The English Beat cane to town with The Ruckus, a band that plays Ska/Funk/Soul out of Manhattan, Kansas. The ticket was a gift of a friend and I met up with several others to enjoy yet another night with some great music performed by Dave Wakling and his band. Some made it into the dressing room where all were smoking "cigars." What I did notice was now that Amendment 64 passed legalizing marijuana in Colorado, the whiff of that fine herb we evident in the air throughout much of the show.
As always, the altitude gets to Dave, requiring a breather between songs while sweat pours out of his skin. He's always entertaining and the music kept everyone in the packed house dancing on their feet. The audience loves the band, the band loves the audience, Dave and his crew taking the time to shake hands with all after the show. We appreciate his appreciation!
I biked back to the office where I found my secluded spot under the cottonwood trees along the creek where I spent a quiet, restful night.
The English Beat were one of 'ten best concerts listed for this weekend. They described them as:
Inspired by the first wave of punk in the U.K., the Beat combined the social critique of punk with the broader emotional and sonic palette of reggae. Formed in 1978, the English Beat (so named when the band made its way across the Atlantic) released three classic albums before Dave Wakeling and Ranking Roger moved on to form General Public, where they realized great commercial success. The two eventually parted ways to front their own versions of their original band.
This regular Westword feature is great to learn about who's playing here in the Denver area. As shown on this top 10 list, there were plenty of great bands performing here this weekend that I would also have liked to seen.
Part of this past week was spent on the western slope of Colorado for business reasons. A bonus prize was getting close to Air Force One, the President of the United States visiting Grand Junction the day we were there. Peach season is at its peak, the truck being loaded up with orders, a box of 40 ripe peaches going for $10. What a steal!
First up was The English Beat, September 3, 1982, a live performance at the US Festival.
This appears to have come from their recent release of their "Live at the US Festival 82 and 83, a CD/DVD combo which covers the band’s performances at the 1982 and 1983 US Festivals. An excellent recording.
Dave starts the show with "Bit cold here, so to warm up you're going to have to dance, right?"
Friday night's show came to a close with the Sex Pistols, performing live at Selina's Nitespot in Sydney, Australia on October 12, 1996. The Filthy Lucre Tour was the 1996 reunion tour of the pioneering British Punk rock band Sex Pistols. The 78-date world tour lasted for almost six months.
A very good audience recording.
John tells the crowd, "Word of advice. Keep your fucking show to yourself. Because the silly bastard who threw this is going home without it!"
Saturday night opened up with The Doors, a live show at Marty Balin’s club, The Matrix, on March 7, 1967. This was about 5-6 months before “Light My Fire” gave The Doors worldwide fame and notoriety.
It was written:
Only a handful of people showed up, so Jim Morrison, John Densmore, Robby Krieger, and Ray Manzarek played for each other, exploring song arrangements and jamming on a few blues favourites. Ironically, only a few weeks after the Matrix shows, the band's second single, "Light My Fire," would make them famous, selling a million copies on its way to topping the chart during The Summer of Love.
"It was early 1967 and The Doors were about to enter the consciousness of the nation. And this is the way it sounded," Manzarek writes in the album's liner notes.
In spite of the empty room, the band is fully engaged, using the time to give "The End" and "Back Door Man" extra lyrics and extended sections. "This is probably the closest we've come to a true document of The Doors without constraints," says Bruce Botnick, the album's producer and the band's long-time co-producer and engineer.
The band performs much of its self-titled debut on the first disc, including "Soul Kitchen," "Alabama Song (Whisky Bar)," and the first single, "Break On Through (To The Other Side)."
Along with those early originals, the band indulges its love of the blues with Bo Diddley's "Who Do You Love," Muddy Waters' "I'm A King Bee," and Allen Toussaint's "Get Out Of My Life, Woman," which has never appeared on any previous Doors albums.
One of the holy grails for Doors collectors the The Matrix Tapes are also one of the most controversial. Originally recorded by the Matrix Clubs co owner Peter Abrams, a review cassette copy of the master reel to reel tapes of the complete 3 set shows from March 7 and 10 were allegedly sent to, then Elektra founder, Jac Holzman in the late 60′s early 70′s in hopes enticing him to purchase them to use for a possible live album. It is reported that Abrams intentionally made the cassette dubs “lo fi” so Elektra couldn’t release them commercially without purchasing his high quality masters. It has been claimed that Holzman didn’t want a live album so early in the Doors career and relegated the cassettes to the vaults where they were forgotten for nearly 40 years.
The resultant recording is very clear almost early soundboard quality with the vocals very dominant in the mix. The rest of the instruments are well back in the mix and have a very slight dullness and hollowness to them that you can get with an audience recording, which is an interesting contrast to the crystal clear vocals. The tape is a little light in the bass frequencies and the high frequencies are muted very slightly but there is a mid range warmth to the recording which makes it a very enjoyable listen. There is also a slight background hiss which is only evident during the between song quiet passages.
Saturday closed with the February 6th, 2002 show by Echo and the Bunnymen in
Glasgow, Scotland. A very good audience recording that sounds very similar to the shows that have been performed the following decade with the exception of the set list that includes a number of songs that are no longer played. Thoroughly enjoyable.
A weekend working on the bookcase, finishing the electricxal, mounting the cases to the wall and beginning the process of installing toungue and grove knotty pine paneling on the back wall of the bookcase. The more progress I make, the more motivated I become to get it done. Work stops around sunset and I prepare for the Friday and Saturday nights by selecting music I feel in the mood for.
With Van Halen still coursing through my veins, I steped back in time to listen to one of their classic shows, June 23, 1980 at the London Rainbow Ballroom, their last night on their European tour. Good quality sound that appears to have been pulled off a vinyl record. Great way to start a weekend.
Died in December
Next winter takes another
Seasons pass alone
Never on our minds
Futures promise is exposed
Lying in a box
Van Halen was followed by a collection of music I assembled for my Jackson Hole skit trip videos, a music mix tape. Some of the songs appeared on the videos, all of which appear here in order from first to last day.
In celebration of the fine music by The English Beat, I pulled up their March 10, 1982 show at the Hammersmith Palais in London, a radio broadcast of the BBC College Concert. Great sound quality, with Dave Wakeling and Ranking Roger putting on a great show, not much different from what I heard only a few short weeks ago. Dave's voice continues to satisfy over all these years.
In 1977, the Sex Pistols and the Clash were incorporating the more stridently political side of Jamaican reggae into their angry punk-rock songs. Wakeling's band, simply called the Beat in his home country, came along in 1979 and had an agenda to shift the music into what he calls an "upbeat and happy-go-lucky" direction. With singer Wakeling and "toaster" Ranking Roger alternating on vocals, the Beat became part of a British ska movement known as 2 Tone, along with the Specials, Madness and the Selecter.
All of those bands had classic moments, but what distinguished the Beat was Wakeling's ability to express anger or melancholy along with snappy, upbeat pop melodies — from his early "Save It for Later" to "Mirror in the Bathroom" to "I Confess."
"To say 'happy and upbeat' is a shortcut, really," Wakeling says. "That's the dichotomy — there's happy and sad things going on at the same time. People ask you how you are, you say you're doing great — a certain percentage is terrified or unhappy or whatever. We're always running happy and sad at the same time, and that was our notion of it in the Beat.
"We didn't want it to be all angry, like punk, because you can't be angry all the time. You just get tired of being angry. ... The idea of the punky reggae party was you could be hopeful and defiant at the same time. You could be happy, and you could protest."
Coldplay closed out Saturday night with their radio broadcast recording from the June 7, 2012 show at the Stadium of Light in Sunderland, England. Their music always puts me in a contemplative mood. Loved it.
This was my first time seeing Coldplay live and I got front row! Absolutely incredible, the atmosphere was ridiculous. Despite the rain and metro strikes making getting to sunderland an absolute nightmare it was packed out and everybody was happy! [thanks fooby]
AMAZING. Sometimes something is so good it feels pointless to even explain how incredible it was. So proud that Coldplay came to Sunderland and i hope they really appreciated the crowd, the atmosphere was brilliant and the rain didn't stop us from having a fucking immense night. The lights are beautiful and it gave me chills seeing the stadium of light lit up. [thanks sterock85]
I finally have a chance to put my thoughts down after only getting to bed at 1am and having to be up for work at 7:30am. I'm completely overwhelmed by that..so much so that i've sunk into a state of PCD (Post-Coldplay depression). With our General Admission tickets, we arrived quite late on (during Rita Ora) and were shocked to find most of the lower bowl seats taken (The OH wanted to sit as is claustrophobic). We decided on a seat at the back near the corner of the West Stand but had no cover so it wasnt nice being drenched in the build up.
As the rain kept coming, somehow we just completely forgot about it. In a way the rain added to the whole atmosphere of the night and made it a show that us and probably Coldplay will never forget. The biggest cheer went to Viva La Vida then Charlie Brown/Paradise looked spectacular in the dark as the Xylobands looked at their best. For me though, the highlight was to come.. as Paradise was ending we noticed something being set up just in front of us. Two guitars, a piano? Surely not? Then we noticed the stewards creating a path right beside us. Is this really happening? And there they were Chris and the band walking past us to a mini stage right in front of us. I was completely blown away by this. Amazing part of the show and something I wasnt expecting at all (I thought the C stage was just one of the corners of the main stage?!) Speed of Sound was superb and i loved the way they introduced each band member individually. The finale back on the main stage was epic and then far too quickly it was all over..and the walk/drive home in the rain as people looked amazed at what they had just witnessed. My first ever Coldplay experience is one i'll never ever forget and something very special to see them in my home City at the football ground I attend every other week. All I feel now is sadness as I just want to relive the whole experience again. [thanks mackemlad79]
