Rickie Lee Jones at the piano a few weeks ago
“Does she still look like Janice from The Muppets?” asked a friend when I mentioned I was seeing Rickie Lee Jones at The Fillmore last night. There’s certainly a resemblance, that’s for sure. It’s been 30 years since her chart-topping debut single, “Chuck E’s In Love,” but Jones, 55, is still very much the picture of laid-back, blonde, heavy-lidded California cool. And if she feels slowed down by age, she certainly didn’t show it during her marathon two-and-a-half-hour set.
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Just arrived from South Korea on November 14th and had not slept for over 30 hours; I was ripe for covering a concert. I headed to San Francisco from my East Bay hamlet, hoping not to fall asleep at the wheel. [read the whole post]
This show is planned down to the last detail.
Somewhere in Los Angeles today, They Might Be Giants are playing a show at which they’ll play Flood in its entirety. Shows where bands play the entire album are a bit boring because you know exactly what’s coming next, and most of the fun of a band like They Might Be Giants is wondering just what the heck will be played next. While you can see from the above set list photo that there’s no question what’s going to happen next, I like the element of surprise. [read the whole post]
Nope, not a still from a performance on Hee Haw that was lip synced.
I have difficulty, sometimes, when it comes to getting out to do certain things that are common. I rarely see movies or plays because the numerous showings mean that I don’t have to pinpoint a particular time and day to do it, which inevitably means it doesn’t happen. The same often happens with touring musicians that come around a lot. Brandi Carlile is one of those artists. San Francisco has rarely gone more than a year without her coming to town, and more often than not, it’s closer to every six months. So, of course, I look at my schedule and decide it’s inconvenient for me to see her this time around, so I’ll just catch her next time. I’ve put her off for about for years, and tonight I finally decided to stop stalling and check her out. [read the whole post]
Same jacket, different show.
I’m wholly unqualified to a review a Manic Street Preachers show. This is because I’m an American. The Manics (as I’ll refer to them for the rest of our time together) never did have any hits stateside. They were always a cult band here, and I was never part of that cult. If I were to make a ranked list of all the Britpop bands that I like (as opposed to ones I’m either ambivalent about or dislike), the Manics would be at the bottom of that list. They’d make the list, for sure, but they’d be right below Ash, and apologies to Kula Shaker. That said, I’m going to review it anyway. [read the whole post]
The merch needed its own seat on BART
What I learned last night: when going to a live Bon Iver show, it’s best to not have any expectations.
What I saw at the Fillmore last night went far beyond anything I imagined. It’s not that he had some stage act or any gimmicks; the tracks you love will be drastically different, but in an amazing way.
Bon Iver made a point to smash my expectation of a purely acoustic set, into a mixture of sounds and methods. Distortion, thumping bass, electric-slide guitars, ROCKING, respect-gathering falsettos, crowd participation, and delicate acoustic sets were what he served me up. I ate it up and was left wanting more. [read the whole post]
