Tag: live music

Thursday Night Rock and Roll Show

It took something like 36 years but I finally saw King’s X live. They played at a bar in Foxborough, MA. I spent the day working in our Foxborough office so that I could get there when the doors opened but I got slammed by a highway closure and was super late to work, so I worked super late to make up the missed time. 

I got to the venue a after the doors opened but a little bit before the opening act was scheduled to go on. I sat in the car eating dinner and watching that day’s new episode of Star Trek Strange New Worlds and I didn’t get in until about 7:15. The opening act was supposed to go on at 7:00, but when I got there they announced that they had one more song. Apologies to the band. Their name was Third Knuckle. 

During the one song I managed to hear I learned something important. The bar, which is called Six String Grill and Stage (I think) might be the single worst sounding room on the planet Earth. Seriously. I couldn’t hear anything. It was all bass and mud and nothing else. I could see that the band was working hard but I couldn’t hear any evidence of it. I could not see the sound board to see if the engineer was freaking out. I was pretty sure that it was the room itself. Brick walls and odd shape and a wooden floor. Just lots of weird choices for a live music venue. I wrote something on Threads about hoping King’s X had a sound crew who could make things work. They did… sort of… almost.

King’s X came on at 8:00pm and opened with Groove Machine which was what I expected (though I don’t really know why, other than it’s a killer opening song). The sound was definitely better than the first band but it also was not good. Most of what I could hear was just bass frequencies bouncing all over the room. Big booming bass rumble washing out the entire low end. The vocals were sort of getting through it, thankfully, and the lead guitar was also sort of audible, but the bass guitar, the kick drum and the toms and most of the rhythm guitar were just gone. 

For the first half hour of the show it was clear the band was struggling. They were playing fine. Excellent, even, but it was obvious that they couldn’t hear anything. They kept signaling the monitor guy and asking for changes but it never seemed to work. Eventually guitarist Ty Tabor spoke to the sound guy directly over this vocal mic and more or less begged for help. The next song started and almost immediately bassist Dug Pinnick actually stopped it. He went back to his amp, which he had already done a number of times, and did something that seemed pretty drastic. I don’t think he turned down, but he might have cut out all of his low end. It helped a little. They restarted the song and it was better. Over the next few songs the sound guy started to figure things out and the sound impoved some, but it was never good.

I think what we witnessed was a group of pros handling a really shitty room. That is the impression I got at least. I tip my hat to all of them. Had I been on the stage or working the soundboard I probably would have lost my shit and just given up. That’s why I am not a professional. That’s the difference.

Dispite the rough sound the band played great. They are all top of the line musicians and they’ve been playing together since the dawn of history and by this point in their careers they can probably lock in with each other in their sleep. They were as tight as a tight band can be. 

Dug Pinnick is an excellent bass player. Jerry Gaskill is an absolute animal on the drums. I mean, I knew he was good but he was so much better than I expected. Ty Tabor is pretty much the perfect guitar player in my book. He’s definitely a guitar hero for me. Gaskill and Tabor are also excellent singers and they both nailed everything. Dug Pinnick though… holy shit. He may be the best male rock vocalist I’ve ever heard. He’s 75 years old and I am not going to say he’s as good as he was 30 years ago because that’s probably not true. I will say that I’ll put 75 year old Dug Pinnick up against any singer in any rock band and Dug will absolutely destroy them. He’s just that good.

I mentioned in a post the other day that there are a bunch of songs in their catelog that I just don’t like, usually because the lyrics rub me the wrong way, and there are a couple that really piss me off. Fortunately they didn’t play any of them. It was almost as if they read my mind while picking the set. I was honestly relieved. There were a lot of somewhat recent songs in the set which I was really happy about. They could have played a show that never got more recent than 1994 and it would have been fine, but they didn’t. Their most recent record is a few years old now but they played three songs off of it, including my favorite song from the record. 

In guitar gear nerd news, Ty Tabor played a Les Paul for most of the show. It was gold with humbuckers but I doubt it was a 1957. If it was a standard it was probably a reissue or something. I hope it was a good custom shop model because he deserves top of the line stuff. He played a Fender Stratocaster for a couple of songs too. I couldn’t see his pedal board so I don’t know what sort of toys he had, but he was playing through a couple of Orange half stacks. I’ve never used Orange amps before but I’ve always like what I heard. The one cool thing was an e-bow. Is it e-bow or ebow? I am not sure. He’s only the second person I’ve ever seen use one. Eric Bloom from Blue Oyster Cult uses one for that super long sustained note coming out of the guitar solo on Don’t Fear the Reaper and I’ve seen him using it in person twice. Ty used it for a solo instead of using a pick. I’ve always been curious about those little suckers but I’ve never thought about actually buying one… am I going to have to think about it now? Maybe.

So in summation, the sound ranged between bad and really fucking bad. I think it was the room’s fault and everyone worked really hard to make things work. The band was fantastic. The performance was fantastic. The set was fantastic. It only took me 36 years to see this band but I am really glad I did.

Now a few pictures. Every shot I took sucked. Not surprising. It was dark in that room after all. Lots of blurry pics. I set the camera to burst mode so once in a while I would get four blurry nightmares and one marginally focused shot. I’ll take it.

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I’m a guitar player so of course I stood in front of the guitar player
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Unfortunately standing on the right side made it hard to get focused pics of the left side. Sorry
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All three of them
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There’s the Strat. I don’t know if I got any pics of Dug playing his 12-string bass
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Jerry might be the worlds most energetic drummer. He doesn’t just move his arms, he moves his whole body.
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One more pic for the road. I think this was right around the time they stopped mid song

One More Day

I have to work in the office 40% of each month. I didn’t go in at all for the first half of the month because I was under the weather and stuff. I had to squeeze it all in during the last two weeks. 

Tomorrow, when I work in the office, I will reach my 40% for August. Oh what a freakin’ relief that will be. My desk is 45 miles from my house and that is brutal. Worse, twice this week (yesterday and tomorrow) I will be working in a different building that is 74 miles from home. Yeah, you read that correctly. 74 miles.

I made that drive yesterday for some meetings that I wanted to attend in person. I will do it tomorrow because that building is very close to a venue where I will be attending a concert after work. Yup, Robbie’s going to a rock and roll show.

I started listening to King’s X in 1990 when they had a sort of almost hit record called “It’s Love.” Great song, out of this world vocals with ridiculous three part harmonies, and a shredding guitar solo that made all of those obnoxious hair bands from the ‘80’s look like talentless chumps. 

I thought about buying the album the song came from. I read a review in a guitar magazine that really surprised me. It basically said the band’s previous album was great but the new one, the one the article was acutally reviewing, kinda sucked. Based on the one song I knew I found that really hard to believe so I decided to ignore the advice and buy the record anyway. 

The next time I was at a record store they didn’t have the new album but they did have the previous album (on cassette, not CD) so I bought it. It was called Gretchen Goes to Nebraska and it was great. It was awesome. It was outstanding. Looking back I feel lucky that I bought that record first because when I eventually did get the record I wanted to buy in the first place… well… it kinda sucked. A few good songs, a few mediocre songs, a few terrible songs with lyrics that made me want to punch the band members in their friggin’ faces (if you know this band and this record then you know which song I’m talking about).

It was okay though, Gretchen was so good that I could overlook the shitty stuff in favor of the good stuff. A few years later they released an album called Dogman that was better than Gretchen. A few years later there was an album called Tape Head that was just as good. Those three records alone justify this band’s entire existance. Every record is good, even the couple of bad ones they’ve released over the years. As musicians, they might be the best band in the world. As lyricists… they are great instrumental performers. Yeah, they often rub me the wrong way. Religion and politics… the two things they tell you not to argue about… yeah. Sorry guys.

Anyway, I’ve been a fan since 1990 and I’ve never seen them live. The three band members ages range from 64 to 75 (I Googled it before I wrote this post just to make sure) and the days are probably numbered. The drummer almost died of a heart attack a few years ago and I thought I missed my chance to see them live. 

I had no idea they were touring but Spotify, of all things, told me they had a show in Massachusetts coming up and I bought a ticket. I didn’t ask anyone to go with me because I don’t know anyone else who likes them. That’s okay. I will work down the street from the venue and casually wander over when the doors open. I’ve never been to this place before. I don’t know if its a small theater or a bar or what. I’ll find out when I get there. I’ll bring my point and shoot camera because the guitar player has been known to play some seriously cool gear and I am a guitar gear junkie. I might be easily impressed by such things. That’s okay.

So the point of this rambling run-on-sentence of a post is… one more day in the office and then I can work from home again, and to celebrate I am going to see a fantastic live band that I’ve never seen before despite always really wanting to. It should be a good day. Wish me luck.

Rush

Rush played the Kia Forum in Los Angeles last night (or whatever the place is called these days).

I am so happy. I am so happy. I am so happy.

I said I wasn’t going to watch any clips but I am suspending that rule for this one thing. It’s the first thing that my social media algorithm madness sent my way. Pretty sure it’s the first song in the set. I haven’t watched it yet. I’ll post it here and then watch it.

I am so happy and I can’t wait for July 28th at Madison Square Garden. I cannot wait.

Triumph Show Recap

Triumph’s 50th anniversary tour, the Rock and Roll Machine Reloaded. My first Triumph show in almost 40 years.

It was pretty cool. I must admit. Rik Emmett used to have the highest voice in the universe. He most definitely does not have the highest voice in the universe anymore. He’s 72 years old, that is expected. 

Back when I was in high school and playing in a cover band, two of the four band members were Triumph fans so naturally we wanted to play one of their songs. Emmett’s voice was so ridiculously high that no mere male mortal could ever pull them off. Fortunately, Triumph had two lead singers. Gil Moore, the drummer, sang lead on about half of the songs. None of the hits, mind you, but there was plenty to choose from. If we couldn’t sing the high voice songs, we could pull off the low voice songs, right?

Gil Moore’s voice was drastically deeper than Rik Emmett’s. That is a scientific fact. Unfortunately, there was some weird psycho-acoustic kind of thing going on where when you listened to the two of them singing side by side, Moore sounded like a normal range voice. However, when you removed Emmett’s voice from the equation you realized that Moore’s voice was also ridiculously high and very few mere male mortals could hit his high notes. He sounded normal in comparison but the truth was we couldn’t sing his songs either.

Now? 40 years later? Mr Moore’s voice is no longer ridiculously high. Suffice to say when either of the original band members were singing, the songs were played in lower keys and the melodies were adjusted so that the highest high notes were avoided. That’s just biology. It happens to all of us.

My issue was with the songs they didn’t sing. I was worried that with three new members on stage it was going to feel a little like a tribute band. For most of the show it did not, though watching Rik Emmett sit back and play rhythm guitar while Phil X absolutely shredded through a solo that was originally Rik’s… well that felt weird. Especially because it seems that Emmett’s guitar playing, unlike his voice, is every bit as good as it was 40 years ago. The dude was on fire all night. He just played nicely and let Phil X shine as well (not to imply that Rik’s singing wasn’t excellent, it was. It was just different, that’s all). 

When Phil X or Todd Kerns took a lead vocal though… that felt wrong. I would have an instant where my brain would think to itself, this isn’t what I signed up for, then I would get over myself and just enjoy the song. Both of them were excellent, even though they both often had to break into falsetto to hit the high notes. I’m trying to think if either of them sang an Emmett song… I’m not sure. They both song Moore songs. Huh… maybe they’ll release a live record down the road somewhere and I’ll be able to revisit it.

So there were tribute band-esque moments. Absolutely. On the whole though, it was a really fun show. No explosions on stage like the old days, but lots of cool visuals and lots of lights. 

The set list was pretty expansive too. When I saw them in 1986 that was my one complaint. There were no surprises other than not hitting the Never Surrender album at all, and leaving off a few songs that I thought would have been staples. That was not the case this time. I think every record except the crappy Surveillance album that was made after things came unglued and the 90’s attempt at a comeback, Edge of Excess, was represented. Let’s see…

Spoiler alert if you have tickets to one of the 2–3 remaining shows and don’t want to know what’s coming. Stop reading now. Otherwise…

They played Blinding Light show and one other thing from the first album. They played the Joe Walsh cover and the title song from Rock and Roll Machine. They played both of the hits from Just a Game, Lay it on the Line and Hold On. Must to my surprise, they played I Live for the Weekend, one of the two strong cuts from their not-so-good Progressions of Power record. They played the two obligatory songs from Allied Forces, Magic Power and Fight the Good Fight, as well as the title song. They played When the Lights go Down and Never Surrender from the Never Surrender album, two songs I sorely missed back in ’86. They played the two hits from Thunder Seven, Spellbound and Follow Your Heart. Side note, the video for Follow Your Heart was shot at the Providence Civic Center in Providence, RI and I’m pretty sure my future drummer, Bob from Break Even, was there. They played their biggest hit single, Somebody’s Out There from The Sport of Kings. Ironically it was the second song in the set and it was the second song in the set back in 1986. Silly, but I noticed. I’m sure I missed a song or two, but that’s most of what they played. Just don’t ask me to list them in order. 

All that’s left of note is the photos. I took my little point and shoot camera. The one Jen got me for xmas. I took it out during the opening band’s set to see how it would work and it crashed on me. It just died. I was zooming in and the lens just stopped moving and then the LCD screen when black and that was it. I kept trying to reboot but nothing I did had any effect. The camera was dead, Jim. I took a few pics with my iPhone and they came out fine. Strangely, as the show was ending I tried one more time to reboot the point and shoot and it worked. I guess 30th time was the charm? I haven’t tried to use it today to see if it will work. I’m too scared. Oh well. Here are a few iPhone pics.

Of course I took most of the pics while Rik was playing a double neck. Is that a Dave Grohl signature that Phil is playing? I think so.
Gil and Rik. The double neck only came out for Blinding Light Show
Sparks
Gil and Rik
The whole back wall was one giant video screen

And there you have it, folks. My second Triumph concert and my first in almost 40 years. It was a really fun show. All that was missing was Mike Levine and my Uncle Johnny.

40 Years Later

I went to my first real concert on October 23, 1986. I went with my Uncle. It was Triumph at the Worcester Centrum in Worcester, MA. It had been rescheduled from an earlier date… I don’t remember what the original date was. I heard that guitarist/vocalist Rik Emmett fell down a flight of stairs while getting off of a plane and screwed up his knee so they had to postpone a couple of dates while he recovered. I don’t know if that’s true or not, it’s just what I heard.

I was 15 back then and early in my sophomore year of high school. I was a big Triumph fan, but maybe not that big a fan. Certainly not as big a fan as I was of the other three-piece band from Toronto, Rush. Still, Thunder Seven, Allied Forces, and Just a Game were A-List albums in my book. Never Surrender and The Sport of Kings were both really good too. They were touring to support Sport of Kings when I saw them that night, and a couple of years later my first real band would cover a song from that record, Tears in the Rain. It often went over surprisingly well when we played it, even though the guys in the band were probably the only people in the room who were familiar with it. I wonder if anyone thought we’d written it? Probably not. It was WAY better than our handful of original tunes. I mean, WAY better.

I didn’t know it at the time but Triumph was just about reaching the point where they were falling apart. I recently read Rik Emmett’s memoir and he mentions that the first nail in the band’s coffin happened during the recording of Sport of Kings. They had planned to record a song written by an outside writer, a groovy little ballad called Just One Night. It was expected to be the album’s big single and the band had decided that drummer/vocalist Gil Moore would sing it. The guy who was originally hired to produce the record had spoken privately to Rik Emmett and said he should be singing that song instead of Moore and he wanted Emmett to break the news. Emmett did, on an airplane flying home to Toronto, and I guess Moore lost his shit (probably very politely, given that they are good Canadian boys after all) and that was the first step toward everything falling apart. It took a couple of years but eventually, in ’88, Emmett quit.

Moore and bassist/keyboardist Mike Levine eventually tired to bring it back from the dead. They hired guitarist Phil X, who these days is best known as Bon Jovi’s lead guitarist, and made one more record. I heard a song or two on the radio and it was pretty good, but not good enough to really reignite my interest. I had high hopes for Rik Emmett as a solo artist but his first record was a glossy poppy disappointment and that was that for me.

Fast forward to a few months ago and out of nowhere Triumph announced a 50th anniversary reunion tour. Rock and Roll Machine Reloaded (Rock and Roll Machine was the name of their second record in Canada and their first in the US). I think the reloaded part of the tour’s name sort of points to some lineup changes. Early on they reported to us that Mike Levine would not be playing at every show. He had a medical issue to deal with (something wrong with his hand, I think?) and he would join the band onstage whenever he felt up to it. I’m pretty sure the tour ends next week and the total number of appearances he’s made is equal to zero. That’s disappointing. 

Due to that, a second bass player, Todd Kerns, was added to the lineup. Additionally, Phil X would also join them. He wasn’t a member 50 years ago, but he was a member in the 90’s. That seems fitting. When I saw them in ’86 they did have a second guitarist on stage with them. His name was Rick… something. I forget. I do remember finding him a little annoying. Like, I wanted to see the trio. I was okay with the extra guy but maybe he could have stayed off to the side out of the way. I was an asshole. Sorry. As if two extra musicians weren’t enough, Gil Moore made it clear that he wanted to come out from behind the drums and sing a couple of songs from the front of the stage. That requires a second drummer. Brent Fitz was added. He’s a keyboard player as well so I guess he’ll also be covering some of Mike Levine’s parts.

So this Toronto trio is now a group of five or six (if Levine appears). I guess everyone sings so the vocal harmonies are going to be denser than they used to be. Also, Moore and Emmett are old now, both in their 70’s. Their vocal ranges are nowhere near what they used to be (especially Emmett, whose near-soprano days are long over) so the “new” guys are going to be singing lead on a some of the songs. That is… troubling to me. That sort of makes me fear that this is going to be a tribute band that just happens to have two original members. I don’t know how I feel about that, but I am choosing to ignore it and just enjoy having this long lost band back again.

When the tour was announced, the final show was scheduled for June 6th in Boston and it sold out instantly. I tried to get a ticket but no luck. A couple of days after they went on sale I went to ticketbastard’s site just to see how it looked and there was a show on June 4th with almost no tickets sold. Huh? I Googled and sure enough they had booked a second Boston show and somehow didn’t really announce it. I grabbed a ticket in the back. I don’t want to say a cheap seat… how about a less crushingly expensive seat. 

Now here we are on June 4th and I am psyching myself up to go experience the Rock and Roll Machine in person for the first time in almost 40 years. I’m flying solo for this one. I didn’t want to subject anyone else to the 80’s of it all. I checked the venue’s camera policy and point and shoots are acceptable, so I am totally bringing one. We’ll see how it holds up to the lighting and the distance. I expect lots of blurry, shaky messes. Doors open at 7:00 and the show is supposed to start at 8:00. The opening act is April Wine. I’ve heard of them but I don’t think I’ve ever heard a single note. I know they are another Canadian band so I expect them to be very polite and I will be equally polite as I wait for the headliner.

My Uncle passed away a long time ago. He’ll be with me in spirit though. I’ll be thinking of him. Especially if Rik plays the acoustic solo from the Thunder Seven record, Midsummer’s Daydream. Uncle Johnny was very impressed with that one.

Happy 50th anniversary to the first band I ever saw live. Here’s hoping for a good time at the old rock and roll show.

PS: I tried to find the set list from October 23, 1986. I failed. I did, however, find the set list from October 24, 1986. It is probably the same, and from what I remember it lines up.

  • Tears in the Rain
  • Somebody’s Out There
  • Allied Forces
  • Lay It on the Line
  • Midsummer’s Daydream
  • Follow Your Heart
  • Drum Solo
  • Take a Stand
  • Magic Power
  • Rock & Roll Machine
  • Guitar Solo
  • Spellbound
  • Rocky Mountain Way
  • Fight the Good Fight

If there was a difference, my show might have swapped the last two songs. I remember their Joe Walsh cover closing the encore, but maybe it closed the set and Fight the Good Fight (by far their best song… like by astronomical units) was the encore? Who can say.

Big Weekend

This has been quite the big weekend and it has very little to do with a zombie who gave up his weekend for our sins. But I digress.

Today, April 5th, is the 19th anniversary of my first date with my wife. Clearly she wasn’t my wife at the time, but it was a pretty good first date. Very successul. We celebrated by going to a matinee. We saw Projet Hail Mary again. It was my second viewing and her third. Great movie. If it is playing on an IMAX screen anywhere near us next weekend we might go see it one more time.

After the movie, Jen made a fancy easter/first-dateiversary dinner and it was wonderful. We ate at the dining room table like civilized people instead of slumming it in the living room in front of the TV like usual. It was a very nice moment.

Yesterday we had my in-laws over for a pre-easter easter dinner. Jen made lasagna. I don’t like lasagna so she made me some pasta on the side. She’s the best.

After dinner I hopped in the car and headed to Boston to see a show. Throwing Muses. It was a fantastic show. I was feeling kinda negative at first. I was feeling like I’m too old to go to shows in bars. Two songs into the Muses set though my whole universe changed. By that time I was actively trying to think of a world where I could see Throwing Muses live every day for the rest of my life. It was magic.

There was one negative though. Halfway through their set I got a nose bleed of all things. Not just any nose bleed, but a massive, gushing nose bleed. It was everywhere. I looked like I was living through a horror movie. Gore.

To summarize, it’s been a very good weekend. I’ve been nuts about my wife for 19 years now and I just keep getting nuttier and nuttier as time goes by.

Now, a few pics from the show last night.

Got ‘Em

I was really hoping for this… 90’s alternative rock nerd boy just scored two tickets to see Belly in October. Now I just need Throwing Muses to announce North American shows and my 2025 musical life will be complete. I want to see both halves of Throwing Muses this year.

I did not see Belly when they were together in the 90’s and I did not see them when they got back together a few years ago and I did not see them when they played in my freakin’ back yard (Lowell, MA) last year. This will correct this gross oversite on my musical obsession bingo card. I saw Tanya Donelly shortly after Belly split, and once more years later with Jen, and once with Throwing Muses back in 1989, but I’ve never seen Belly.

I’m trying to remember all of the Muses related shows I’ve seen…

  • Opening for REM at Great Woods in ’89
  • At the Hatch Shell in Boston (a free show) in… ’95? I think. It was before Limbo came out
  • At an in-store mini set at Newbury Comics in Harvard Square on the day Limbo came out in ’96
  • At the Middle East on the day that Limbo came out in ’96 (yes, I saw them twice on the same day)
  • Tanya at The Paradise… either just before or just after her first solo LP came out
  • Kristin Hersh at The Paradise playing solo acoustic around the time Strange Angels came out… I think.
  • Throwing Muses and 50 Foot Wave at The Middle East on August 11, 2006
  • Kristin Hersh at Hy N Dry Studio on May 27, 2007 with Jen
  • Kristin Hersh and Tanya Donelly (separately and briefly together) on October 6, 2007 at The Brattle Theater in Cambridge, MA

Damn… that list is a whole lot shorter than I thought it would be. I’m pretty sure that’s it though. Hopefully this year we’ll be adding two more shows to it. Hopefully… if Throwing Muses would just announce a nice Boston show to go along with their already announced European shows.

Happy concert tickets day, everyone.

Muses

Throwing Muses stopped being a full time thing in… 1997? I think? Every few years they pop back up again with a new record and I go berserk for a while. For me there are two bands that I would take a bullet for. Rush is one, Throwing Muses is the other. It doesn’t make sense, it’s not rational. I don’t care. I’ve been obsessed for decades and there is nothing I can do about it.

There is a new album due to come out on March 14th. I am beside myself with anticipation. They’ve snuck out three of the songs already and I’m literally losing my mind over them. The last record they gave us came out in 2020 (Sun Racket) and it is fan-freakin-tastic. This new one… Moonlight Concessions… I cannot wait. I absolutely cannot wait.

The only question left is, are they going to tour. The answer is yes, but as of right now the only shows they’ve announced are in Europe in May. I don’t think I can get to Europe to see them so I am going to have to just sit (im)patiently and wait to see if they announce North American shows. I need to see them. I NEED to see them. The last time I saw them was August 11, 2006 and if I don’t see them again I am going to mentally fall apart forever. No exaggeration at all. I will lose my skull.

100B8012

But wait, there’s more! Possibly… I don’t know for sure.

Remember that sad time in 1992 or so when Throwing Muses split in two? It was sad at the time but the end result was two bands who were operating on very similar release/tour schedules. We had Muses proper, and we also had Belly. Remember Belly? Gold record, huge hit single, grammy nominations, round the clock MTV airplay. Yeah, you remember. It was almost (not quite, but almost) like having two versions of one of my favorite bands operating at the same time.

Well it turns out Belly is coming back again this year as well. It’s the 30th anniversary of their second record (which should have been a gigantic hit but wasn’t) and they have announced that there will be live shows. We don’t know when or where yet. I never saw Belly live. Even when they got together for short stretches a few years ago, I still haven’t seen them. I saw Tanya Donnelly on her own shortly after they broke up, but I never saw Belly.

This is the year. I don’t know where, when, or how but I NEED it to happen.

I haven’t seen any Muses related artists live since October 6, 2007 when Jen and I experienced the magic of Kristin Hersh and Tanya Donnelly on the same bill at the Brattle Theater and they did a set together and it was amazing. Remember that day?

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I need NEED both bands to announce Boston area shows and I need it to happen soon before I go insane and I also need them to be on consecutive days so that they both sit in with each other because that would be pretty much the only thing that could make me feel better as the United States descends into fascism.

Pretty please

Live Music in 2025

My New Years resolutions speculations post from a few weeks ago included seeing more live music this year. I’ll use posts like this one to sort of take notes on shows that may be coming to my neck of the woods (or not) that I would like to try and work up the energy/courage to go see. We’ll see how this list develops over the course of the year.

  • Tsunami on March 23rd at the Crystal Ballroom in Somerville Theatre
    • Yes I want to see this show. Will I? I don’t know. Tickets are already on sale.
  • Throwing Muses
    • No US dates have been announced though there are shows on the books in Europe. If they play in the US you are probably going to have to chain me to a wall and lock me in a dungeon to keep me away.
  • Steven Wilson
    • No US dates have been announced though there are shows in Europe (a lot of them) and word is that US/North American shows are coming. I would like to see him but how badly I want to go depends on his next record, which comes out in March. If it’s really good, then I will try to see a show, assuming he plays in/around Boston.
  • Lizardfish
    • Duh

More to come as the year rolls on. I want 2025 to be a more musical year, but how badly do I want that? I’ll let you know as things develop.

Tough Day Ahead

Today is going to be long and difficult. It’s 9:28am and I am already exhausted. Yippee, right?

I got home at about 12:20am this morning. I had a glass of water and went to sleep a little before 1:00. I woke up about 5:30. Yeah, I’m tired.

The show was fun. I think for the first time I may have seen Iron Maiden showing its age a little. We know the drummer had a minor stroke not long ago, and he’s let it be known that there are things that he used to be able to do that he is no longer physically able to do. Was that why the set was somewhat lacking in classics? Maybe. Was that why the band was… and I mean this in the most respectful way possible… somewhat less than tight? Probably not. I mean, as great as a live band as they are let us be frank with ourselves and admit that they were never really that tight. They always had their moments where things would lock in and the results would be spectacular, but over all? Yeah, they could be sloppy. Rhythmically, mostly. Tempos were always a little weird. Guitar leads and vocals would slide in and out of time here and there. These aren’t criticisms at all. Not at all. It’s just how they play. Always has been. It’s just that last night those moments seemed maybe a little more frequent and maybe a little more obvious. Vocally there were some struggles. Timing wise for the most part, but pitch wise too. Bruce is 66 years old. Over all he was amazing, as usual… he just wasn’t quite as perfect as he used to be.

Again, these are not complaints at all. Not even a little bit. They are just observations from a picky music school nerd who clearly loved every second of the show… and I clearly loved every second of the show. It was great.

The highlight for me was Fear of the Dark. I used to think I was the only one around who really dug that song, but the crowd went berserk when they played it. We were in the back row of the middle level and couldn’t see the stage at all if we stood up. Still, when Fear of the Dark started half of the people in front of us stood up and went nuts. I guess I’m not the only one who loves that particular song.

They only hit the first record (still my favorite) once. They played Iron Maiden… the song from the album of the same name from the band of the same name. It was one of those moments where the tempo was alarmingly slow, and Bruce let the crowd sing a lot of it. Totally understandable, but the second that Dave Murray started playing it, your humble narrator here was on cloud nine.

Now if he can also just get through the work day so he can get himself a little more sleep. Hang in there, tired people!