2009 in review: concert roundup
my dad once asked always asks me why it’s so important that i see bands as they come through town (or within 150 miles, which many of these required). i suppose a large part of it is knowing that the art you see will only happen once. much of the motivation is the crowd, too - no matter what style of music, there is a sort of therapy involved in singing along, headbanging, or whatever, with people that are as into the performance as you are. but finally, i think there is something magical in considering the live show as the musicians and songwriters kind of standing up for their work - showing you how important it is to them, too, in their efforts to match and exceed expectations. ultimately, all of the above seem to work together, such that a good concert experience will have you leaving the venue somehow even more in love with the material that brought you there than before.
and with the pseudo-intellectual romanticism out of the way, i present to you:
my top 20 concerts of 2009.
20. morrissey
moz is a legend and all, but he cancelled last-minute when i went to see him in 2004. catching him at coachella was a kind of vindication for that. a decent set with more smiths than i’d expected. but overall, he was a total bitch, gave a tired performance, and kept complaining about hamburgers. i am mostly including him on this list because it makes a lot of people jealous.
19. throbbing gristle
i was only able to catch some of their set due to a time conflict with #6. but i’m glad i saw what i could. i was one of maybe 20 people in their tent, among a 150,000+ festival crowd, watching them tear through “discipline”. a perfect portion of transvestites playing violins, steinbergers, and more old moog hardware than i could believe.
18. paul gilbert
one of the only ‘shred’-class guitarists i enjoy listening to, with undoubtedly the fastest hands out there. the guy was buckethead’s teacher, to give you some perspective. but he’s also got a real soulful hendrix vibe in his writing. openers were george lynch (weak) and richie kotzen (amazing).
17. alan parsons project
absolute guilty pleasure. though pink floyd were great without him, i feel like having alan parsons at the desk was the biggest reason “dark side of the moon” turned out the way it did. accordingly, his solo material has a very familiar tone. favorite song performed was “i wouldn’t want to be like you”. the show was filmed for a dvd but it hasn’t surfaced yet. i feel like i should also note that i was the youngest person in the audience by at least 20 years, my friend garrett laughed his ass off at me for going, and this was probably the ugliest band i’ve seen (including gwar).
16. mastodon
i have a feeling that most of you reading this are metal heads, so i’m not gonna preach to the choir here. they are the most acclaimed metal band of the decade. i think this was my fifth time seeing them, and though i don’t think their new album is necessarily their best, it’s certainly their most listenable for me. very fresh. was a real treat to see them perform it in its entirety earlier this year (with great live vocals for once, too).
15. gil mantera’s party dream
if not for my flipcam being passed around through the night, i really wouldn’t remember most of what happened at this show. now i know that i was dressed like a barbarian, played leap frog on stage for the last 15 minutes of the performance, and was passing kazoos out to strangers all night. my sixth or seventh gmpd gig.
14. nine inch nails
my sixth and final time seeing nin. an odd change of pace - last year they had the most over the top, immersive stage lighting and construction i’d ever seen. but this time around, the stage was almost bare, outdoors, during the day, for a set of mostly rarities and covers, while opening for jane’s addiction. amazing regardless. started off with a cover of “kick out the jams” with tom morello. having the sunset during their finish made for some interesting ambiance.
13. dinosaur jr
for all the ridiculous live rigs that i’ve seen (john petrucci’s comes to mind), the mess j mascis brought really stands apart. several custom marshall stacks, wired together through a ridiculous collection of boutique pedals and vintage fender gear. it was the loudest, beefiest guitar tone i’ve ever heard. very bizarre gig too - 3pm on a sunday at the casbah - but really fun. my brother-in-law and i were guest listed last minute. my favorite local band (earthless) opened, and the show was done before sunset.
12. cynic
this is one of the only projects out there that satisfies my musical needs across the spectrum - over the top metal riffing, clean jazz soloing, and front-of-the-mix vocoder. also the single best drum performance i’ve ever seen, neil peart included. small show at the house of blues in san diego. i didn’t stay for the headliner (meshuggah).
11. zappa plays zappa
my second time seeing dweezil and co. i was lucky enough to see them with napoleon murphy brock on vocals before, so i was really dreading having anyone else singing at this gig. but ray white really brought it, as did the band, who went through over three hours of what has to be the most difficult to remember music out there - with not a piece of sheet music in sight. set highlights were “zomby woof” (for real, the best zappa song ever) and “billy the mountain”, a half-hour mindfuck rarity that i’d never even heard of before. the band really excels at making even the sloppiest and most cacophonous material so easy on the ears. and i have a crush on the sax player.
10. bob dylan
though i love his new album, the man has one of the worst voices ever. at this point, it’s degenerated into a raspy cackle. yet, there is particular worth in hearing him at his old age, coughing through lyrics like “i used to care, but things have changed”; “you think i’m past my prime, let me see what you got, we can have a whoppin’ good time”. and it got me thinking that really, dylan’s music has always been about poetry, and i really only ever listened to the words. his voice is just a medium for them. the reason so many people work up phenomenal covers of his tunes is because more than anything else, he really shines as a folk songwriter (or, per the last two albums, a tom waits-esque bluesman).
09. chris cornell
comfortable as i’ve grown with it, cornell’s last solo record was an embarrassing mess. total nightmare for any fan of the early days. though, even a lot of the audioslave material makes me cringe - i really grew up soundgarden, and thankfully, most of his live set now includes classics like “the day i tried to live”, “blow up the outside world” et al. but as if the good selection wasn’t enough, this was the best vocal performance i’d heard from him over the last three shows i’d seen - a notable absence of the “hiss” his voice has acquired since 1999. soaring, pitch perfect and clear. he is my favorite rock vocalist out there.
08. my bloody valentine
think of the ground footage from 9/11 - people running towards the camera mortified by what’s going on behind. that was what the first few minutes of mbv’s set was like. so many casual listeners and frat boys that expected a smashing pumpkins sounding band, sprinting past me, absolutely terrified at what was going on in their ears. yes, this is the loudest, noisiest band i’ve ever seen. but truth be told, i think they have made some of the most delicate and beautiful music out there. every single song on “loveless” makes the hair on my arms stand, and the set drew largely from it, the highlight being “when you sleep”.
07. soulsavers / mark lanegan
ever since i had the incredible epiphany in 2007 that mark lanegan wasn’t mark wahlberg (don’t ask), i have been totally hooked on his music. from bubblegum to queens, to those records with the mumbling bitch, and then soulsavers - my favorite project of his by far. the guy has one of the coolest voices ever, and coupling it with dark, gospel-influenced desert rock is a match made in heaven. “broken” was one of my top 10 albums this year, and it was so damn groovy live. the sort of project i get too excited about to speak of pragmatically, so, i’ll let the music speak for itself:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRy28qinJNQ
06. the cure
as rosie from sddialedin put it, “robert smith’s fingers look like vienna sausages. and talk about committing to a look.” but all joking about goth-roseanne aside, it was a really sentimental performance. 32 songs. i’d forgotten how many of them i knew all the words to. i really enjoyed their 90s and recent material, none of which i’d bothered to check out before, all of which shined live (and was surprisingly heavy). the promoters did what they could to get them to stop playing - turning the lights on, cutting the stage volume, pulling plugs - but i’m pretty certain if they weren’t stopped, they would have gone all night. video of the set’s abrupt and ironic ending is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjAZxalb30A
05. leonard cohen
this was going to be #8, but the back up singers did synchronized cartwheels during “dance me to the end of love”. cartwheels. anyway - cohen is a master. he takes what i consider some of the most heartbreaking and cynical lyrics ever, which make any thinking listener ask why we keep ourselves alive … and puts them into a live performance that answers that question immediately. and he seemed as grateful to perform for us as we were grateful to receive him. the real treat for me was that while i love his post-80s material, the arrangements and recordings sound like budget casio midi. performing with live instrumentation really makes a difference. very classy entertainer. set highlight:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUfS8LyeUyM
04. them crooked vultures
i was a little surprised i liked this show as much as i did, given that of all the performers in this list, i have had the least musical history with this material. the project wasn’t even announced until very recently, and it had only been a week or so before that i’d gotten my hands on the studio recordings. many still don’t know who this band is - josh homme (vocals / guitars - queens of the stone age - i have never been a fan of his). dave grohl on drums, and the amazing john paul jones on bass (led zeppelin). and they really brought it. the years of experience showed, as if they’d spent that time playing together all along. my jaw was dropped for most of the show, especially at how tight-knit jonesy and grohl were (including much bonham-esque improv fills). a lot of it was “you had to be there”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2XH5KrrPw8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9Cxj1fBXL8
03. adrian belew power trio
every year i seem to get obsessively into some band i never really clicked with before. i listen to them obsessively and endlessly, picking out individual notes, production details, et cetera. last year i did this with journey. the year before, peter gabriel, the year before, frank zappa. this year was a three way tie: the talking heads, king crimson, and adrian belew - who, incidentally, is the reason i love the others. in addition to lending his one of a kind playing to them, and bowie, and zappa, and nine inch nails, his solo material is awesome. he’s got one of the smoothest live voices i’ve ever heard, and as trent renor put it, “adrian is the most awesome musician in the world. i’ve never seen anybody play guitar like that.” and neither had i. it’s so much more than speed and notation, too. he gets sounds out of his five-figure parker guitar that i didn’t think were possible. he was backed up by a brother and sister rhythm section, who are my age.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gan1keOg9e8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppqxQgv327s#t=0m44s
02. david byrne
as #3 mentioned - i became a huge fan of the heads this year. don’t know why it didn’t click before, but it sure does now, and at the perfect time to see david byrne on tour. i caught him performing “songs of david byrne and brian eno” in ljubljana, slovenia. the show’s title implied that he would only be performing music from records eno produced - which include the real meat of the talking heads catalog (“remain in light”, and my favorite, “fear of music”), as well as their new collaborative record (in my top 10 last year) and a cool, largely overlooked funk album they did in 81. the performance itself was top notch - byrne’s voice has only improved over the years. his band tore through even the fastest and wildest talking heads songs (“crosseyed and painless”, “the great curve”) with finesse, and his lead playing was surprisingly advanced. above all, the vantage point i had was better than any concert i’ve ever seen before - absurdly close - take a look.
http://www.everythingthathappens.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KQjy02eqOk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ER5AZDzrvRk
01. paul mccartney
by virtue of his own legacy, you can’t help but have high expectations for mccartney. but despite already expecting a perfect performance, i was totally blown away. one of the coolest and most emotional concerts i’ve ever seen. almost exclusively beatles set as well. it was bittersweet for macca, since it was the anniversary of linda’s death - he dedicated the night to her. said “she loved the desert”. —————— okay, i can’t believe i’ve written this much. i’m totally burned out. i quit. i shouldn’t have to sing mccartney’s praises for you to get how fucking awesome his show was, anyway. here’s the setlist. jet / drive my car / only mama knows / flaming pie / got to get you into my life / let me roll it (with a coda of purple haze) / honey hush / highway / the long and winding road / my love / blackbird / here today / dance tonight / calico skies / mrs. vanderbilt / eleanor rigby / sing the changes / band on the run / back in the u.s.s.r. / something / i’ve got a feeling / paperback writer / a day in the life / give peace a chance / let it be / live and let die / hey jude / birthday / can’t buy me love / lady madonna / yesterday / helter skelter / get back / sgt. pepper’s lonely hearts club band (reprise) / the end.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPzIo5mRtZs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48FfjqPW3XM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZV18scOsX54
