Archive for the ‘Music’ Category

A week ago from today I went back to my favorite place in the Midwest, Alpine Valley, to  go see Coldplay during their Viva La Vida tour.   They only play in the United States once every 3-5 years, so I figured I better take my opportunity now and run with it.   Who knows, next time they are back in the United States, I might have 2 dogs, 2 children, and I will be married with a full-time job.  Gotta jump at these opportunities when I have them, because I might not have them later in life.

Do be brutally honest, I was expecting to be somewhat disappointed after seeing Phish a month earlier.  Could it really get any better than seeing Phish?  No, not at all.   However, Coldplay caught me by surprise, and I enjoyed the show exponentially more than I anticipated.  Coldplay puts on a completely different type of show than any other band I’ve saw live, filled with theatrics, movie screens, and sing-alongs.

Coldplay opened with “Space Odyssey 2001″ as it segued into their mysterious themes from the Viva La Vida album, swinging lighted “lanterns” as they came onto the stage. You can kind of see this in the YouTube video off of my iPhone…sorry for the poor quality.

It was a cold and rainy day to go to a show, but that didn’t stop anyone from entering or leaving the Alpine Valley gates.  Stacy and I threw a blanket over our heads and that seemed to work fine for the duration of the evening.   The rain dampened the sound a bit (no pun intended), but that is not Coldplay’s fault, its just something I noticed with the rain coming down sidways with a 20mph wind.  Alpine Valley always has good sound, the acoustics of the 3 wood pavilions are engineered perfect for the landscape in which it is built on.

Confetti, balloons, some slight improv, and a WWI themed show was the golden ticket for Coldplay putting on a good show.  Coldplay, while not a musically sophisticated band, held all sorts of energy with simple guitar riffs, and powerful techno synthetics as they wandered through the audience.  Coldplay was kind enough to make their way through all sides of the Amphitheater, playing songs from two sides of the lawn (getting us quite a bit closer to the band). They even played “Billie Jean” at the center lawn, their own tribute to Michael Jackson, which was pretty cool.

Here is a video of the “Billy Jean” tribute.

If you ever get a chance to see Coldplay on their next world tour, do so.  Tickets are cheap (about $30 per ticket).  Here is a video that should give you an idea of the type of energy Coldplay brings to the stage.

Everytime I go to a show at Alpine Valley, I feel as if it is time to move away from Houghton.   I love it here, but I feel as if down in Wisconsin, out towards Red Rocks, the Gorge, or Deer Creek is really where I want to be.  Music is a wonderful thing, and when you are in a live music setting, I find it interesting that people come together with different interpretations of the music, yet as a group of 40,000 people, we all find some sense of euphoria in what we are witnessing.   It is truely a remarkable experience that words cannot describe.

Anyway, a week and a half until I see Phish at Toyota Park.  They are playing the best sets yet.  I think that the month of July really helped them gain back any lost chemistry.  June was a magical month for the band, now they are well on their way to being who they were in 1996, 1997, 1998.   I will keep you posted on my third Phish experience, sets 5 and 6 of my short Live Phish career.

Well folks, its been the better part of a month since I went to see Phish down at Alpine Valley.   I’ve been under the impression that if I don’t turn my notes into a comprehensive document relatively soon, I am going to forget bits and pieces of the show.

I’ve been listening to Phish for six years.   Out of those six years, I have been studying Phish extensively for about 4 of those years.  In the last two years, I took a drift away from studying Phish musically, and started studying Phish culturally.   All in all, I’ve considered myself a hardcore, diehard Phan for a quarter of my life, and it always was embarrassing to talk Phish with another Phan when I never saw them live.   Nonetheless, I knew what I was in for, and prior to going, that I was ready for the weekend of my life.

Stacy and I arrived in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin the night before the first show.  Went out to a local brewery, ate pizza, and let the tornados, hail, and rain leave before we set up camp that night.   We knew the nasty weather wasn’t going hang around long, as the green blobs on the radar were on their way out into Lake Michigan.   We set up camp later that evening, went to bed, woke up to it being 80 degrees at 8:00AM.   Could ask for a better day to go see a show at one of the most gorgeous outdoor amphitheaters in the country.

We made breakfast(bacon, eggs, toast) and sat in the sun for a while, deciding what we should do before we went tailgating.   We had the whole day ahead of us, as the parking lot did not open until 3:00.   We went into town, checked out some local shops, stopped at a Caribou Coffee, and watched Phan come pouring into the small town of Lake Geneva.   The town was packed, and I’m sure business owners were happy to see Phans flooding their town.  Later on that day, we went down to the Bigfoot Beach, laid in the sun and relaxed.

2:30 arrived, and we figured it was time to head to the parking lot.   We had kabobs for tailgating, I had plenty of beer and bottled water to keep us going for the four hours before show time.  It took about 20 minutes to get into the parking lot, which I didn’t think was that bad.  Alpine Valley had a good traffic flow, given that there is only one road to get in and out of the place.  We got out of the car, and we were embraced with hugs, not handshakes by our neighbors.   After long discussions with a few of our neighbors, I was already feeling the warmth of the most friendly group of people in the United States.   The first person I interacted with was at his 20th show.  He said he always wanted to get to 20, and he has had to wait 5 years to get there.   We played the game, “So what do you think they are going to open with?” and he said “Llama” and I said “Punch.”

We walked around the parking lot to take in the culture as cars were flooding the gates.   I’ve never saw such a friendly crowd in all my life.   Every corner someone would say “Hi” or “How’s it going?”  When people asked me what number show I was at, I said my first.   Often I was embraced with a hug and a “Welcome.”   Many phans seems to be impressed with my knowledge and Phishtory.   I didn’t feel out of place at all, like I thought I would.

The demographics caught me by surprise.   I was expecting people in their 30s to be the age group that dominated the parking lot.   I found that there were a lot of Phans from the 90s (some people brought their wives, daughters and sons), but I also found that there were a lot of people in their early to mid-twenties there as well.   I was also expecting a lot more people from the Midwest, where it seems that most people have travelled quite some distance to get to Alpine Valley according to their license plates and small talk.

Stacy and I meandered our way over to the T-Shirt booth, picked out some shirts and headed back to our car to cook our kabobs.   There was plenty of commerce in the parking lot, people trying to sell shirts, bags, skirts, hoola hoops, food, beer, narcotics, posters, cd’s, water, flags, glowsticks, blankets, hoodies, tickets etc…you name it, someone was trying to sell it.  Heck, we had people want to buy our kabobs off of us.   If I were to do this all over again, I would have brought more food and made a few bucks.   I’m a damn good cook (I like to think so, anyway), I’d buy food off of me.

Stace and I finished eating and decided to head in about an hour before showtime to get a good seat.   We sat in almost exactly the same place as last year for the Dave Matthews Band, Center Left Pavilion.   The band, as expected, did not start right at 7, in fact, it was about 7:50 before they took the stage.   The crowed roared louder than at any point during Dave Matthews here last year.   You could immediately tell that people were here to see what they have missed the last five years.   Phish waited a good two to three minutes to soak in the recognition from the crowd before anyone hit a note.

Trey started scratching his guitar…was it it!?   Yes, it was, it was “Punch You in the Eye” and I called it.   I went nuts, started groovin’ almost immediately, waiting for my first “Hey!”   Talk about serious energy, starting with a “Punch.”  The sun was just going behind the billboard, helping with the lighting.  The band played “Punch” very solid, without a lot of improv, but it was an excellent jam to start.  The band kept the energy going, wasting no time going right into Runaway Jim, which was a well polished jam as well.   The band took a second, and start with Stash, in which they almost lost a few times.  Trey was not hitting his guitar licks in sync with the rest of the band.  ”Stash” was probably the largest disappointment in the first set of the first night, as the improv was going somewhere and I just felt that they ended the jam too soon.  Phish could have made up for the mishaps in the beginning of the song if they kept “rolling with the punches.”

Highlights of the rest of the night were “Run Like an Antelope” and “Maze” which were both off the hook.  Maze was a beast, and I developed a newfound love for this jam since hearing it at Alpine Valley.  There were some definite highs and lows in the show(Stash, and a pretty boring Ghost).  I give Night 1 a 7 out of 10

Once again, I cannot say in words how much energy there was throughout the course of my first night with Phish, it is something I have never experienced with any other fanbase in the country.

The sets one and two were as follows:

I: Punch You in the Eye, Runaway Jim, Stash, Yamar, Bathtub Gin, Kill Devil Falls, Train Song, Farmhouse, Sparkle, Run Like An Antelope

II: Waves > Sample In A Jar, Maze, Makisupa Policeman, Ghost > The Lizards, You Enjoy Myself > NICU, Prince Caspian > Waste, Fire

E: Character Zero

Night 2 we ended up meeting up with some folks from Colorado. They have been following Phish around all month, and they were very interesting people to talk to. Stacy and I played ladder golf with them.   I discussed the return of Phish with them in great detail. They say they have never been happier to be part of such a musical revolution.  I really enjoyed hearing their stories and their perspectives on Phish, and I was really glad to meet this highly intellectual group of people.  These guys new the band like the back of their hand, frontwards, backwards, inside and out, they could tell you anything.  Later, we met up with a Monk, who was taking an oath of poverty to follow Phish and share the wealth of knowledge of ancient Indian scripture. I didn’t agree with his thoughts fully, but he was an interesting person to talk to nonetheless.  We both walked away from each other with a great deal of respect for one another.

Stacy and I grilled hamburgers, played some frisbee and checked out the other end of the parking lots that we didn’t check out the day before. We decided to head in quite a bit earlier the second day in hope of finding a really good spot. We did, front and center on the lawn.

Once we were in and the Phish took the stage, I knew that night 2 would  end up being everything I expected  it to be.  Their last night to their first tour in 5 years.   They HAD to go out with a bang, right?

They started off the night with a little “Fathers Day Treat” which I found pretty meaningful. They brought their kids out on stage to sit in a bathtub during “Brother.” Why a bathtub? The lyrics to the song are as follows: “Somebody’s jumping in the tub with your brother”

Heres the video:

Phish played two solid sets from beginning to end.  Here is the setlist:

Set I: Brother, Wolfman’s Brother, Funky Bitch, The Divided Sky, Joy, Back on the Train, Taste, Poor Heart, The Horse > Silent in the Morning, The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday > Avenue Malkenu > The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday, Time Turns Elastic

Set II: Crosseyed & Painless -> Down with Disease, Bug, Piper, Wading in a Velvet Sea, Boogie On Reggae Woman, Slave to the Traffic Light

Encore: Grind, Frankenstein

I don’t know if I can highlight any particular jam from either set.  Everything was polished, Phish rarely any mistakes, and it was just a downright fun couple of sets.   Groovin’, from beginning to end.  Divided Sky was revolutionary to me, so much different than hearing it on album.  Trey’s crisp guitar notes and Page’s intense punches on the grand piano are exponentially more powerful when you hear the jam live.   Phish’s Piper was a monster as well, providing exploratory development from another dimension I have never heard Piper go before.   Phish literally silenced the crowd in awe a few times throughout the show with some deep and dark grooves.

Overall, Night 2 was everything everyone expected it to be.  There were some rarities, surprises, and some solid jams.   I was expecting either a Tweeprise or a Frankenstein for an encore, well, I got a Frankenstein for an encore, and it was downright unbelieveable…not just any Frankenstein, one with a 5-neck guitar, keytar, and a flamin’ bass guitar.  Here’s the video for the Frankenstein:

Couldn’t ask for a better second night.   I give this show a 9 out of 10.

I cannot go with closing this post without giving you my wish list for Toyota Park.  Yes, I am going to see Phish again in about 3 weeks down in Chicago.  Coldplay next week, Phish two weeks after!  Here is my wish list:

Set 1

• Axilla I
• Harry Hood
• Chalkdust Torture
• Reba
• Limb By Limb
• Cavern
• Possum
• Squirming Coil
• Loving Cup
• Guyute
• Theme From the Bottom

Set 2

• Axilla II
• Free
• Split Open and Melt
• Heavy Things
• Mikes Song
• I am Hydrogen
• Weekapug Groove
• ACDC Bag
• Suzy Greenburg

Encore:

• Twist
• Tweezer Reprise

I will write again when I come back from Alpine Valley next week to see Coldplay.

Have a good one.

Last night I was able to make it to my first social paddle of the season.   I had a lot of fun, there were a dozen of us, which is a pretty good turnout.  Anyway, here is a link to some pictures from last nights extravaganza….

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2071738&id=6604903&l=4c584bb15f

Tonight I should finish my post on my experience of seeing Phish after 6 years of waiting.   Stay tuned…

Back from Alpine Valley!   I have a journal partially written.   I am still trying to come down off the hype from this magical weekend.  The video above hardly does justice for how polished Phish was this weekend (but the trampoline jump is always fun to watch).   I’m officially sold, these guys are back for good.    Anyway, until I am prepared to write about my experience without the obstruction of emotion on my rational thinking, here are some pictures that I took from JamBase.com

NIGHT I

NIGHT II

Folks,

This is Hulu’s first live streaming broadcast. I hope they have the bandwidth capability to make this work! Anyway, figured I would be another portal for people to watch the concert if you are so inclined to do so. Should hear some new tunes off their new album, “Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King” and hopefully some improvisation off some of those new tracks.

Phish opened for their first night on tour in 5 years last night.   The show, according to 95% of accounts on twitter and blogs, the show was Phenomenal.   Pulling out some staple jams, and songs they haven’t played since 1993, this was certainly a night to remember.   They sang the National Anthem in acapella, with a “Play Ball!” over the loud speakers prior to them starting their first set.   Here are the pictures off of Phish’s Flickr above, and pictures by Dave Vann down below…worth checking out.

A few good pholks have been working on a documentary about Phish Phans, and they released a “teaser” 24 hours before Phish officially starts their first tour in five years, starting tonight at Fenway Park in Boston.    I was excited to see the trailer to the film, “Maybe So, Maybe Not,” and even more excited to see my former teacher and good Phriend Jnan Blau in the clip.

20 more days until Alpine Valley!

Recently Wilco streamed their new album, “Wilco” on their website.   I had a chance to listen to it on a few different occasions, and I was impressed.   Wilco, I would argue, has put out one of the strongest albums in the last 10 years with “Sky Blue Sky” and I felt like they never would have reached that type of album composition ever again.  Well, in their self-titled album, they most certainly came close to setting the bar that they set just two years ago…

Part of the reason that this album has the same polished composition as “Sky Blue Sky” is because Wilco brought back Jim Scott, who helped mix Sky Blue Sky.   Wilco has come with an understanding that very few bands come with anymore.   Bands and artists have another instrument at hand when recording an album, as Jeff Tweedy, Wilco’s front man would say, “use the studio as another instrument.”

Today, very few bands and artists are making full albums that have an overarching mood or theme.  Wilco, however, doesn’t look at an individual song without looking at the album as a whole.   In the world of iTunes and digital downloading, bands don’t feel the need to develop complete and polished albums.  There are still people like me who want to see good albums, from beginning to end that have a theme, a mood, a melody that sticks throughout the whole album.  And yet, there are still bands like Wilco who want to create good albums from beginning to end, hence, my admiration for coming out with another masterpiece.

This is “You Are My Face” off of their last album “Sky Blue Sky.”   This song most certainly captures a less is more feel to it, and exemplifies the beauty in rock and roll.

The album will be due out on June 30.   Check it out.

A nice treat was given to Phish Phans in the last few days, and I figured I would embed this set on my blog for anyone else who might enjoy.   1 month until Alpine Valley!

Ahh, yes, concert season has arrived, and what a year it is going to be.

As most of you know, Phish, my passion above and beyond any other band, has returned to the stage after a four year hiatus.   I get to see them in June.   Recently, I just bought tickets to Coldplay, the worlds most popular band today.   Tonight, I went to my first of many gigs, Trampled By Turtles.

Trampled By Turtles was very good, as expected.  There were only a couple hundred people at the show, but these guys really know how to rock out and improvise.  Their performance shows why they are one of the more predominantly known Newgrass groups touring today.

April 18 TRAMPLED BY TURTLES

June 20-21 PHISH

The most anticipated weekend of the year, at least for me.  I expect Phish to pull about 60 songs out of their hat this weekend, with extended jamming and a polished sound.   This is the last two days of their early summer tour, so I assume they’ll do something ecstatic.   Can’t wait!

July 24 THE MARSHALL TUCKER BAND

This one just came to my attention last night.  These guys are coming to the Calumet Theatre.   A perfect prerequisite to what who I get to see the following evening, Coldplay!

July 25 COLPLAY

Claimed to be the most popular band in the world, when these guys come to the United States, its a must-see.   These guys put on a magical show.

August 22 GAELIC STORM

These guys are something else, and I’m pretty excited they are coming back up to the Copper Country.   They have some talent when they really let loose, though this song does not necessarily expose that talent.

TBD EVE 6

Then you have Eve 6, the pop-punk band from the late nineties.   I used to listen to these guys all the time, and as my values changed, I don’t really keep up with the punk rock genre of music much anymore.   Nonetheless, its a show in Houghton, and I’m all for seeing these guys as they should put on a pretty good show.

Well, thats the arsenal for the year 2009 at this point.   I’m pretty pumped.   Maybe, if Phish plays in Chicago or Minneapolis for New Years Eve, I can spend my NYE party with them, but those days haven’t been released yet.   Dave Matthews Band should be playing songs off their new album, so if the price is right, I would like to see them this year as well.   Bob Dylan, Neil Young, and The Faces are also on my radar, but those tend to be $200 tickets a pop.   Maybe next year….