VAN HALEN, DENVER RELOADED

A weekend and the Fourth of July, Independence Day.  But there is no independence from working on this summer's room renovation project, involving some time in the sweltering heat of the attic laying wire for new lighting in the bookcase.  There was a moment of fear when I though the bookcase frames, which stand floor to ceiling would a) too big to haul up to the second floor and b) too big to stand up straight without being stopped by the ceiling.  It all worked out well in the end.

Continuing with my exploration of the Britpop era, as described in John Harris' book Britpop! Cool Britannia and the Spectacular Demise of English Rock, this first night I chose to listen to Oasis, their live show at the Copenhagen Dome in Denmark on September 10, 1997. An excellent audience recording.  Mr. Harris writes:

Despite the fact that Noel Gallagger's presence at Downing Street suggested that his influence had reached a new peak, 1997 found the zeitgeist edging away from him.  In the context of the wider musical developments, Be Here Now's songs increasingly sounded as superfluous as its myriad guitar overdubs; as of the summer, rock music began to take on a rather more artful, questioning tenor."

Oasis are described as:

Oasis are a Rock and Roll band from Manchester, England. The group shot to stardom in the early 1990s with a brand of traditional British rock and roll that had, for a number of years, been replaced with hazy Shoegaze and American Grunge. Oasis established themselves as one of the most successful and critically acclaimed bands of the 1990's, not only with their music, but also by the band's infamous behavior on and off the stage including heavy drinking, drug abuse, confrontations with the media and fighting, particularly brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher.

They have had eight UK number-one singles and eight UK number-one albums, and won fifteen NME Awards, nine Q Awards, four MTV Europe Music Awards and six Brit Awards, including one in 2007 for outstanding contribution to music and one for the best album of the last 30 years as voted by the BBC Radio 2 listeners; they have been nominated for three Grammy Awards. As of 2009, the band have sold an estimated 70 million records worldwide.[1] The band were listed in the Guinness Book of World Records in 2010 for “Longest Top 10 UK Chart Run by a Group” after an unprecedented run of 22 top 10 hits in the UK. The band also holds the Guinness World Record for being the most successful act in the UK between the years 1995 and 2005, spending 765 weeks in the Top 75 singles and albums charts.

Download it here:
http://www.filefactory.com/file/ccb41f1/n/OasisNMucCop.zip

I've been waiting for this one, Ian McCulloch doing a solo performance in the cavernous Liverpool Cathedral on January 22, 2011.  It was ordered when I made a pledge for this and his latest collection of songs, both received as a download.  I paid for a signed copy of the Liverpool Cathedral show, but production problems has delayed its release.  I'm sure it will show up one of these days in the mail, a surprise present from Ian.  The entire show is a joy to listen to.  Buy it if you have an opportunity.

Buy it here:
http://www.pledgemusic.com/artists/ianmcculloch

I was in a Van Halen mood Tuesday night, the night before Independence Day.  I wanted to warm up with Extreme, led by former Van Halen frontman Gary Cherone, their live show at the Starland Ballroom in Sayreville, NJ on August 6, 2009.  Gary and Nuno rip up the stage in this excellent recording.

A fan writes:

After physically exhausting everyone in the room, Extreme decided to lull us into a completely false sense of security by pulling out the acoustics and lowering the lights. With a pre-recorded backing track, Pat and new drummer Kevin ‘kFigg’ Figueiredo (Gary Cherone had to go figure out what his next sequence of poses and weird dances would be) Nuno laid down the fucking law with “Midnight Express.” What happened next puzzled, confused and downright pissed me off. They played “More Than Words.” of course. To be honest, Extreme not playing “More than Words” is like Dream Theater not playing “Pull Me Under.” Wait. That’s exactly what happened when I saw Dream Theater, and not only was I not upset that they skipped that dud, but I had a better time because of it.

But, just playing the song is not the part that upset me. What upset me was that the audience, like a collection of retarded automatons who actually didn’t listen to Extreme except for the year and a half they were prominently featured on MTV, pulled out their cameras and recoded videos of the completely and utterly unspectacular performance of the marginally-better-than-awful song. To me, that would be like lighting your friend’s face on fire and only recording your other friends reactions. What’s the point?

Read it all here:
http://smartassradio.com/review-extremeratt-starland-ballroom-august-6-2009

I found a second version of Van Halen's Denver May 24, 2012 show, recorded by CaboRat.  It's an excellent audience recording of the show, better than the one I got.  Three cheers for CaboRat!  I cranked up the stereo and relived that evening all over again, the 2 hour show going by in what felt like a few minutes.  It was about 1 AM before I made it back in the house.

CaboRat writes:

If anything, it’s times like this I am really glad Dave is back. He’s made the band FUN again…and alive, which is also due in large in part to Wolfie reinvigorating them as well. We don’t get the “stand-around-while-I-try-to-think-of-something-cool-to-say” like Hagar used to. Nothing wrong with Hagar, so long as when he opens his mouth it’s for singing and not slamming the band as he's done lately, but I just can’t find any other way to describe Dave’s return as “FUN”. Period. He keeps the concert momentum going non-stop, and I also love how, since he’s back, the band launches into extended jam sessions in the middle of songs. He and Ed will bounce off one another constantly, and I can see genuine happiness and satisfaction in Ed’s eyes when that happens. Looking at Wolf, you can see he gets off on watching his dad and Dave do this, too. I don’t ever recall Ed and Sam doing this. Maybe with their guitars, but doing the “guitar & scat” thing Ed & Dave does, sometimes during multiple songs? Nope. Everything I saw in Denver was 110% genuine…from the onstage camaraderie between all involved to Ed and Dave hugging one another at the end of the show. They love working together and playing together. I really hope it lasts.

Download the flac file here:
http://www.filefactory.com/file/6uzaj0nhttwl/n/VaHa.2012-05-24.Denver.FLAC.by.T.U.B.E.zip

ANNULAR ECLIPSE 2012

The family and I drove nonstop to Albuquerque, New Mexico this past Saturday for the sole purpose of seeing the 2012 annular eclipse, which began somewhere in China and ended a short time later in Texas just across the border from NM. By the time we arrived, checked into a hotel and had dinner in Old Town Albuquerque, the day was largely over. In one of the art gallery’s I came across the work of an artist who I liked, bought a piece and hope to have him do more for me. Saintfied dead artists and musicians. Sid Vicious with a halo??

D-Day was Sunday. We spent the late morning/early afternoon hiking in the Petroglyph National Monument on the mesa west of town. The hike we did had over 5000 documented petroglyphs pecked in the dessert varnish on the rock surfaces, blocks of basalt on the edge of a 150 thousand year old lava flow. They were created in this harsh landscape 400 or more years ago.  At this time I began hearing that things were going to be busy around eclipse time, the west side of the monument (where the cinder cones were and where I wanted to be) being closed because “all tickets had been sold.” I overheard others talk about being on the west side of town late in the afternoon as well. After the two hour hike in the monument we drove back to Old Town Albuquerque where we did some more tourist shopping and had an early dinner. By 5 PM we found ourselves with a few other drivers parked in the right of way along the road leading up to the west entrance to the monument, setting up our gear along the fence line with a clear view to the west. We were within a mile of the centerline for the eclipse. A few clouds were present that eventually burned off before the critical moment. Soon vehicle after vehicle pulled up and parked up and down the fence line and a festive, circus-like atmosphere ensued. Tables came out, lawn chairs, food and drink. I heard someone say this was a big gathering of nerds. The ultra light airplanes joined us, buzzing the fence line 20 feet off the ground.

At 6:28 the show began at first contact, the edge of the sun dimpled by the moon. We watched as the moon took more and more out of the suns disk, its progress marked by noting when it covered three prominent sunspot groups visible on the sun's surface. The moment everyone was waiting for happened around 7:30. The trailing edge of the moon gradually moved onto the sun’s disk, second contact. You could easily see the moon’s movement as the two points of the light crescent moved towards one another, touch and complete the “ring of fire.” This bright ring was visible for a little over 4 minutes, during which the throng of people cheered and clapped. The ring was broken at third contact and the eclipse went in reverse with the moon exiting the suns disk on its upper left-hand side. People gradually began returning to their vehicles and made their way back to Albuquerque. We waited for sunset along with a bunch of others. And it was a spectacular sunset with a crescent sun setting behind distant mountains. 

Then it all came to an end and the remaining vehicles returned to the highway and back home. We drove out of Albuquerque by 9 PM and were back home in Colorado by 3:30 AM. Lots of driving but the whole experience was worth it. Our daughter’s high school graduation ceremony began at 8 AM. I was tired all day.

The next total eclipse is happening in November in Australia! Who’s going?

The night before our departure I listened to some music.  I continued with The Doors, listening to their second show in the evening of January 17, 1970.  A fantastic show on this great quality recordin!

It was written:

It is this spontaneous fire that made the Doors, and the performances contained within this set, such an exciting live act. Take for instance the three searing versions of “Who Do You Love?” The first one, from the first show, is the one we all know and love from the much loved In Concert album. Here, in it’s original running order in the show, followed by a dramatically perfect “Little Red Rooster,” a boogiefied “Money” and a pointed “Light My Fire,” we can hear just how capable the band was of providing blistering blues one minute, and psychedelic wonder the next.

One of the more interesting aspects of this set is getting to hear the progression of the band, and the ecstatic New York crowd, over four distinct shows. As each show progresses you can hear the band taking just a few more chances in the music. Compare the evening show of the first night to the earlier show and the band sounds just a little more loose, wild, and perhaps like they’ve been doing some backstage “relaxing” between shows. The crowd too becomes a part of the performances, growing ever more passionate as the nights goes on.

Read it all here:
http://www.musicmookreview.com/2011/05/the-doors-live-in-new-york-1970/

The second half of the evening was spent with Ian McCulloch, listening to his Pledge Music release of his latest solo album.  I'm still listening to it to get a better sense of the completed work.  It has been various described as "a boring pile of shit",  "nought earth shattering new on it", "apathetic",   "Adult Contemporary", "children's nursery rhymes",  "it's overwhelmed by schmaltz" and corny and cliched," all of which I agree with based on my limited exposure to it.  Many others like it, but I'm finding it easy to disagree.

Can't wait to get the autographed copy of his acustic performance at the Liverpool Anglican Cathederal.  That I know will sound like heaven!