Tommy

We went to see Tommy last night at Cedar Park Center (CPC). Roger Daltrey and Simon Townshend, who turns out to be Pete’s brother—I was thinking son—put on a helluva show.

As always we were a little stressed about getting there as I get off work so late. Suna wanted to go straight to the bank and then to the show. I wanted to grab a quick bite so we didn’t have to pay ridiculous amounts of money for microwaved barfburgers. We stopped at subway and still made it to the show a half-hour early. Having the performance only a few miles from the house is a real convenience! And CPC is very well-designed for access and egress. Traffic was almost pleasant. (See if I ever say that again!)

We had really good seats, but I sure hope Suna’s photos come out better than mine. Too bad we couldn’t bring a real camera and had to settle for the phones. Here’s the least bad shot of the opening act.

The opening act was an animated Welshman named Paul Freeman. He brought a rock and roll sensibility to the acoustic guitar you see in the picture.

We really enjoyed his set. Daltrey’s sound system was set perfectly for vocals accompanied by an acoustic guitar. Freeman played several originals, the a cover of Anything You Want. He wrapped up with a couple more originals and even brought a pre-teen from the audience on stage to sing with him.

While the kid was walking up, Freeman admitted, “I wish I’d known there were children in the audience a half-hour ago.’ This was in regret for dropping the F-bomb a couple of times. The kid blustered through singing his part, and Freeman made him sound good.

Then it was time for the main act.

Daltrey, Townshend, and crew take the stage.

The band was tight, moving seamlessly from one song to the next. The road crew kept the guitarists in fresh guitars, sometimes bringing Townshend more than one during a song. The show was the definition of professionalism in almost all aspects.

Tommy comprised a little less than half of the show. I am so glad I finally got to see it live. Daltrey was in excellent voice, considering he said he has undergone throat surgery and therapy “over the last two years.” In anything, Simon Townshend has a stronger voice than his brother, and he covered Pete’s parts with ease. I was also very impressed with how well Daltrey sang Entwistle’s and Moon’s songs, which are in very different ranges and timbres than his usual. Both Townshend and the guitarist (whom Daltrey introduced as his music director) used devices similar to The Vocalist, so it often sounded as if there were 12 or more voices on stage coming from the four with mikes. (The drummer had a mike, but he banged it more often than he pretended to sing into it.)

Nobody slings a mike like Daltrey! Photo source: SongKick

The sound system was perfect for the vocals, but it also provided my only complaint about the evening. It was perfect if all you wanted to hear was the vocals and the music director’s guitar. The keys were almost always buried in the mix, as you would expect for a power guitar band. Townshend’s guitar was also lost in the mix except for a few occasions where he had the dominant part. But as soon as the music director started playing, Townshend was almost inaudible.

The bass player played a Fender (Precision, I think) with an octave doubler. The lower octave was mixed a little hot, which really muddied the sound. When the drums joined in, the low frequencies had all the punch of day-old oatmeal. In short, the equipment was state-of-the-art; the mix was not. The one bright spot to a fellow bass player was when he switched to upright bass. When he did that, the nervousness drained from his body and he just played. Not only that, the sound was clear and perfect—even with the rest of the band playing.

One unique idea Daltrey brings to this tour is to post mp3s of every performance. I would suggest you check out his “Johnny Cash Medley” or the whole thing, but you’d have to buy the download to hear more than 30 seconds of any song or more than part of the intro to the Cash medley.

There were a couple of times the band stopped playing, so you could say there was an encore even though the band never really left the stage. But really, Daltrey just kept going until he could’t sing anymore. I hope he sees it as a kindness that we all left when he said goodnight instead of demanding more.

If you get a chance to see one of the other tour stops, do so.

The Band of Heathens

Matt the Electrician opened for The Band of Heathens.

Suna won tickets to go see The Band of Heathens today. She had to brave downtown Austin twice: first she had to go pick up the tickets from KUT, and then she had to drive us down there for the show.

She drove because I hate driving downtown. So she picked me up from work, and we headed straight to the concert at Antone’s. Traffic was incredibly light considering we were in the middle of SXSW, and we got there in only a half hour. That left us an hour to kill before they even opened the doors.

I found the teller machine and then we walked Antone’s. We stayed outside looking at the skyline, looking at the front door, looking at the skyline, and listening to some kind of a punk band at The Lucky Lounge next door. Finally they opened the doors and let us in.

This guy did a really good job filling in on lead guitar for Matt the Electrician.

I was completely unprepared. I had wanted to get there early so that we could get good seats, but when we got and we found there is no seating at Antone’s. It is a big stage with a big open floor and several bars. They have room for the merchandise set up and their little bitty record store. But there was only standing room. When they say it’s SRO at Antone’s, they aren’t kidding.

The new album is well worth the money. Buy it from the band.

Suna and I each pick up identical heathens T-shirts. Well, not identical. They are at our respective sizes. And we got the new album. It was a CD release party after all. What about the vinyl edition because it had for bonus tracks and came with a CD anyway.

We met some nice people and talked with them and save each other’s places sitting on the stage so that we could be that close to bands when they started. One of the young girls that we were talking to was there waiting on her father who apparently had taken her to see the band of heathens when she was still wager young to be in the clubs. Boy that something I know something about, having grown up in bars—but those usually had chairs and tables.

Finally Matt the Electrician started his set. If you know Matt, I don’t need to say anything. If you don’t know him, saying anything about him won’t do the job. He’s a really good pop singer who plays a ratty old banjo and tells great stories between the songs. You can listen to one of his songs here.

This guy (I really should learn their names) acted like the leader. At least, he had no problems telling the keyboard player to play in a lower register.

Matt ended his set with a cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Good Times, Bad Times,” taking his guitarist completely by surprise. The guy (whose name I didn’t catch, but Suna says he plays for Slaid Cleves) took it in stride. He seemed fairly nonplused and even managed a good solo. I was impressed with Matt’s ability to cover this song. He did better than Plant, but so would a cat undergoing castration without anesthetics.

The girl’s father showed up shortly before The Heathens took the stage, sometime during The Electrician’s set. And when they did, OMG…

We owned both of their previous studio CDs, so I was somewhat familiar with the music, but I wasn’t really prepared. The Heathens are definitely a live band. The albums, although very good and worth listening to on their own, don’t do them justice. I’m going to have to buy a couple of their live CDs and see if those catch the heart and spirit of the performance.

Here is a real professional, untouched by any melodrama unfolding on stage around him.

Let me tell you, brother. The Heathens rock. They rock. Even though they’re singer songwriters, The Heathens is an electric band, and they rock.

The Heathens includes three lead vocalists, each of whom can stand on his own. The apparent leader plays an adequate guitar. He learns his parts and place them well, but his real job is to be a singer. And he sings very well indeed. The other main guitarist seems like an old-timey blues stringer. He can play a mean guitar, a slide guitar, a mandolin like the one we bought for Tubaboy, and just about anything else he wants I bet. The last vocalist (of whom I was unable to get a good picture) sounds a lot like Kenny Loggins in the early Loggins and Messina days. He’s also the best guitarist of three. He smokes, and he’s a pretty damn good keyboard player, too.

The bassist¹ and the other (my favorite) singer

I didn’t get the bass player’s name, but I did get an acceptable picture of him. The sad thing was that they didn’t run him through the house mains. He was competing with the band was just his unmiked, mid-sized Ampeg rig. They didn’t even run him through the subs hidden under the stage. So sad. But then mostly what he played was quarter notes on the tonic. I think this was to satisfy some perverse tendency of the guitarists because when he went for it, he let loose with some interesting chops that I could barely hear. Strangely enough, he is very present on the studio CDs.

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1 Note the piece of foam near the tailpiece. It’s there to keep the strings from ringing. All Fender basses used to come with a chrome tailpiece cover that had a damper built in. Why “used to?” Well, you can still get it if you order it, but most bass players take it off, anyway. The tailpiece and pickup covers on my ’72 Jazz lasted about five minutes. That’s how long it took me to find a screwdriver once I got my favorite bass home.

Bruuuuuuce, Tooooooo!

OK. It’s really Bruce!

Photo source: Carnage and Culture

OK. At Tim’s request I’ll talk a little about the actual performance. It was simply awesome. BS pulled off moves at sixty that would have hospitalized me at thirty.

High energy and stiff, he was still able to pull off the move where he leans over backwards with his feet flat on the stage and the mic stand protruding from his crotch in a weird phallic symbol. His back was perfectly parallel to the stage, about a foot above the stage supported only by holding onto the mic stand. That part was physically amazing.

For the rest of it, what can I say. It was Bruce. The concert started an hour late and lasted almost three hours. The break for the intermission lasted less than five minutes. The encore comprised at least five songs, including two sign requests after Bruce said his final goodnight. Of course, the band didn’t know all of the songs; Bruce has too many.

The most bizarre part was when he took a sign request that was written on two gum wrappers. He held the wrappers to the camera so that the audience could see “Sherry BabyDarling” on the monitors. He then ate the wrappers and played the song, even though I have been told it was only the second time he had every performed it in concert. (I doubt that because he remembered all the words, but you never know. He is a smart man.)

Music Meme

I thought Year of the Cat was the best album of my senior year, but what do I know? Its singles didn’t chart until the following year.

Photo source: Keith’s Best Music List

Since Friday’s Feast is still off line, I’m using this meme from Jo’s Blog. The rules are:

1. Retrieve a list of the 100 most popular songs for the year you graduated (from high shcool?) from Music Outfitters.
2. Blog your reaction to the songs.
• Bold the songs you like.
• Strike through the ones you hate.
• Underline your favorite(s).
• Do nothing to the ones you don’t remember (or don’t care about).

1. Silly Love Songs—Paul McCartney and Wings¹
2. Don’t Go Breaking My Heart—Elton John and Kiki Dee¹
3. Disco Lady—Johnnie Taylor
4. December 1963 (Oh, What a Night)—Four Seasons¹
5. Play That Funky Music—Wild Cherry¹
   This is one of those that show how tastes evolve. I hated this song at the time. Then then the radio station I worked for provided the music for a birthday party. They had a really bad PA, so I pulled the one my band used out of my van. It’s amazing how much better this song sounds with 800 watts of bi-amped sound.
6. Kiss and Say Goodbye—Manhattans¹
   I am familiar with three versions of this song: a long album version, a shorter 45 version with an interminable talk-over intro, and a 45 version without the voice over. I always preferred the album version with the voice-over cut.
7. Love Machine (Part 1)—The Miracles
   Absolutely useless.
8. 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover—Paul Simon¹
9. Love Is Alive—Gary Wright¹
10. A Fifth of Beethoven—Walter Murphy and the Big apple Band¹
11. Sara Smile—Daryl Hall and John Oates¹
12. Afternoon Delight—Starland Vocal Band
13. I Write the Songs—Barry Manilow
    I always thought it was ironic that BM was billed as a songwriter extrodinaire, but he didn’t write most of his early hits. I think he did write this one. It may have been the first one he wrote that he charted with.
14. Fly, Robin, Fly—Silver Convention¹
    And I don’t know why
15. Love Hangover—Diana Ross¹
    I still have a copy of this one, even though I always thought it was drivel.
16. Get Closer—Seals and Crofts¹
17. More, More, More—Andrea True Connection¹
    Again, the longer version is much better, and the song only sounds good when played on really good equipment.
18. Bohemian Rhapsody—Queen¹
19. Misty Blue—Dorothy Moore
    This is a nice, forgettable blues song.
20. Boogie Fever—Sylvers
21. I’d Really Love to See You Tonight—England Dan and John Ford Coley¹
    You may know England Dan by the name he currently records under: Dan Seals.
22. You Sexy Thing—Hot Chocolate
    This is an absolute piece of tripe sung by a tone-deaf catfight, but it’s fun.
23. Love Hurts—Nazareth¹
    There are so many covers of this song, and I don’t know why.
24. Get Up and Boogie—Silver Convention
    The Silver Convention may have won an award as the most over-produced band of all time, at least until Smoke Rings in the Dark was released.
25. Take It to the Limit—Eagles¹
26. (Shake Shake Shake) Shake Your Booty—K.C. and the Sunshine Band
    You can actually sing the words to every KC song to which ever one of his songs is playing. I’m ashamed to admit I’ve done it.
27. Sweet Love—Commodores
    I honestly don’t remember this one.
28. Right Back Where We Started From—Maxine Nightingale
29. Theme from S.W.A.T.—Rhythm Heritage
    Can you believe that instrumentals still charted in those days.
30. Love Rollercoaster—Ohio Players
    Another song that supports my claim that 90% of anything being played at any given time is crap.
31. You Should Be Dancing—Bee Gees
    Pass the barf bag please.
32. You’ll Never Find Antoher Love Like Mine—Lou Rawls¹
33. Golden Years—David Bowie¹
34. Moonlight Feels Right—Starbuck¹
    The vibes solo on this one is awesome.
35. Only Sixteen—Dr. Hook
    This one is actually fairly innocuous. It was just overplayed to the point where I still can’t stand to listen to it.
36. Let Your Love Flow—Bellamy Brothers
37. Dreamweaver—Gary Wright
38. Turn the Beat Around—Vicki Sue Robinson
    Another one a just don’t remember.
39. Lonely Night (Angel Face)—The Captain and Tennille¹
40. All By Myself—Eric Carmen
41. Love to Love You Baby—Donna Summer
    Can you say, “Whatever!”?
42. Deep Purple—Donny and Marie Osmond
    I always thought Marie was the only one in that family with any taste—and only when she could get away from the rest of that unseasoned porridge.
43. Theme from Mahogany—Diana Ross
    This was voted my class song. Can you believe it? Most of us still don’t know.
44. Sweet Thing—Rufus
    Not that bad, but not that good either.
45. That’s the Way I Like It—K.C. and the Sunshine Band
    Same song, different words.
46. A Little Bit More—Dr. Hook¹
47. Shannon—Henry Gross
    Don’t know that I’ve ever heard it.
48. If You Leave Me Now—Chicago
    Chicago’s most castrated sound ever. They made so much money from this one that it took Peter C. leaving the band to wimp on his own before they could return to real music.
49. Lowdown—Boz Scaggs¹
50. Show Me the Way—Peter Frampton
    Frampton needed the crowd noise to cover up how empty most of his songs were.
51. Dream On—Aerosmith¹
52. I Love Music (Pt. 1)—O’Jays
53. Say You Love Me—Fleetwood Mac
    Sorry. Did I doze off?
54. Times of Your Life—Paul Anka
    I think this one was supposed to be uplifting. I couldn’t tell.
55. Devil Woman—Cliff Richard¹
    Just fun.
56. Fooled around and Fell in Love—Elvin Bishop
    This was one of my favorites at the time, but neither the tune nor Bishop has weathered well.
57. Convoy—C.W. McCall¹
    I hated this one at the time. Later I hated it for different reasons. Now I think it’s kinda cute.
58. Welcome Back—John Sebastian
    Another TV show theme.
59. Sing a Song—Earth—Wind and Fire¹
    EWF had the tightest horn section in the business.
60. Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel—Tavares
    Trite through and through.
61. I’ll Be Good to You—Brothers Johnson
62. Shop Around—The Captain and Tennille¹
    This took a 60s classic and made it rock.
63. Saturday Night—Bay City Rollers¹
    I still remember my girl friend’s little sister singing along with this one: “S A T E R D A Y—Night!” Then there was the interview where the singer bragged that their guitar player had just learned a C chord and it would be featured on the new album. That may have been tongue-in-cheek. Maybe.
64. Island Girl—Elton John¹
    Elton proved again that white boys don’t get reggae.
65. Let’s Do It Again—Staple Singers¹
    One of the best soul songs ever. And one of the best soul singers.
66. Let ’Em In—Paul McCartney and Wings¹
    I never did understand why Sir Paul was too lazy to open the door himself.
67. Baby Face—Wing and a Prayer Fife and Drum Corps
68. This Masquerade—George Benson¹
    My favorite cover of this Leon Russell classic.
69. Evil Woman—Electric Light Orchestra¹
70. Wham Bam—Silver
71. I’m Easy—Keith Carradine
    Most actors shouldn’t sing.
72. Wake Up Everybody (Pt. 1)—Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes
73. Summer—War
74. Let Her in—John Travolta
    See 72.
75. Fox on the Run—Sweet
    A waste of vinyl.
76. Rhiannon—Fleetwood Mac¹
77. Got To Get You into My Life—Beatles¹
78. Fanny (Be Tender with My Love)—Bee Gees
    More in line with what the BGs could do well.
79. Getaway—Earth—Wind and Fire¹
80. She’s Gone—Daryl Hall and John Oates¹
    OK. This one sounded more like TSOP, but I still really like it.
81. Rock and Roll Music—Beach Boys¹
82. Still the One—Orleans¹
83. You’re My Best Friend—Queen
84. With Your Love—Jefferson Starship
    This one got a lot of airplay with the line, “I got my first taste of love when I went down on you.”
85. Slow Ride—Foghat¹
    The short version. The album version gets monotonous.
86. Who’d She Coo—Ohio Players
87. Walk Away from Love—David Ruffin
88. Baby—I Love Your Way—Peter Frampton
    Saccarine: sweet, but empty.
89. Young Hearts Run Free—Candi Staton
90. Breaking Up’s Hard To Do—Neil Sedaka¹
    Sedaka became the first artist ever to hit number 1 twice with the same song. The 70s version is musically more in tune with the lyrics than was the 50s version.
91. Money Honey—Bay City Rollers
92. Tear the Roof off the Sucker—Parliament
93. Junk Food Junkie—Larry Groce¹
    This one is a funny look at hypocrisy.
94. Tryin’ to Get the Feeling Again—Barry Manilow
    As if he ever had it to begin with.
95. Rock and Roll all Nite—Kiss
    It took about ten years for me to learn to like this song.
96. Disco Duck—Rick Dees
    Dees was a DJ, and this song was written to parody the crap he hated to play on the radio. Looks like it worked too well.
97. The Boys Are Back in Town—Thin Lizzy¹
98. Take the Money and Run—Steve Miller Band¹
99. Squeeze Box—The Who¹
100. Country Boy (You Got Your Feet in LA)—Glen Campbell¹

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¹ Still in my collection

Album Review: Long Road out of Eden

Eagles (2007). Long Road out of Eden Photo source: Eagles

Behold the bitten apple, the power of the tools

But all the knowledge in the world is of no use to fools

And it’s a long road out of Eden

—Don Henley, Glenn Frey,
and Timothy B. Schmit

It seems like forever since Eagles released a studio album. I know Long Road out of Eden has been out for a while, but I just got around to buying it. I didn’t buy the later release with the two bonus tracks, but I can’t complain about a two-CD package with 20 songs for $11.47 plus tax—only about 60 cents more than they want for the download.

Now that I have listened to it all the way through, I must say that this album is just nice. If you’re an Eagles fan, you gotta get it. If you simply like the band, there is nothing outstanding here—other than the harmonies that made them famous in the first place; this is a worthwhile addition to your collection. If you dislike Eagles, why are you reading this?

One thing that is different in the harmonies—perhaps it is just the production quality since Eagles is now its own label—you can now hear distinct voices on many of the tracks. On older recordings, I could hear individual parts but not voices. On this effort, I hear both.

The 20 tracks are all solid. I can’t even say anything bad about the tracks I don’t really care for. The production quality is excellent. But only a couple of them reach out and grab you by the neck and make you listen. Still, the trademarked Eagles cynicism rings true throughout. This is not an uplifting album.

Each of the singers is featured on at least one track. Joe Walsh even has one on each disc. I like Joe.