The Golden God and Friends plus Mississippi!

Occasionally I'll find myself really looking forward to something. When that happens, I often find myself disappointed. The movie, album, or concert just doesn't live up to my expectations. However, occasionally I find something that exceeds my lofty expectations and it makes those expectations worth it.

Last week, I attended a Robert Plant + Friends concert which defied expectations. Seriously great show.

The show started with "The North Mississippi All-Stars" opening. They were spectacular. I haven't seen an opening act that good in several years. By their last couple of numbers, all of Constitution Hall was quiet which is a rarity in opening acts.

Then, Robert Plant and the Band of Joy performed. They opened up with "Houses of the Holy" and it was amazing. Plant sounded great, Buddy Miller tore it up on lead guitar and Patti Griffin sounded great as backup vocals. The show proceeded with a couple of numbers from everyone, then each of the band members would perform a cover of a song. Patti Griffin sounds even better live than on her album (you can't say that of that many singers), Buddy Miller is just great and Darrell Scott amazed us all with his incredible voice. Then there's Robert Plant. His voice is still incredible and somehow he's retained his sex appeal. We were all swooning over Plant.

Wordless

I Got my Name from Rock and Roll

Wilco, the holy grail of concerts in my opinion, has been alluding me for five years now. It's not like Wilco ever comes to DC. They make it out most years at least once a year, and some years twice. I've been trying to go each time they've been in town but there's been shows on Sunday, I wasn't in town when they were, the concert sold out before I could get on etc etc. I actually had tickets for Wilco last year (Kelli went by herself) but couldn't go because I went to Denver to see my folks and younger brother.
So anyway, I didn't hold my breath when I heard Wilco was going to be at the 9:30 club in DC in late February. The presale must have sold out in less than a minute-and the general sale sold out in 5 minutes. Luckily Jenny N and I got tickets for a group of friends. Even with the tickets, I still was holding my breath a little.
Anyway, the show went on without a hitch. We were able to stand up on the risers upstairs in the club. The only thing that was a little fustrating were people coming in right before the show that obstructed our view more or less. But we still had a decent view. John Doe opened for Wilco. I was kind of looking forward seeing him, and he didn't disappoint. There were several songs that were great. I've been listening to him lately, and he's growing on me. Good music to write to.




Jeff Tweedy and the boys....After the show, when Kelli and I were walking home from the metro to our house, she turned to me and simply said "top five" show. I'd recommend seeing Wilco live to almost anyone. First off, they played 28 songs. Then, Jeff Tweedy is one of a handful of artists I've seen who sounds better live than on a recording. He's not too chatty, but still charismatic and fun. The band sparkled until the end and they played a mixture of songs from each of their albums--they didn't just play from their latest album, some of the earlier stuff was played also. Hearing "Impossible Germany," complete with the guitar duet was a definite highlight. The only disappointment was we didn't hear "Heavy metal drummer." Oh well, there's always next time.







(I love the intro to this clip from "I'm trying to break your heart")

Here's a couple of Wilco singles to download (for free of course)

Wilco Jesus Etc. with Andrew Bird Live 2.20.2008 mp3

Wilco What Live Live 2.20.2008. mp3

Spotlight Music

White Stripes
Or as I like to call them now, Elvis and Meg.

Kaiser Chiefs

On Saturday night Rob and I went to see a 3 band show at the 930. The coolest part? The doors opened at 10:00 and the first band started at 10:30. The Walkmen started their set at 11:30 and the Kaiser Chiefs didn't get on until a little after midnight. Yeah, I didn't get home until 2:30 or so. Best Easter Sunday ever. Anyway, the first band was The Annuals. They have some bugs to work out, but they had a good sound. The only real complaint was that you couldn't hear the lyrics over the music. I think we'll hear more from this band in coming years. The Walkmen were the second band. I was looking forward to them, as I've been a casual fan since they put out their first album way back when but I was kind of disappointed. They just didn't sound that great. The Kaiser Chiefs sounded tight though. They are definitely one of those bands where there's one musician that's leading them all--in this band's case its their drummer. The songs sound better live than they do on their albums and they were high energy. At one point the lead singer crowd surfed to the bar--asked the bar tender for a rum and coke I believe, took a couple of sips and then surfed back. They played a good mix from their two albums and it was great. We saw them a few years ago at the Patriot Center and that was memorable. I think they've polished their act since then.

Maria Taylor

Conor Oberst and I have a love-hate relationship (he's not aware of it or me, of course. I adore this album by Maria Taylor that he was involved with. As far as Bright Eyes go, I like a lot of the stuff, but I tire of it fast. He's listed as 67 on the top 100 living songwriters--and for a 27 year old guy, that's not bad. He's talented--and I think he hasn't come close to hitting his peak, I'm just not as big of fan of his stuff as I am of other musicians. However, at the same time; this album by Maria Taylor is great. Solid from the first track to the last--its a pleasant mixture of styles that really works. Check it out!

A Good Start Lynn Teeter Flower Maria Taylor MP3

Spotlight Music

Carol Burnett etc

One of my favorite things to do on Youtube is to enter the name of a favorite comedian/actor/actress/singer (especially if they've been around for a while) and see what I come up. Tonight I did Carol Burnett, a favorite since I was a small child. Enjoy.



Carol Burnett and the incomparable Sammy Davis Jr. singing "every showtune ever"



Carol and Dolly....it doesn't get better than that. The way Dolly feels about Carol? The way I feel about both of them.

Boyfriend Rove



So, my boyfriend Karl Rove was spotlighted at the Annual Correspondents Dinner and he dances...seriously, you have to check this out no matter if you share my love for him or well, think he's Satan....check it out.

Here's another view of this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ln5RD9BhcCo

Ted Leo

I didn't get a chance to see Ted Leo perform at the 930 club on Thursday. I had tickets (I was able to sell mine) but my lungs had different ideas. I bought his new album about a week ago, and its good--but he should've pared it down from 15 songs to 10. Sometimes more isn't better. Quite a few songs are great--personally, I adore angry, political punk music and Ted fits that description most of the time.

Ted Leo Sons of Cain MP3

Spotlight Music

The biggest news on the music scene is that the summer festivals are starting to announce their lineups (I'm thinking of going to the pitchfork festival in Chicago, and would love to go to Bonnaroo--maybe this year) and the Shin's new release.
The rumored Bonaroo lineup this year makes me drool, and you too. Included are:

The Police
Bob Dylan
Pearl Jam
Tom Waits
Willie Nelson
Modest Mouse
The Black Crowes
Ryan Adams
My Morning Jacket
Arcade Fire
TV on the Radio
The Shins
The Roots
The Decemberists
Cat Power
Band of Horses
Neko Case
The Hold Steady
Earl Scuggs
M. Ward
Cold War Kids

The only problem is I'm headed Bonaroo way in May. Memphis and Nashville (Meccas) in one epic roadtrip. Woo hoo!

Anyway, I've yet to buy the Shins album, but I'm sure I will as the singles I've heard off of it are exactly whats expected from the shins: Highly crafted pop hooks. Here's my big 3 for this week:

Camera O
On Monday night, Kelli, Jenny, Jason, Jenny's friend and I met up at the 930 club for the Camera Obscura show. First thing, the smoking ban makes a huge difference at this venue. The air was clean, no smoky clothes to throw in a corner at the end of the night, and no allergy colds the next day. Very nice. The opening band was "Essex Green," and although they sounded pleasant, pulled some good hooks and were pretty tight-they were kind of forgettable. The bass player did have major rock star hair which was cool, but the biggest problem is when they talked between sets. I wasn't really digging on their banter although the drummer was pretty funny. One of the girls in the band made a remark that was insensitive at best, and borderline racist at worst. Not real cool.
Camera Obscura wasn't real high energy, but they were a lot of fun to watch. The band sounded good, and mowed through most of their songs from their 2006 album, "Let's Get Out of this Country." They sounded great, and with that scottish accent, could talk all day in my opinion.

Lloyd, are you ready to be Heartbroken-Camera Obscura-MP3

Let's Get out of this Country-Camera Obscura-MP3

The pic is courtesy of Information Leaf Blower who was there with a camera. http://www.informationleafblower.com/blog/

Wilco
So, I blogged about Wilco last week, and even posted the lyrics to this song, but I thought I'd kick this dead horse a few more times and throw another shoutout to the ep, and specifically, the song "There's a Magazine called Sunset," which I can't seem to stop listening to. Apparently, this song was part of the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot Demos. Several bloggers have declared this to be Wilco's best song ever. I don't know if I'd go that far, but its a gem that shouldn't be missed. At least if you like good music.

Magazine Called Sunset-Wilco-MP3

Sufjan Stevens

Free Sufjan Stevens tickets will be available at the Kennedy Center for a Feb 6 Kennedy Center Concert. I can't decide if I like Sufjan (I'm a casual fan) enough to get there early to grab tickets. If only all decisions in life were like this...
John Wayne Gacy, Jr.-Sufjan Stevens-MP3




Note: These are all downloadable links. just right click the link, hit "save target as" and follow the instructions.

What's round on the ends and high in the middle?

For Columbus Day weekend Sarah, Jason and I went to Sarah's folks house in Granville Ohio. The drive out took 8-9 hours (rain and foggy). However, we got up at 6 the next morning to stand in line for the Eddie Bauer Warehouse Salvage sale. We met a cool lady who teaches political theory etc at a christian college in Columbus. While we were waiting in line for 3 hours we ran into a couple of people who take their salvage sales seriously. Really seriously. But we got in, found some cool items and then went over to the Warehouse Outlet store and........well, we left a little past noon. Then there was Bath and Body Works, Jc Penny's Catalog store, Old Navy's, Best Buy, Meijer's and Michaels. Sunday was church, visiting an indian mound, (those are in Ohio), playing Domino's, watching my Yank's win and force the Angels to Game Five, and home cooked meals. Granville is a really cool, gorgeous little town in the woods. We left Monday, drove back and went to Hagerstown Outlets on the way. A bit anticlimatic after the Eddie Bauer warehouse.

That night Kelli, Erin, Jason and I went to see Kaiser Chiefs, Foo, and Weezer. The Kaiser Chiefs were good...all four songs we heard them play. Weezer....well Rivers was a little weird the first half of the set or so, but then the rest of the set was great. Foo...Well, Dave Grohl spent half the time screaming...oh what sexy screams he has. He played drums, he puts on a heck of a show...however, when your yanks are losing....its a little sad watching a kick-butt rock concert. But its always a good time when Dave Grohl is in town.

Beck and his freak show

Last night Kelli, Jason and I headed over to the Pat Center in Fairfax to see Beck. Seeing Beck was awesome. I've been a big fan since "loser" and was happy to hear the new album highlighted, quite a few songs from Sea Change and played (yes, he was backed up by his band playing assorted spoons and glass jars on a kitchen table) stuff from all his albums. The only disappointment was that he seemed pretty mellow and didn't do any of his legendary dance moves. However, his voice sounded awesome-even at the Patriot Center (a basketball gym) and well, everything he does is incredible. I heart Beck.

His opening acts however. The first group- an ambiguously gay trio who were trying to be Beck, maybe the Stripes and came off sounding and looking like lame high schoolers trying to ape glam rockers. Very bizarre. His opening act was a guy who was a one man band. Remember Dick Van Dyke in that one movie (Mary Poppinis). Well, kind of like that but with two piano-keyboards, a drum kit on his stomach and his bass drum synthesizer in his shoes. Cool gimmick, but kind of lame after the first 15 minutes or so.

Beck though.....................so cool.

My love, My Heart, My burning apple

Despite two friends bailing on us the afternoon of the concert, (ok one was that morning), and getting a coke thrown at me in the great freak coke mystery of '05, (more to follow), Tuesday night was a fulfillment of one of my greatest rock fantasies.....(this is a family friendly website...well except for the submissive gingerbread men) Seeing Meg and Jack do their thing on stage.

We made it to Columbia Merriwether as the opening opening act just started their set. Two dudes and a chick drummer playing earthy music. Sound familiar? The three of us (Erin accompanied us....Erin from Colonial 1st) broke off to get food. I grabbed some overly priced food at one of the stands, sat down on the grass and was enjoying the crisp fall air, the opening opening band when I felt and heard "whack splash" and a very wet sensation down my lower back. I looked back and there was a coke cup. I grabbed it, tossed it back to where it came and looked a little bewildered and perplexed as to how and why 2 10-13 year old boys ended up throwing a coke cup at me. One apologized, the other one ran off and I soon walked over to my seat to join Kelli and Erin.

The opening band was the Shins. I now have a not secret crush on the keyboardist who was unabashedly geeky, crazy, and adorable. He looked and acted a lot like my other not-secret celebrity crush, chris parnell. The Shins were solid. Good band, love their songs, looking forward to their tour next year.

We had about 30 minutes between acts. First we noticed that the Stripe's roadies were dressed in "gangster" suits and wearing fedoras. Then as the set was revealed....red and white instruments, three hawaiian dolls etc. sitting on top of the instruments, and then the back drop....black and white tropical scene with an apple sun? Oh, the building excitement. By the time the Stripes got on..the audience was stoked.

The opening number was Blue Orchid. The set lasted 1.5 hours. Jack White spoke twice through the concert and once after the encore. He was dressed in tight red pants with a black flare, red t-shirt and black jacket and hat. The hat and jacket were shed pretty early on.. Meg was in black leather pants and white t-shirt with a red scarf etc.

Yes, the bond between Jack and Meg is so obvious..now that he's remarried, insists that she's his sister...well all i care about is that their music rocks...hard..

Meg is great. I've never really appreciated her until seeing them in concert. She's really pretty incredible and Jack well, as talented and amazing as I've always thought he was...he's that much more talented.

If you ever get a chance to see them play. Go. Donate plasma if you have to but go.....

The opening opening band was M. Ward

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4834385

HFSTIVAL
Bands we saw: (Email I sent to Nell who is still 'trippin in Europe)

Garbage: Shirley the leadsinger has an amazing voice. She sounds just as good in a football stadium or better as she does on her recordings. Seriously. The band was awesome.

New York Dolls: um. wow. This was fun. 60 year old glam guys? Yeah, its totally cool. And the frontman was such an entertainer. So cool. Made me miss the Ramones a bit and now I really want to see the documentary even though the Mormon died last year.

Social Distortion: You know this band. I know this band. I didn't realize this band was so cool and started the Orange County Punk movement. Yes, it exists. Anyway, you know the song story of my life on the Orange County Soundtrack? Yeah, thats them. I also didn't realize that this was the group that does th

Good Charlotte: Started out with closeups of their set (only band with a backdrop) which had ravens on it and said nevermore on it. They talked too much, the frontman is charismatic but this band was by far the weakest of the night. Good but weren't awesome live.

Billy Freakin Idol: Okay. I knew this was going to be cool, but well, talk about sex on legs. Watching him perform. Well he's 50, but um. He was wearing tight leather pants, half the time had his shirt off but it wasn't watching a creepy has been. There's a reason he performed right before Cold Play and Foo Fighters. He's an amazing entertainer. He played to the crowd the most, was constantly throwing water bottles to the moshers, and kissed a girl in the crowd, but it was cheesy at all. It was just really really kick ass cool.

ColdPlay. I've never been much of a fan. In fact their music has been eh, alright. But I'm a fan now. Chris Martin is goofy. He skipped on the stage, he sang white wedding to the tune of "yellow," he improvised lyrics about Dave Grohl, he actually was a really good fit to appear right before Dave. They amped up their music and it was really cool. Chris Martin is cool and sexy too. I never thought about it but ColdPlay and Foo Fighters performing back to back works really well. They kind of go hand in hand (go figure).

FooFighters: Um, I think the band is better now then they were 2 years ago. Dave screamed in all the right places. Tagylor may even be a better drummer. Their classics were awesome, they opened with one by one. Dave ran into the crowd during Stacked Actors, the audience where I was all sung along. Dave is amazing and had his hair the length I love it best.

More Photos from the HFS site

2 Strikes..............

Last night, Kelli and I ambled over to the 9:30 club to see Jill Sobule and Martin Sexton play(there was another guy on the ticket but he was non-memorable guy). We got there 15 minutes before the club opened and were able to get seats on the balcony over on the right hand side next to one of the dressing rooms. A few minutes before the show, I'm chatting with Jenny N. who met us there and Kell, when in the corner of my eye i see a dimunitive blond pushing her way through the crowd and walks up the steps towards us. I look at her and say "hi" because i'm pretty sure who it is, and move to get out of her way. After she left i tell my friends, "thats Jill Sobule" Needless to say, we found out 2 minutes later that it was, and her "half-set" was funny and awesome. A lot of the crowd wasn't that familiar with her stuff but she was a crowd worker and hopefully a few people will go on out and buy her stuff.

Martin Sexton: an unsettling mixture between Jack Black and my Uncle John, but very cool. He had his daughters up on the balcony right above stage right and kept an eye on them.

The title refers to the second time a singer that i love has said hi to me and all i've said is hi back--first one, Bono but that time he said hi first. I choke.

Sunday Morning. Kelli and I are headed to New York. I wake up about 45 minutes early and stumble to the bathroom. As I walk in I hear a cricket chirp. I stopped, rub my eyes and look around a little but then i think to myself, chirping crickets in the bathroom in February are pretty cool and go about my business. CHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRRRRRIPPPPPPPPPP