WHAT A TEMPER!

Sunday, February 8, 2009

START OFF LOUD, ENDING IT SOFTLY

With no new snow this past week and only a small amount predicted overnight, if even that, I decided a trip up to the mountains was not worth it. I figured the time would be better spent working on a project presently underway here at the house. So no party on the pass, but instead the party happened outside the house in the darkness of the night. It was 2 AM by the time I got to bed.

I spent the evening with with Van Halen at the Philips Arena in Atlanta, Georgia on February 10, 2008, almost exactly a year ago. It is a classically performed show so typical of the 2007/2008 tour, although Dave left out his long winded story towards the end about Kenny and rolling pot seeds down a cover of a Pink Floyd album. Good performance, great sounding audience recording. The taper must have been up front, close to the stage to get this quality. Someone in the crowd off to the left of me was a true fan and kept on calling his name during Eddie's solo performance. I can't be sure but it appeared as though they had technical difficulties two thirds the way through his guitar solo, towards the end of the "Cathederal" segment. It got quiet for a while, the audience seemed to get louder and you can hear what appears to be Eddie faintly playing, or trying to, in the background. For the first time in my listening to shows from this tour, the crowd then begins to chant for Eddie. When the sound was restored, Eddie burst into the second half of his "Eruption" performance real loud, emphasize that he's back.

It was a relatively warm night with a near full moon overhead. The clouds that existed earlier were gone, suggesting that the snow predicted for the mountains was highly unlikely.

Life's fleeting moment
Time when all seems possible
Youths day in the sun

The well has run dry
Yearning replaced by comfort
Cash in on their youth

Eyes closed to focus
He's listening intently
Neither here nor there

Feeling disconnected
Alcohol has set him free
Sails with the music

Modern day poets
Words amplified by music
Joy's tears fill the eyes

The influence of sound
From Bach to the Bunneymen
Good music's timeless

Download it here:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=8UY2PPI2

The second half of the show was spent with The Killers. What I had to play was an excellent quality acoustic recording of eight of their popular songs. Brandon Flowers' voice comes shining through on this one. A well done and especially pleasing performance. I was wishing there was more of this beautiful stuff to listen to. There is actually more, the Live From Abbey Road acoustic session, but the link I have to that performance was no longer functioning. Something to hunt for when time becomes available.

Download it here:
http://rapidshare.com/files/186003147/Sesion_Acustica.rar

Saturday, February 7, 2009

TWO FOR ONE

It was Friday night and time for a concert!

The weather this week was great but freaky. The fact that it was warm enough to speed down the highway with the window wide open, wind in the hair, in early February is just plain wrong! Feels more like May than the heart of winter. This weather means no snow down here or in the mountains where they need it based on the rocks seen poking up through the snow at A-Basin last weekend (a few new gouges in the skis!). Cold weather is due to return tomorrow.

Sometime after 10 PM I drove out to my Denver overlook. Knowing what I had planned for the evening, I selected a short (one CD) concert to start off with, Van Halen's appearance at The Music Hall in Huston, Texas on July 11, 1979. Audio quality was decent, although there were times I had to struggle to make out Dave's chatter to the audience, including his story about the late night poker game and bad assed friend "Joe". My version of the show is missing a few of the listed tracks for some unknown reason, explaining why it fit on a single CD while the cover says its a two disc set. It did the trick and put me in the zone!

The spending spree explodes
Can't borrow it fast enough
Mushroom cloud of debt

Struggles for the words
Distant connection falters
Music loud and clear

Old sounds lay dormant
Revived by trucks battery
Echos from the past

Feats we all envy
A rock star's late night exploits
Dave's hotel stories

Download it here:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=D0EMZO45

In response to a friends suggestion, I stopped by Second Spin on the way home and picked up music by Echo & the Bunnymen. Their song "Lips Like Sugar" should be familiar to all (at least to those of us who lived through the 1980's). I was curious about all their other music, hoping it would be something I'd like, thereby opening up a whole new window of sound. And that it did.

Echo & the Bunnymen are an English post-punk group, formed in Liverpool in 1978. Their music is described as a "dark, swirling fusion of gloomy post-punk and Doors-inspired psychedelia (that) brought the group a handful of British hits in the early '80s, while attracting a cult following in the United States." I really enjoyed closing out the night with something brand new to my ears.

Listens to her rock

Offered something brand new

Wanting it so bad

Download it here:

http://www.rapidshare.com/files/174600448/1985_-_Songs_To_Learn_And_To_Sing.rar

Sunday, February 1, 2009

PARTY ON LOVELAND PASS

It was time to get back to important business - skiing. I verified that the kids did not want to go skiing on Sunday, giving me the freedom to drive up the night before. After putzing around the house on Saturday, I left at 8 PM and was parked in the lot at Arapahoe Basin by around 10 PM, no traffic to contend with. This evening I pulled out a 2 CD show, listening on the earphones, not wanting to disturb others parked in the lot doing the same thing I was. After getting halfway through the show I became so tired that I could not listen to the second CD. Rather than force myself to go on and waste the listening pleasure of some of the best songs to come, I ended the show at the second CD and crawled into the back of the truck to a warm sleeping bag. It was very cold outside that evening, bright stars above the peaks. Light snow fell later that morning when the anticipated cold front passed through Colorado.

Breakfast in the lodge and then on the slope shortly after 8:30 AM. The day started off cold, but the sun crested the nearby mountain and burned off the linger clouds, leading to a comfortable sunny day of carving turns. By 3:00 PM I decided I had enough and called it a day. Considering it was Super Bowl Sunday and there were so few people on the slopes, I thought I'd have a easy ride home. It's never easy. I hit traffic shortly after getting on the highway, crawling at a snails pace until we passed through the tunnel at Idaho Springs. On the way home I popped in the second CD from the same Van Halen show and listened to it while inching my way down the highway, stereo blasting, cigar in hand. Home by 6 PM. A great day skiing!

My choice of shows was from Van Halen's 2004 Summer Tour, their second show of the tour, played at Hersheypark Stadium in Hershey, PA on June 13, 2004. It is alleged to be a soundboard recording, but my guess it is an excellent audience recording. Great quality sound with the band putting on a top notch performance.It was clear that in the early part of the tour they were having a lot of fun, Sammy chatting with the crowd, with Eddie and Mike joining in. They were happy to be back on the stage together, unlike later in the tour when the papered over cracks began to reappear.

This is what the Hershey Chronicle said about the show on June 17, 2004:

The bad blood is gone. The Gary Cherone debacle is ancient history. The ill-fated reunion with Diamond Dave is just a fading memory.

In short, Van Halen - with Sammy Hagar - is back. If Sunday's concert at Hersheypark Stadium showed anything, it was just how much we missed Eddie, Alex, Michael and Sammy onstage.

The spark has returned and, despite a seven-year split, at Hersheypark Stadium last Sunday night, it felt like Van Halen never left. From the opening moment of show-opener "Jump" to the finale song of "When It's Love," it felt like 1996 all over again.

Throughout the show, the band made it clear that they have no plans on leaving again. "I'm having a gas up here," Eddie yelled to the crowd at one point.

If this band hasn't fully healed, then these guys are some great actors. Unlike the awkward reunion with David Lee Roth in 1996, Sammy and Eddie acted like brothers again - and as if Sammy had never recorded "Little White Lies" about the Van Halen situation several years ago.

They were having fun, and the fans were too. Van Halen ripped through just about every song any long-time supporter would want to hear. Sammy's voice was in top form as he nailed songs from both his and Dave's tenures with the group. "Ain't Talkin' About Love," "Panama," and "You Really Got Me" sounded just as good - if not better - than the Dave originals. Sammy-era songs were drawn primarily from 1991's For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge, including the hits "Right Now," "Runaround," "Poundcake" and "Top of the World."

Also well-represented was the band's 1986 monster, 5150, from which Van Halen performed "The Best of Both Worlds," "Dreams" and "Why Can't This Be Love?" A welcome addition to the show was the Twister soundtrack hit "Humans Being." The last song put to tape prior to the band's split, its heavy guitar sound translated well to the live setting.

Eddie was in top form, reasserting himself - after a bout with cancer and a bit of antisocial behavior - as the guitar god he truly is. There's no denying that the man enjoys himself immensely while on stage. During his solo, the crowd chanted "Eddie! Eddie! Eddie!" - and he loved it, thanking his admirers several times.

Alex and Michael also provided monstrous solos, demonstrating that even if they've been out of the spotlight, they still have the magic. Sammy also performed a couple songs on his own, singing the crowd favorite "Eagles Fly," then immediately breaking into Ten 13's "Deeper Kind of Love."

However, the band did play three new tracks from their upcoming best-of album, The Best of Both Worlds, due out on July 20. "Up For Breakfast," "Learning to See" and "It's About Time" sounded excellent and were very much Van Halen songs - much more than anything on the Gary Cherone-led III album.

If these three songs are a sneak-preview of what's to come, Van Halen fans are in for a treat. The rebirth of Van Halen with Sammy Hagar is clearly what the fans have been waiting for. That Eddie and Sammy buried the hatchet was definitely appreciated by the 13,000-or-so in attendance.

In the words of a fan banner thrown onto the stage: "Plain and simple: Thank you."

Sun crests the ridge line
Clouds swirl over the divide
Air sparkles with light

They sway back and forth
Fly down the brilliant white slope
Trailing plumes of snow

Years past on display
Faded pictures on the wall
People come and go

Suns march to the west
Dark blue shadows lengthening
Mountains of white light

Wind whipped ridge top
Ski in swirling clouds of snow
Sparkles touch his face

Ride the slow chairlift
Exposed on the mountain top
At the winds mercy

Wind out of the north
Forced up the black mountain face
Snow plumes rise skyward

Download it here:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=C3WHELW9

Saturday, January 31, 2009

SHUT YOUR %&#@%#! MOUTH WOLFIE!

A week of fire drills, frustrations, questioning what I'm doing, administrative boredom, planning and more goodbyes. The only bright spot is reading a book written by an individual sharing his experience circumnavigating Lake Superior by kayak. This is preparation for a family vacation I'm planning to take this coming summer. I was ready to let loose by the time Friday night rolled around.

I drove out to my prarie parking spot under the starry sky just as the crescant moon was setting behind the Rocky Mountains. The concert chosen was Van Halen's show at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas on January 26, 2008, almost exactly a year ago. A good audience recording, although the sound mix was a little muddy. I suppose if I had the time I could EQ it to make the recording sound a little bit better, but who has the time?

This show took place on Eddie's 53rd birthday. The title of this show refers to a line said by Dave at the beginning of "Romeo Delight". Wolfie tells the crowd to sing Happy Birthday, then Dave replies "Shut your fucking mouth Wolfie and play the song." Halfway through "Romeo Delight" Dave and the crowd sang Happy Birthday, to which Eddie replied "Im sure you're all having a great mother fucking time here". Dave rightfully acknowledges that his rendition of the birthday song was out of key before launching into "Magic Bus".

Download it here:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=QBB0A4VV

Stone mausoleums
Facades that house said leaders
Their floors ring hollow

New moon emerges
A pencil thin cusp of light
Hangs in orange sky

Night sky's pocked gray stone
Billions of years to have grown cold
Reflects suns warm light

Pale Queen of the night
Slips behind mountains curtin
Alone with the stars

There before our eyes
Lost in the interference
Land once called Eden

Parking lot is full
A recession proof product
Liquor store's profit

Truck stereo maxed

Their music fills the praire
Amplifer burns

It's David's solo
Sings into the cold night air
Coyotes howl nearby

Poison in his veins
Lost in the music's vortex
Leaves the world behind

What we've waited for
A performance so unique
Eddie takes the stage

Visceral message
Loud poems masked in the music
Crowd sways to the words

Reach the late night's end
Nothing but double vision
Shakes the empty flask

Van Halen put me high up on the crest of the wave and I was not ready to quit. So I pulled out the short (incomplete?) song set of The Killers who played at the Reading Festival in London on August 23, 2008. The tequila was gone, the music was over and it was time to go home. In bed sometime after midnight.

Download it here:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=9C4T7UMC

Saturday, January 24, 2009

YOUNG AND WILD, NOW AND THEN

Another week evaporates. The evenings following The Killers concert were spent looking for and downloading a half dozen of their concerts stretching back to 2006, all of which were of fairly good quality. What I noticed is that there aren't very many bootleg recordings available that can easily be found on the net, not the seemingly hundreds of recordings available for Van Halen. While in the process of doing this I got to wondering whether this was the beginning of the end for my year of Van Halen, believing that new sounds were going to push them aside. The answer was obvious once I popped in that CD and Eddie's guitar filled my ears. Nope. Not yet.

This Friday night I decided to do something a little different. Not one but two concerts, with Van Halen opening for The Killers. A 30 year difference in time. Both were rocking good shows.

Van Halen opened up with their October 15, 1977 appearance at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium in California. Dave announces that they won't be appearing at this venue again (incorrect in that they appeared again at the Civic Auditorium 5 days later). This show took place 5 months before they were to go on their world tour following the release of their first album Van Halen on February 10, 1978. And because this show takes place shortly before they released the album, the set lit is the same one they used during the 1978 tour. Very good quality recording, great performance before an enthusiastic audience.

Download it here:

http://www.mediafire.com/?50mf0mq2dyi

Part two of tonight's show was The Killers, appearing at the Royal Albert Hall in London, UK on November 3, 2008. Very good audience recording, also before a very loud and enthusiastic crowd. The set list was pretty much the same as when they appeared here in Denver, with some of the songs switched around in different order. Good show that kept me bouncing to their beat right up until midnight. Brandon Flowers is not nearly as chatty as Dave was in Pasadena 30 years ago!