i>High Hopes</i></b> album. It usually does, but coming off what had gone before it seemed to have a little extra zing. So, for that matter, did <i>The Rising</i> and <i>Land of Hopes and Dreams</i>.<br />
<br />
By this point, we were well and truly in the <i>building to the climax</i> stage of the show. <i>Heaven's Wall</i> continued to do that, and the house lights were up for <i>Born to Run</i>. Not that it made a lot of difference to band or audience. It definitely didn’t make any difference to me, not when the track was followed by <i>Rosalita</i> and Moon Mullican’s <i>Seven Nights to Rock</i> and rock they certainly did.<br />
<br />
They were three hours into the show when they started into <i>Rosalita</i>, time, as far as Bruce was concerned, to <i>get the party started</i>. <i>Rosalit</i>a and <i>Seven Nights</i> were certainly the goods in that department, and while the <i>Tenth Avenue Freezeout</i> video montage had the regular tribute to Clarence Clemons and Danny Federici it was a joyous celebration rather than sombre reflection.<br />
<br />
<i>Shout</i> wound up the main proceedings with Bruce <i>possessed by my 30-year-old self</i> and invoking memories of Johnny O’Keefe (at least as far as Hughesy was concerned). There are definitely worse forms of demonic possession.<br />
<br />
Unlike the multiple encores last time around, the end of the main set and subsequent public service announcement was followed by a single track, an acoustic guitar and harmonica solo rendition of <i>Promised Land</i>.<br />
<br />
And that, boys and girls, was that.<br />
<br />
Setlist:<br />
<i>Highway To Hell</i> (With Eddie Vedder)<br />
<br />
<i>Darkness On The Edge Of Town</i> (With Eddie Vedder)<br />
<br />
<i>Badlands </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Seeds </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>High Hopes </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Just Like Fire Would </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Jole Blon </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Hungry Heart </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Born In The U.S.A. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Cover Me </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Darlington County </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Working On The Highway </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Downbound Train </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>I'm On Fire </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>No Surrender </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Bobby Jean </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>I'm Goin' Down </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Glory Days </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Dancing In The Dark </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>My Hometown </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Factory </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Shackled And Drawn </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>The Ghost Of Tom Joad </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>The Rising </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Land Of Hope And Dreams > People Get Ready </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Heaven's Wall </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Born To Run </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Seven Nights To Rock </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Shout </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Thunder Road</i><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461182080588180362.post-61411097769089451332014-03-21T19:51:00.001-07:002014-03-21T19:51:37.541-07:00Bruce Springsteen Down Under 2014: Some Preliminary Remarks<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
There are, I guess, two approaches to writing a concert review, and another two when you’re looking at a run of four shows by the same artist over a relatively short period of twelve days.<br />
<br />
As far as the review goes, you can set out to set things down while they’re fresh in your mind, or, alternatively, give yourself a big of time to reflect and analyse.<br />
<br />
With four shows in twelve days there’d be a definite case for doing an all-in-one assessment, and another for looking at things on a show by show basis.<br />
<br />
There are acts out there where <i>all in one</i> would definitely be the way to go, given a reluctance to shake things up too much, but that’s not the case with Mr Springsteen, as a glance at the accompanying song matrix might suggest.<br />
<br />
Actually, where Bruce is concerned, there’s room for both approaches since there are common elements in a show that varies significantly from night to night.<br />
<br />
As far as fresh in your mind versus reflect and analyse later is concerned, there are a number of factors this time around that run against the fresh in your mind option.<br />
<br />
With a show that runs between three and four hours, kicks off significantly after the notional seven-thirty start and is followed by an hour-long trip back to the accommodation you’re not going to manage too much on the night apart from transferring your scrawled set list into a digital format. Late nights usually mean late rises, and having company with you tends to rule out too much writing activity in the morning if the someone has an itinerary of their own that needs to be attended to.<br />
<br />
So it’s much easier to do the fresh in your mind bit when you’re travelling solo. It also helps to have the accommodation reasonably close to the venue, something that never applies when you’re talking Brisbane Entertainment Centre.<br />
<br />
Sydney Entertainment Centre or the State Theatre, on the other hand, have very good options right in the neighbourhood, so you can spend the hour that would otherwise be devoted to the commute on recording the details.<br />
<br />
So there are a couple of reasons for a significant time lapse between action and recollection, without the new wild card that enters the equation as far as Bruce is concerned.<br />
<br />
Until this year you could obtain what have been termed magnetic memories or digital diaries of shows you’ve attended, but that meant waiting for a stealth taper to make their recording available and then waiting to arrange a copy of it.<br />
<br />
Not any more. From the start of the High Hopes tour, it’s possible to purchase a digital download of most Springsteen concerts. Ideally, it should be all Springsteen concerts, but one notes the Unavailable beside the second Melbourne show.<br />
<br />
Bruce’s Official Store notes that: <i>There are some instances when a live show will not be recorded. The live recordings available for purchase will have the price for that recording shown next to them. Recordings will be available for purchase 2-4 Days after the show.</i><br />
<br />
At $A11 for the MP3 version and $17 for the FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) of a three and a half hour show that’s pretty reasonable.<br />
<br />
It also adds another little cash cow to the bottom line, converting something that’s more than likely done for archival purposes into another revenue stream. With set lists appearing reasonably quickly and an obsessive fan base that would run somewhere around a hundred thousand copies of a show that had an interesting setlist.<br />
<br />
And Bruce shows <i>always</i> have an interesting setlist, which is the reason Hughesy’s show count is up to seven.<br />
<br />
Actually, as I’ve remarked at length in these parts and elsewhere, that count should be up around the dozen mark, or fourteen if I’d decided to head across The Ditch to Auckland.<br />
<br />
That pales into insignificance beside the really devoted (and cashed up) fans, where the show count runs up into the hundreds.<br />
<br />
The approach that different artists take to their set lists has been a matter of some interest to me over the years, and with Bruce it presents a particularly interesting little bundle of contradictions. For a start he manages to be, simultaneously, professional and spur of the moment improvisational.<br />
<br />
We know there’s a setlist.<br />
<br />
There has to be, otherwise there’d be no point in having someone tape sheets of paper to the stage in front of the spots occupied by the (<i>count ‘em</i>) four guitarists, bass player and violinist Soozie Tyrell. One assumes there’s something similar for the other dozen players a little further back.<br />
And it’s probably safe to assume three more things.<br />
<br />
The first one is that what gets taped down on the stage is an actual setlist, more than likely listing a specific sequence of songs, possibly with a question mark or a <i>/sign</i> after some things that aren’t quite set in concrete.<br />
<br />
One assumes Bruce has come up with this based on some notion that serves as a mental organiser, like the album shows this time around. In any case, he knows what he was thinking when he set that out, and it’s safe to assume he’s open to flexibility if a better idea comes up or things aren’t working out as expected.<br />
<br />
The second assumption that seems safe is that the support crew has the technology to either deliver the details of any song that has ever been done by Bruce and Band, or do that for any song after a particular point in time. You might guess that some of the really obscure early material hasn’t been documented that way. It seems equally safe to assume that there’s some form of prompt available to remind everyone about <i>the way that one goes</i>.<br />
<br />
On that basis you’d figure there’s almost nothing that’s totally out of the question, but some things are more likely than others.<br />
<br />
Third, now that we’re talking downloads there’s an extra justification for shaking things up. Not that it’s a prime consideration. Over time there’ll be some form of data about the actual patterns in the sales of downloads.<br />
<br />
You’d guess that the four album shows from this tour would have been big sellers in that department, and since the <b><i>Born to Run</i></b> show in Melbourne is unavailable at the moment, that’s the most likely candidate for another album show.<br />
<br />
Or maybe <b><i>The River</i></b> spread over consecutive nights.<br />
<br />
The notion that you might shift x number of copies of an album show doesn’t mean you’re going to get one, and it doesn’t rule out album shows in the future if that album has already been done.<br />
And the same way, it seems safe to assume that the shows that include, say, <i>Highway to Hell</i>, <i>Friday on my Mind</i>, <i>Don’t Change</i> and <i>Stayin’ Alive</i> will probably have more appeal than ones that don’t.<br />
<br />
That doesn’t explain why they were played, but it does mean there’s a reason to throw in a new cover or dig up a genuine obscurity.<br />
<br />
But in any case this run of four shows has made for a genuinely interesting experience and I’ll be looking to repeat the exercise next time Bruce is oiut this way.<br />
<br />
And it’s safe to assume he’ll be back.<br />
<br />
Two tours in two years mightn’t mean he’ll be back to make it three out of three at the start of 2015, but we know a Bruce tour down under can turn a profit, so the promoters will be happy to bring him back.<br />
<br />
And, of course, the northern hemisphere winter raises its own issues as far as the logistics of touring are concerned.<br />
<br />
So it seems safe to assume there’ll be at least one more tour down this way unless there’s some significant health issue or other disruptor. The big questions involve <i>when</i>, <i>where</i> and <i>how many can Hughesy get to?</i> Multiple nights in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide or Perth provide an excuse to head there for a couple of days, <i>n’est ce pas?</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
So, over to the show by show recount.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4461182080588180362.post-21909700599722356052013-12-23T18:41:00.000-08:002013-12-23T18:47:16.474-08:00Elvis Costello & The Imposters Zepp Namba, Osaka 15 December 2013 Spinning Songbook Show<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
<br />
The ancient Romans searched through the entrails of sacrificed animals looking for omens, and as we sat waiting for last night's show, I found myself pondering the significance, if any, of two items that were probably of no significance at all, but when you've got half an hour's wait, that's the sort of thing you do after you've had a photo taken with the Wheel in the background.<br />
<br />
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<br />
Actually, we were lucky to be there at all.<br />
<br />
If The Supervisor hadn't asked what time the show started we might have rocked up at least half an hour after the actual commencement. We'd had lunch with The Sister and The Rowdy Niece, and I'd answered a question about starting time with a seven-thirty, omitting an I think and failing to note the expression of surprise from someone who's rather more <i>au fait</i> with the way things run over here than her sister, who has spent the last twenty-odd years in Australia.<br />
<br />
Most of the conversation was, predictably, in Japanese, so I didn't pick up the <i>that's early for a Sunday</i> (or words to that effect).<br />
<br />
We also learned that the ¥500 drink charge we'd complained about earlier is, in effect, standard operating practice in these parts.<br />
<br />
In any case, Madam checked at around four-thirty, we were out the door shortly thereafter and around an hour later we were seated in row G, enjoying the different ambience at a different venue.<br />
<br />
The ¥500 drink fee hadn't caused quite the same resentment now that we were aware it was par for the course, and once we were inside it was obvious that Zepp Namba is a far more relaxed environment than the Ex in Roppongi. The entrance was entirely devoid of people yelling instructions through bullhorns, and there were no PA announcements reminding us that photographs were forbidden.<br />
<br />
I joined a stream of punters getting photos taken in front of the iconic item and was on my way back to the seats when I noted a familiar-looking bearded gentleman thanking someone who'd taken a happy snap. "Strange," I thought. "Looks like Steve. must be his brother."<br />
<br />
As the figure headed off I remarked on the remarkable resemblance, and Madam pointed out that he'd been stopped by a couple of Japanese girls and was signing autographs.<br />
<br />
Obviously, Steve...<br />
<br />
I wasn't sure why someone who'd done dozens of these shows would want a photographic record of his presence there, which raises all sorts of avenues for speculation, and it was around that point I noticed there'd been some changes on the Wheel.<br />
<br />
For a start, all the album bonuses, the <i>King's Ransom</i> and <i>Imperial Chocolate</i> and their ilk were gone, replaced by individual songs (<i>In Another Room</i>, <i>River in Reverse</i>, <i>Big Tears</i>, <i>Human Hands</i>), and what seemed to be a new <i>Ghost Jackpot</i>.<br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
So maybe that was it. Alternatively, if the titles up there are the result of some sort of EC-Steve-Whoever collaboration you might want a record.<br />
<br />
Or it might just be a part of the pre-concert ritual.<br />
<br />
But what was obvious from the time the ensemble hit the stage was an obvious degree of relaxation, which might be down to the fact that the TV appearance was behind them, but quite possibly related to the change of venue.<br />
<br />
As noted, Zepp Namba had a much more relaxed vibe in front of stage, and the same thing quite possibly applies to those areas we don't get to see. In any case, Elvis expressed a liking for the place.<br />
<br />
It was obvious, once the Wheel segments started, that there'd been a change in the selection policy. Elvis' first foray into the crowd produced a pair of sisters, one sporting an Elvis t-shirt and the other a Liverpool FC shirt and supporter's scarf. Obvious fans, who obviously knew how to attract the man's attention.<br />
<br />
Subsequent spinners included a couple who had She as their wedding song. That was their request, and a bit of manipulation on Elvis' part delivered the <i>Joanna Jackpot</i>, which, predictably, concluded with their request.<br />
<br />
The <i>Hammer of Song</i> segment produced a woman in a kimono who rang the bell once the right hammer had been produced and requested <i>45</i>, rather than one of the obvious suspects.<br />
<br />
She sat in the Celebrity lounge, obviously having a good time and happily singing along to <i>Radio Radio</i>.<br />
<br />
A final crowd excursion in the <i>Help Me</i> extension of <i>Watching the Detectives</i> produced a Belgian gent in a hammer and sickle t-shirt and an attractive Japanese lass who either arrived together or were very rapidly becoming quite good friends.<br />
<br />
And, with the more interesting selection of spinners came an increased use of the go-go cage, though no one matched the terpsichorean tantalization of the lovely Dixie de la Fontaine.<br />
<br />
And from Row G it was interesting to watch (out of the corner of the eye, of course) what happened as The Mysterious Josephine went out into the audience. One gathers that part of her brief, in the Stage Left aisle, involves encouraging the crowd reaction. You also get the distinct impression that she has someone selected just in case. A Japanese couple spent a long time cued to go on, passed over (quite literally) in <i>Help Me</i>, and ended up missing their shot at the stars when the show came to a relatively premature end.<br />
<br />
Actually, it wasn't that premature, and one suspects Elvis was starting to have some vocal issues. The volume definitely seemed to have been cranked up through the latter portions of the encore in a way it hadn't been in Tokyo. He definitely seemed to be straining in Strict Time.<br />
<br />
In any case, after the lengthy second set, the crowd persisted with calls for an encore, right up to the point where the stage crew started removing items from the Wheel.<br />
<br />
Highlights?<br />
<br />
Elvis expressing his inner Jerry Lee Lewis when there were apparent guitar issues during <i>Mystery Dance.</i><br />
<br />
<i>My All Time Doll</i> and <i>Femme Fatale.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>New Amsterdam > You've Got To Hide Your Love Away</i>.<br />
<br />
And, with that, it's off to Kyoto for a couple of days off bare trees in temple courtyards before we make our way back to the wilds of Northern Australia and an appointment with the same outfit in Sydney in April.<br />
<br />
<i>I Hope You're Happy Now</i><br />
<i>Heart of the City</i><br />
<i>Uncomplicated</i><br />
<i>Mystery Dance</i> (Elvis took a chorus on the grand piano, guitar issues?)<br />
Spin 1: <i>My All Time Doll</i><br />
Spin 2:<i> I Can Sing A Rainbow jackpot</i><br />
<i>Green Shirt</i><br />
<i>Red Shoes</i><br />
<i>Almost Blue</i><br />
<i>My All Time Doll</i><br />
Spin 3: <i>So Like Candy</i><br />
<i>Come the Meantimes</i><br />
<i>New Amsterdam > You've Got To Hide Your Love Away</i><br />
<i>Femme Fatale</i><br />
Spin 4: <i>Happy Jackpot</i><br />
<i>I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down</i><br />
<i>High Fidelity</i><br />
<i>Possession</i><br />
Spin 5: Joanna Jackpot<br />
Talking in the Dark<br />
Shot With His Own Gun<br />
She<br />
<br />
Spin 6: <i>I Want You</i><br />
<i>Walk Us Uptown</i><br />
<br />
Encore:<br />
Hammer of Song: <i>45</i><br />
<i>Radio Radio</i><br />
<i>Cinco Minutos Con Vos</i><br />
<i>Watching the Detectives > Help Me</i><br />
Spin 7: <i>Time Jackpot</i><br />
Spin 8: <i>Ghost Jackpot</i><br />
<i>Sugar Won't Work</i><br />
<i>Beyond Belief</i><br />
<i>Out of Time</i><br />
<i>Strict Time</i><br />
<i>I Don't Want To Go To Chelsea</i><br />
<i>Peace Love & Understanding</i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0