The Live Music Thread

[laxx]

The Bird and the Bee concert at Carnegie Hall on Saturaday.

[postjack]

But was it worth the $1000 you could have gotten for your ticket?

Totally.

Seriously I was able to get up with two really old friends I hadn't seen in some time, and we sat next to each other and had a ball.

The below two pictures say it all. First is from Hampton, second is from Coventry. For non Phish fans, Coventry was Phish's "final" concert in 2004, which I was also at, and which was the worst concert experience of my life, and Hampton was their big reunion run this past weekend:

I'm really happy for Trey.

[diebenkorn]

Is he dead (2nd pic)?

[postjack]

Oh, and I was supposed to catch Morrissey in Atlanta this Saturday, but as I was waiting at the Atlanta airport for my GF and her friend who drove six hours from Mobile to come and pick me up, I got an email from my iPhone informing me the show was cancelled. Apparently the Moz lost his voice at the Myrtle Beach show the night previous. Totally sucks.

BUT, we had a hotel room in Atlanta, and they had driven all that way, so we consulted the almighty iPhone. While eating the aforementioned delicious Vortex burger, I used the Jambase iPhone app to find out what other live music was going on that night. Saw some band called The Annuals were playing at the Earl. We all liked their influences as described on the iPhone, so I hopped onto the browser and bought three tickets. Then we used the map function to get us to the venue, where we had a great time. I mean, how badass is the iPhone?

The Annuals were a bit too spunky for my tastes, but their 21 year old front man is obviously a very talented songwriter, and good things may still come out of this band. The real stars were the openers, first a cool (and hot) chick named Jessica Lea Mayfield, who had a bluesy country dark Mazzy Star thing going on. Her band was fantastic, and consisted of her huge beastly brother on the biggest stand up bass I've ever seen, a guitarist who looked EXACTLY like Bullock from Deadwood, and a completely hot blonde drummer, like completely hot. The other band were called What Laura Says, and they have this great Queen/Beatles + Black Keys thing going on. I really liked them, and bought their CD and a 7" single from their manager Tony, who was a super nice dude.

The show was followed by a meal at R Thomas, Atlanta's 24 hour "health food" restaraunt, which was really awesome. So a trip that could have been a disaster turned into a lot of fun.

Next: Ryan Adams and The FUCKING CARDINALS next Thursday right here in Mobile, then North Mississippi Allstars with Hill Country Revue, again in Mobile, the following Saturday.

[postjack]

Is he dead (2nd pic)?

definitely dying. here is a video from Coventry:

at about 50 seconds in, he pulls out what is unmistakably a bag of heroin and puts it up to his nose, right there on stage. fast forward to 2:40, and he is completely nodding.

kids: don't fucking do opiates.

[gauche]

How was it? I love Stanley Clarke.

He was great the last time at Yoshi's, but this time was "solo acoustic" so I wasn't sure what that was going to be.

It was acoustic Return to Forever with Jean-Luc Ponty sans Di Meola; the quartet was composed of Mads Tolling on electric violinist, a young Corea-ish, Ruslan Sirota (27 yrs old) on piano, Ron Bruner Jr (24 yrs old) on drums (show stopper) and Stanley on stand up bass (amped). 3 of the 5 songs played were RTF compositions and to some extent is was the Mads Tollings show. In baseball terms Clarke brought a veterans presents to the group.

Al, I would have enjoyed the show more had it been solo acoustic. Never was a big fan of the electric, jazz violin. But I can't complain I was on the guest list, comps courtesy of KUSF.

btw, the Chikurin was spot on but the calamari just so-so.

[thrice]

Posting from my iPod touch: sitting in the Carolina Theater getting ready for the Ani Difranco concert.

[tyrion]

Posting from my iPod touch: sitting in the Carolina Theater getting ready for the Ani Difranco concert.

Have fun. She is playing down here on Thursday. Not sure if I'm going.

[Dusty Chalk]

Enjoy! I've never seen her live, but she rocks!

[thrice]

She rocked... there's been a change in her playing style/confidence since I last saw her live about 2-3 years ago. It's very zen... the music just happens out of her at this point. She's starting to play around a lot with some of the old favs too and they're great. I will never get tired of seeing her live.

[Voltron]

Cool. I'd like to see her sometime.

[postjack]

She's coming to Mobile, but I'm not planning on attending. I respect her and all, and like every coffeehouse kid in the 90's owned a copy of Little Plastic Castles, but I can't say I'm a fan.

I did just buy tickets for Mastodon/Kylesa/Intronaut in New Orleans. 4/11/09.

[Voltron]

Masada String Trio conducted by John Zorn while sitting Indian-style in front of the musicians. This was an amazing performance, including the unique conducting style of Zorn that involves lots of funky hand gestures such as the redruM, the temple-point, and the Jazz Hands. The musicians were all incredible: Mark Feldman (violin), Erik Friedlander (cello), and Greg Cohen (bass), especially Feldman and Friedlander played the crap out of instruments that are often dainty. Plucking, strumming, bowing, and bashing in turns and at the precise direction of Zorn. Cohen was playing with a right arm that looked like it was Hell Boy's, all reddish purple, swollen and painful looking. Jewish jazz music on strings couldn't sound better than this. As Clarke said, you would absolutely pick those three guys if you were to put together a dream trio for this music. Even without any association or limitation to Jewish music, it was awesome in its own right.

[jinp6301]

Stefania Neonato with a fortepiano, playing mozart and clemenati

fortepianos sound weird

[jinp6301]

saw Maceo Parker and his band. Got to meet him backstage and have a little conversation. Awesome guy and awesome concert!

[postjack]

saw Maceo Parker and his band. Got to meet him backstage and have a little conversation. Awesome guy and awesome concert!

pass the peas!

got the Cards tonight, can't wait.

[jinp6301]

awesome. I would love to the MFCs again!

[postjack]

Ryan Adams and the Cardinals Thursday kind of sucked. I had fun, and there were a few shining moments, but for the most part Ryan was rushing the songs and playing like he didn't give a shit, just going through the motions. 23 songs, 90 minutes. A far cry from his Mobile show Fall '07, which was transcendental. Apparently he rocked the next night in Atlanta, which is supposedly his last live concert for a while, if not forever. Still its obvious he is tired of the road, and I'd be perfectly happy if he just recorded for a while. Its really disappointing when you know how good an artist can sound live, and they don't meet that expectation, not because of them just having an off night, but because they aren't really trying.

Just got back from North Mississippi Allstars with Hill Country Revue at the Soul Kitchen Music Hall, and that was a gnarly show. Refreshing to see some musicians play the shit out of their instruments after the above described disappointment.

Up next: Mastodon at the NOLA HOB, April 11th.

[postjack]

While we're here, I need to pick up a pair of ear plugs for concerts. Anyone have any recommendations? When I google "ear plugs for concerts" these eties come up:

Amazon.com: Customer Reviews: ETYMOTIC RESEARCH ER20BP High Fidelity Ear Plugs ( Clear )

[Dusty Chalk]

I just got that exact same pair myself, but haven't taken them to a concert yet.

My basis, though, was entirely different -- in my case, it was replacing a pair of what I believed were just rebranded Ety's, and I loved them.

My attitude is to have multiple pairs with different ratings, since concerts vary in levels.

[riceboy]

I just went to Diana Krall. It was great. She was backed by the Honolulu Symphony Pop Orchestra and played with John Clayton, Jeff Hamilton, and Anthony Wilson. It was a wonderful concert and she even played some songs off her new album coming out. Also, it turned out that it was the 10th Anniversary of the Honolulu Symphony Pop Orchestra so there were a bunch of local artists performing before she came on

[postjack]

I just got that exact same pair myself, but haven't taken them to a concert yet.

My basis, though, was entirely different -- in my case, it was replacing a pair of what I believed were just rebranded Ety's, and I loved them.

My attitude is to have multiple pairs with different ratings, since concerts vary in levels.

Right on, since levels differ in a small club, midsize theater, arena, etc.

My primary concert are the high frequencies in a small to midsize club. I always hate the excessive brightness when the show starts, then my ears adjust, which scares me a little.

[Dusty Chalk]

That and it also depends on the kind of music. Unexpect and Opeth and Lacuna Coil and etc. are much louder than Camille (who was perfect without earplugs) and even Al Di Meola.

[Voltron]

SF Jazz Collective at Palace of Fine Arts, SF. It was definitely a good show overall, with McCoy Tyner compositions and originals inspired by his work, but it was definitely not the best I have seen them. Joshua Redman and Bobby Hutcherson both "retired" from the group before last year, and were replaced by Joe Lovano and Stefon Harris. Dave Douglas came in on trumpet last year and Robin Eubanks replaced the better trombonist Andre Heyward this year. I missed them last year because oddly enough the SF Jazz Collective did not play as part of the SF Jazz Spring Season and instead played in Berkeley for some reason, so I don't know how the group was last year.

This year the standouts were long-time members Renee Rosnes on piano, Eric Harland who is a monster on drums, and Dave Douglas on trumpet. Lovano was oddly and uncharacteristically subdued on tenor and Miguel Zenon is just not my favorite on alto. The Tyner tunes were all good, but Peresina and Four By Five were great. The original pieces by Rosnes, Harland and bassist Matt Penman were really nice, with Penman's Yup, We Did written on 11/05/08 was really nice.

Overall a good but not great night that was not up to snuff for the Collective. It was their last night of a month-long tour, and although all of them kept saying they love each other and wanted to play more gigs they also seemed tired.

[Voltron]

A couple more shows to add.

Nels Cline Singers with Jeff Gauthier's Goatette at Yoshi's in Oakland. First was the Goatette with Nels on guitar, Alex Cline on drums, Gauthier on electric violin and bass and keyboards by other guys. Not bad, not remarkable in any real way and electric violin is mostly annoying. Nels was cool and Alex was pretty boring. Then Nels played with his trio the Singers, with a different drummer and bass player. All three are great musicians but it was a little out there and too avant rock jazz. Most "songs" were untitled new pieces and for the most part I was disappointed. JP felt deceived because I told him I thought that it would be relatively song-based jazz not just noise. More noise than not, as it turned out.

Last night, however, we saw the incredible Branford Marsalis Quartet at the Palace of Fine Arts in SF. We sat in the front row, on the drummer side because I love Jeff Tain Watts. First thing I noticed from the program was that Tain Watts was not playing drums. What?! The new album Metamorphosen is promoted as being recorded around the tenth anniversary of this quartet's existence without any personnel changes which is indeed rare longevity in jazz combos. Kinda reminds me of the interview from The Kids Are Alright where the interviewer points out that they had been together for a decade and had not yet decayed, and then Keith Moon gets up and says "I'm leaving!"... I don't know why Tain wasn't there, but they played a couple of his compositions and he got lots of applause every time.

When the band came out, the drummer looked 12. Turns out he was 17. But damn, can this kid play. He is Justin Faulkner and he is known as a phenom apparently. YouTube is full of his solos and songs from even younger years. This kid kills. And not just fiery solos and showing off. He's got skills and the tools of a very accomplished player. JP pointed out that it would have really sucked to be sitting up front on the drummer side if he were terrible, but instead it was a thrill to watch the Keith Moon of jazz fly.

They played two solid hours like they it was a walk in the park. Branford sounded fantastic on tenor and soprana sax and his tone is just amazing. Eric Revis is an amazing bass player and he was really in great form. Joey Calderazzo is always solid on the piano and JP suggested he was channeling Monk during Rhythm-A-Ning. The kid on drums integrated very well with the long-time members, and Branford gave all of them lots of room. Do not miss this quartet if you like jazz at all.