8th Avenue
latest:
FREE KIM THAYIL.
When the band broke up, my first thought was “I’ll never get to see Matt Cameron play drums again” and, well, we know how that turned out. But there’s a difference between playing on that stuff and playing Soundgarden music. I snuck through Seattle alleys and darkened under-curfew streets to see Kim Thayil play live with Jello Biafra during the WTO riots. I flew to San Francisco to see Chris Cornell’s first solo gig at the Fillmore. I will believe it when I see it, but there is part of me that is just OVER THE MOON.
holiday hurrah
I’ll be featured on the New Year’s Day episode. Considering that Dave and I argued so much he needed to edit afterwards, it should be a good one.
VU
Lou Reed, Mo Tucker and Doug Yule in conversation with David Fricke, Live at the New York Public Library
Hang Up My Rock and Roll Shoes
Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band
HSBC Arena, Buffalo, NY
22 November 2009
Greetings From Asbury Park
I am still trying to find the words to talk about Buffalo. I walked out of the venue Sunday night feeling drained yet exhilarated. I wasn’t bouncing off the walls, dying to start processing and analyzing and taking the show apart, the game of connect the dots, the simple act of keeping the feeling of the show alive by talking about it. It was a quiet, solemn walk to the parking lot, a complete contrast to the emotional explosion that happened inside the HSBC Arena. Two days later, I am wistful and nostalgic and ruminative. I am also over-sensitive, exhausted and emotional. Greetings played on the iPod on the way to work has me unexpectedly crying down 7th Avenue.
brucespringsteen.net on “The River”
My writeup of The River from Sunday night is now up at brucespringsteen.net.
“Spotlight on the Boss Man…”
Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band
Madison Square Garden, 8 November 2009
The River
As I will tirelessly remind everyone, the key to success with the album shows is with how Bruce frames the rest of the show around the album. Saturday night we had a stunning, monumental album performance, with a second half that kept me wondering when it was going to start to get interesting. If I thought I couldn’t forgive him for “Sunny Day” after “Jungleland,” that was nothing compared to enduring “Sunny Day” after “New York City Serenade” on Saturday night (although to tell you the truth I was so stunned that it took me a few minutes to recover and he could have been playing the Mexican Hat Dance - although the Mexican Hat Dance would at least be novel and amusing, unlike - oh, nevermind). I had already gone on record saying that I would be willing to forgive him “Sunny Day” after “Wreck On The Highway,” except that last night he picked up A DIFFERENT GUITAR and was about to play something else completely different, only to call the entire band over for a conference after which they ALL have to switch guitars in order to play - “Sunny Day.”
New York City Serenade
Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band
Madison Square Garden, 7 November 2009
The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle
The title of the record tells you the story: The Wild, The Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle. It is the story of Sandy, Kitty, Billy, Rosie, Spanish Johnny and Diamond Jackie. It is an album of epics. It is not an album of half-measures.
This is why there was both a full horn section and a string quartet onstage this evening. Walk tall, or don’t walk at all, as the song goes.
These were the songs you always wanted to hear, the big legends, a million words spilling out. It was an enormous album to wrap your head around the first time you heard it. It was equally enormous to sit there and take it all in as it was being played in front of you.
10/29 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
My review (which was briefly published here because I thought they weren’t going to use it) of the 10/29 E Street Band appearance at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 25th Anniversary shows is online now at brucespringsteen.net (under the DC review).
I long for the day they get a website with actual pages.
elsewhere