hotflatrock

[hotflatrock]

The Cult at Mountain Winery

Freshman year, four of us would gather regularly and play video golf on a PC. My buddy Mike was in charge of the setting up the games, typically giving everyone crazy nicknames very loosely based on our first or last names. He was also in charge of music for these gatherings. Sometimes, he would un-tune a nearby guitar to make it sound more like a bass. And other times, he would break out his alt-rock collection to play us something that would not get much play on the radio.

One of these sessions, he put on Electric by The Cult. As his taped recording moved from static hiss to the crunchy, staccato opening guitar licks of Wild Flower, I was immediately enraptured. I’d never heard the song, never heard of The Cult, but the guitar lick grabbed me by the nuts and didn’t let go. I immediately ripped a copy of their Electric and Love albums, which quickly became the soundtracks for those times when I was angry, hyper, or aggressive.

I didn’t sign up for the Cult concert when I first found out it would happen. It was actually Berlin that forced me to a decision as Teri Nunn’s joyful rendition of She Sells Sanctury as she waded into the audience pushed me over the edge.

I’ll give The Cult credit. Among all the nostalgia acts I have seen this year, Ian Astbury is probably in the best voice of all the original singers. The band sounded really good and Astbury’s voice remained strong and powerful. His disdain for his audience and his tambourines also stood out. Astbury took time out to malign the Tesla drivers in the crowd, as well as the cell phone toting members more interested in capturing the show for posterity than getting lost in the music. As for the tambourines, he went through a dozen of them during the show, snapping them over his knee when they disappointed him somehow, or tossing them into the audience for a surprise souvenir for someone.

My lust for Wild Flower has dissipated a bit over the years, as has my interest in Electric. The rawness of that album faded over time, and I decided Love was a more interesting and cohesive listening experience. As such, I was more interested hearing the Love songs: Rain was a high point and She Sells Sanctuary, the main set closer, lived up to expectation. I enjoyed seeing the Electric songs – Wild Flower, Love Removal Machine, and L’il Devil. Oddly, they didn’t play Fire Woman from the Sonic Temple album.

I thought about Mike a lot during the 90-minute set. I haven’t seen him in over 30 years, but the nickname he gave me that day lives on to this day, as does my love of the Cult, particularly when I get riled up.

[hotflatrock]

Oingo Boingo Former Members at Mountain Winery

With rare exception, I do not dance. It’s not that a dislike dancing, quite the contrary. But I feel extraordinarily self-conscious while doing it.

The exceptions?

I took an east coast swing class in the 90s for kicks, and I can’t even begin to describe how much fun that was, and how it informed any public dancing I did over the next 20 years.

Otherwise, it is entirely dependent on the music being played. For some reason, Will Smith’s Getting Jiggy With It was known as my song, and the ham in me could not let me audience down. And prior to that, my singular dance song was Dead Man’s Party by Oingo Boingo.

Freshman year, I went on a bay cruise with some classmates. The woman I was seeing at the time wanted to dance, and I was the right combination of drunk and seasick to agree to it. I could say I cut a rug, or maybe I did the white man’s overbite, but either way, that became my first “force him out on the dance floor” song.

I wasn’t an LA kid, so I was not aware of their legendary reputation of their live shows, so it never occurred to me to see them in person. With Danny Elfman gone and the remaining members touring as Oingo Boingo Former Members, this show seemed like the best opportunity to get a peep at their former greatness.

Before the main act took the stage, there were 3 opening acts. The Untouchables gave us a fun opening set of ska music, with a toastmaster who was wearing a toga for some reason. Dramarama came next, looking like motorcycle band with a Google project manager at guitar, and pumped out a short set of fun but unfamiliar rock songs before unleashing their big hit, Anything Anything. Closing the preshow were the Tubes, who unleashed a simply awful set of music. The lead singer’s voice is completely shot, unable to hit high or low notes, or even to stay on tune in the middle. Mercifully, the set was short, just long enough for us to research what an innovative and groundbreaking band the Tubes were 45 years ago, while enduring how awful they are now. Oingo Boingo Former Members could not come on soon enough.

One thing that never occurred to me before seeing them live is that Oingo Boingo is a ska band. Full stop. I went to a lot of ska shows in the 90s and listened to a fair amount of ska music, and Oingo Boingo is as ska as most of the bands I saw. I don’t know how I never recognized that about them before. Perhaps because I started paying attention seriously to them in the era when they were changing their name (to Boingo) and sound (to more rock).

Their current lead singer, Brendan McCreary, is kind of incredible. He does Danny Elfman’s songs justice, embodying the infectious joy and slight malevolence of the music. The guy can wail, holding powerful notes for an impressive amount of time.

The rest of the band seemed to take some time to warm up. They seemed stiff and immobile for the first half of the concert. But after their playful rendition of Halloween staple Monster Mash, everything seemed to loosen up. Not My Slave, We Close Our Eyes, and Dead Man’s Party were clear winners, a joy to watch with the audience pogoing away at their seats. No One Lives Forever particularly stood out in the back half of the set, a testament to the band’s power and fun.

Yes, I needed to get up and move around too. But the biggest endorsement of the night was the fact that I wanted to listen to more Oingo Boingo music on the way home from the show, the first time I have done that during the Year of the Concert.

[hotflatrock]

No Go on Michelle Branch at the UC Theatre

October is the most relentless month of the Year of the Concert, with 11 concerts booked for the first 23 days of the month, with a play thrown in for good measure. Michelle Branch marks the mid point of that aggressive schedule. And I just couldn’t do it.

I had my Covid booster a day earlier. 24 hours after the shot, I felt exhausted and little lightheaded. After a day of unsatisfying napping, I had to make the call for forgo the show. This was destined to be my old standing-room only club experience of the year, and I simply didn’t feel up to it.

Michelle Branch was never someone who meant a lot to me. A co-worker somehow had an advanced copy of what would become her Spirit Room album. I thought several songs were catchy, and the catchiest one wound up getting featured a year or so later in the second American Pie movie. I always thought the pairing of her music with that movie was tonally odd, seemingly at odds with her aesthetic. But I can’t fault anyone for making a buck when the option presents itself.

Anyway, a full night’s sleep was just what the doctor ordered, as I felt great the next day, ready to get back on the horse.

[hotflatrock]

Peter Gabriel at Chase Center

The Peter Gabriel concert was one of my tentpole events for the season. Long a part of my life and listening, Gabriel is the only act in the Year of the Concert that I have seen before. As my concert season began with lots of unknowns, the Gabriel show was saddled with expectation that he would deliver a high point no matter what the rest of the year may deliver. And with lofty expectations, comes a lot of dread that the concert could not live up.

Gabriel has provided the soundtrack to my life, an omnipresent entity from junior high to the present. I remember first hearing Shock the Monkey on the radio in junior high, rushing to school to talk with my friends about this spectacularly weird new song. I vividly recall my first girlfriend in college, gleefully playing Games Without Frontiers for me for the time. I fondly reminisce on the first time I heard the album Us, as KFOG decided to play the entire album on the air, as I drove around aimlessly, making sure not to miss a second. I remember devilishly questioning an Adidas marketing flack about their use of the Passion soundtrack for a shoe commercial, pondering aloud how they chose the (fantastic) soundtrack of a reviled movie to hawk their running shoes. And, of course, the media tie-ins are legendary: John Cusack with the boom box in Say Anything, Nicholas Cage pining away to I Grieve in City of Angels.

A top-5 artist all time for me, Gabriel even went to far as to redeem and restore my love for Sting and the Police. My first several attempts to see Sting in person were fraught with disappointment and boredom, but the concert collaboration with Gabriel in 2016 was wonderful, as Sting seemed much more interested in singing Gabriel’s classic hits, while Gabriel reinvigorated the Police standards at the same time.

And it is against this backdrop of love and expectation that I wandered into the Chase Center to see this icon perform live once again. I knew he was featuring a new album for this show, which led to some nerves, as I had not yet sampled this work. Rightfully so, as the new work made up about 2/3 of the songs played during the show.

The show started off strong, with his band gathered around a simulated campfire for an intimate performance of At Night, they quickly spread thereafter into a larger stage that quickly dissolved any sense of intimacy. What became apparent quickly was that Gabriel was more interested in art and artifice than in entertainment. Gabriel was completely preachy throughout the night, warning against the dangers of Artificial Intelligence and climate change, while extolling peace.

Make no doubt, the show was visually spectacular. A multi-screen display showed multiple shadowy images of Gabriel in various poses, an effect that seemed more Michael Jackson than Peter Gabriel. Short movies punctuated Gabriel’s periodic sermons with visual backdrops to unfamiliar new songs.

I’ve read some reviews saying that the show was electric, mesmerizing, and entrancing. I would argue the opposite, the audience was fruitlessly waiting to have an opportunity to explode.  Instead, the half-empty audience gave polite applause to every song, while Gabriel’s sermons would occasionally be punctuated by a lone voice yelling, “We love you, Peter,” which would sing out clearly through the otherwise dead silence.

Gabriel cautiously trickled out classic songs. Only 3 of the 10 songs from the first set were from older albums, with the first set closer Sledgehammer the only one that could be considered a hit. The second set continued the trend. Only at the midway point of set 2 did Gabriel start giving the audience the consistent hits they craved, closing with Red Rain, Big Time and Solsbury Hill among the final five songs. Solsbury Hill, a perfect pop song if ever there was one, finally gave the audience their first opportunity to release into rapture, but then the band bowed and walked off the stage. Two single-song encores followed, with a delightful performance of In Your Eyes, and a riveting and searing version of Biko that slow-played its way to the end in a way that seared itself in memory.

The show did not live up to expectations, but expectations were astronomical. I look forward to listening to the new album I/O and considering it on its own merits and maybe growing to love it like many other Gabriel albums. But the show itself will only stand out as disappointment, delivering lots of pretty imagery, plenty to feel guilty about, and few visceral thrills.

[hotflatrock]

Death Cab For Cutie and Postal Service at the Greek Theatre (plus the Beths!)

I think my musical taste ossified in 2002. During my time in Berkeley, I think I was a pretty adventurous listener. But by 2002, I had left Berkeley both personally and professionally, I no longer had roommates, and I started a huge project to rip all the CDs that I owned as well as those owned by my new girlfriend/future wife. I wasn’t driving much, so radio time was limited, and I was not exposed to other people’s music collections – save for my wife’s country and boy-band forward assortment – and I doubled down on the music that I already owned.

At the time, Sleater Kinney was by far my favorite band. Even though they stopped producing new music for almost a decade, they remained my favorite until I discovered the Civil Wars, which imploded soon thereafter. And the position of favorite band remained empty ever since.

During these arid years, I missed a lot, including the rise of both Death Cab for Cutie and Postal Service. While I was aware of Death Cab – as I bought a copy of Soul Meets Body from iTunes at some point – I had never heard of Postal Service until I started considering buying tickets to this concert. I was didn’t know a lick of either of the 20-year old albums to be revisited at the show.

So I walked into the Greek Theatre with a much different mindset from everyone else. The packed crowd hung on every song from both of Ben Gibbard’s legendary bands, experienced ecstasy from the opening licks of favorite song that was the soundtrack to loves, breakups, or hang-out sessions from their youth. Meanwhile, I got to hear both albums for the first time, taking my joy not from memory, but from discovery.

Gibbard was a revelation. Twitchy, thoroughly engaged in the moment, and extremely talented, Gibbard owned the stage for 2 ½ hours. A stark counterpoint to the dull stillness I experienced at the Psychedelic Furs concert days before, Gibbard constantly prowled the stage, creating touch points with every member of both bands, even taking over as drummer for a few songs during the Postal Service set.

Dressed in all black for their set as Death Cab for Cutie, the band celebrated the 20th anniversary of their Transatlanticiscm album. It turns out that I knew one song from the album, Sounds of Settling, which I suspect I heard a lot from one of those Tap Tap games that used to be so prevalent on the iPhone 15 years ago. But Title and Registration was my hands down winner for the evening, as the guitar hook was both new and nostalgically familiar at the same time. On the whole, I enjoyed the set, but found the up and down, fast and slow alternations of the album made it hard to get into a pure groove to enjoy the music at its fullest.

After a short break, the band returned dressed all in white to finish their set as Postal Service, celebrating 20 years of Give Up. And it was with Postal Service that I was able to fully meld with the show, as I found that album to provide a much more cohesive, consistent flow for a concert. Even better, they closed their set with a cover of Depeche Mode’s Enjoy The Silence, an all time personal favorite and my new favorite closing song of all time.

If have found the Year of Concert has, every so slightly, started expanding my music tastes once again around the edges. Most of the acts I attend are ancient, but there have been a laundry list of largely unfamiliar opening acts that I have quite enjoyed – Chuck Prophet, KT Tunstall, and David Luning in particular. In that vein, I want to give a special shout out to the opening act for the evening, a band called The Beths from New Zealand. Their 7-song set was an absolute revelation, firing the audience up appropriately to enjoy the rest of the amazing evening.

I am sure that most people walked out of the Greek Theatre that night, awash in nostalgia for their music heyday 20 years ago. On the other hand, amazingly, I found in the Beths, a new candidate to fill the long dormant favorite band slot in my life. Time will tell, but I think we have an unexpected winner.

[hotflatrock]

Ann Wilson and Tripsitter at Mountain Winery

Mountain Winery has a Loyalty Club. Once you buy tickets to 4 shows, you automatically join the club, which occasionally offers free tickets to various shows that are not selling extremely well. Earlier in the year, I took advantage of the Club to see a Mozart recital, and this time, I decided to take advantage of another offer to see Ann Wilson and Tripsitter, with opening act KT Tunstall.

I have no history with Ann Wilson. I never made it a point to listen to Heart, only running across their music first on MTV in the 80’s, with their What About Love and Alone being songs that I would tolerate but never really pay attention to. Later, I became aware of their more interesting 70’s songs, but not enough to ever seek them out. But I did learn at that point about what a powerful voice Wilson has, and that was what drove my interest in attending the show.

Opening act KT Tunstall was even less familiar. Going in, I figured I would recognize one or two of her songs at best, which turns out to be the truth. But I didn’t expect how much I would enjoy her show. Standing alone on stage, with a guitar in hand and a sampling machine providing all the backing music she would need, Tunstall unleashed a rousing, fun, hilarious performance. She peppered the set with a couple of her own familiar songs (Black Horse and the Cherry Tree and Suddenly I See), a nostalgic cover of Tom Petty’s Won’t Back Down, and numerous tales about her life in the music industry and her tours around the world. The set was a wonderful surprise, and I would happily see her again in her own longer showcase, if the opportunity ever arises.

Ann Wilson and Tripsitter followed up, delivering about what I hoped. Heart songs represented about 40% of the set, half unfamiliar things (presumably Tripsitter songs), with a couple covers (of John Lennon and Led Zeppelin songs) thrown in for good measure. Wilson, seems so frail on stage, moving slowly and often sitting for extended periods. And then, on cue, her majestic voice would beautifully belt out some classics, like Love Alive, Crazy on You, and set closer Barracuda.

No history? No context to pontificate about here? No problem. The show was just fun. Sometimes that is enough.

[hotflatrock]

Psychedelic Furs and Squeeze at Mountain Winery

Psychedelic Furs with Squeeze is one of those shows where I walked in knowing I was there for the opening act, not for the headliner. For me, Squeeze is one of those Greatest Hits wonders, as Singles: 45 and Under was a frequent listen in my college days and often enough in the years since. While I never bought or heard any of their studio albums, I was extraordinarily attuned to the twelve songs on Singles,absolutelyloving 9 of the 12. The Furs, on the other hand, were familiar only from radio and movies.

Squeeze came out slinging, grabbing attention immediately with Take Me I’m Yours, just the same way they do on Singles. My buddy, who probably introduced me to Squeeze back in the day, was stunned that they would come out of the gate with such a strong number. But it set the tone for what turned out to be a fantastic 85 minutes.

The high point was a mind-blowing version of Slap and Tickle about 2/3 of the way through the set, a fantastic combination of lighting, creative solo spotlights, and good old-fashioned musicianship. 

The low point, unfortunately, was during Annie Get Your Gun, when lead singer Glenn Tilbrook’s voice broke, which unfortunately dragged Pulling Mussels (From The Shell) down a little as well. His voice recovered a bit while Chris Difford sang Cool For Cats, allowing the band to close with fairly strong versions of Black Coffee in Bed and Is That Love.

The Psychedelic Furs came out 15 minutes later and put on an incredibly flat performance. Lead singer Richard Butler could not make up for the absolute stillness and bored looks that came from the guitarist, bassist, and keyboardist. The bassist actually wandered around the crowd for a while during one song, as if he needed to get some steps in before the hour was out. He barely stopped to interact with the audience at all, which was par for the course for the band, who barely every acknowledged each other through the yawn-inducing 75 minutes.

About halfway through the set, my buddy and I started wondering just how many Furs songs we knew. 2? Maybe 3? We got to three with Pretty In Pink, which they played 2/3 of the way through the set. At that point, large chunks of the crowd fled for the exit. We stayed until the end, where the Furs brought my count up to 5, with Love My Way and Heartbreak Beat closing out the show on a relatively high note, compared to the dreary performance to that point.

I guess Squeeze and the Psychedelic Furs take turns being headliners on this tour, but let’s be clear. No matter who is opening, Squeeze puts on a better show: longer time, more songs, more energy, and a better lasting impression. It’s what we were there for, and we got what we wanted. We didn’t even have to wait to get it.

[hotflatrock]

Pat Benetar and Neil Giraldo at Mountain Winery

I first started paying attention to new popular music in 5th grade. I do not recall that we had a full stereo setup that year, and instead I had to make do listening to a small single speaker radio in my bedroom, always tuned to Bay Area radiostation KFRC. Not satisfied to just wait for whatever song held my fancy at the time, I sat by the radio with a bulky tape deck, trying to capture a favorite song to tape.

Among my favorites of the day were Private Eyes and Kiss On My List by Hall and Oates, Physical by Olivia Newton John, Whip It by Devo, and Hit Me With Your Best Shot by Pat Benetar. I would spend hours lying on the floor in front of my radio, at the ready to quickly to hit record when my stalked prey came into view. And there was nothing more frustrating than to lay in wait all that time, only to have the capture thwarted by a DJ (Doctor Donald D. Rose, anyone?) that insisted on talking all the way through the intro of the song.

Years later, I found a handful of these terrible tapes, and it was apparent that, sometimes, I would not settle for a recording from the radio. Instead, I found the embarrassing evidence that I would record myself singing one of my favorites into the microphone. I can’t even begin to describe how cringey it is to hear 10-year-old me off-tune croaking my way through Hit Me With Your Best Shot. Ugh.

Walking into Mountain Winery, I was fully expected to be immersed in the memory of my awful crooning, but first I would have to suffer through the opening act, John Waite. I had been loathing the idea of sitting through his set, as I have long hated his music. Or so I thought. Once he started playing, and I realized how much I was enjoying it, it suddenly became clear that the act that I hate is actually Tom Waits, and I could not remember anything about John Waite.  Mid-set, he broke into Missing You, and it all came back to me. All the worry was for naught, because Waite was great. Whoops.

Pat Benetar was amazing from the jump. It’s incredible how many bangers she put out in a 5-year span in the 80’s. All Fired Up, Sex as a Weapon, We Belong, and Shadows of the Night were all crowd pleasing. Benetar sounded really good and Neil Giraldo is a heck of a guitar player. What Benetar did not deliver, however, was the stark reminder of my terrible singing. It turns out that she has stopped performing Hit Me With Your Best Shot, as she feels it is inappropriate in light of the modern scourge of gun violence in America.

I have to admit, I was a little broken-hearted to learn that this all-time favorite has been cancelled, but not enough for me to make do with my own version of it.

[hotflatrock]

Steve Miller Band at Greek Theater

Things are different now with all the streaming services, but in my day music came to me in distinct ways. Some bands put out incredible albums that I would play endlessly after finding them at one of Berkeley’s glorious music stores. Other bands put out catchy singles that I heard on the radio or on MTV. Every now and then, I might learn of a band live, typically opening for someone else or headlining at a small club. Rarer still, there are a handful of awesome bands I only knew about through Greatest Hits albums, typically owned by a roommate or relative, that eventually worked its way into my collection.

For bands that I knew through studio albums or radio play, I had no interest in greatest hits albums. I have the real thing. But if the band’s hey day was years before I was paying attention, a greatest hits album is the only context I might have for the band.

I consider a few of these as defining Greatest Hits albums: 1962-1966 (Red Album) by the Beatles; Hot Rocks by the Rolling Stones; The Best of the Doors; Simon & Garfunkel’s Greatest Hits; and Steve Miller Band Greatest Hits 1974-78. I still own all these CDs, with the music ripped to my Plex server, and long ago uploaded to my streaming service of choice. My mom had that Beatles album, which was among the albums on which I learned how to use a turntable. The Stones and Doors were remnants of my classic rock phase in high school, driven by their music being featured on TV or a movie. Simon & Garfunkel and Steve Miller came to me in college.

Over time, I explored studio albums by the Beatles, Stones, and the Doors. How could I not? They are amazing in their own right, although I still return to Hot Rocks more than I would to Exile on Main Street. But Simon & Garkfunkel and Steve Miller? I don’t think I have ever listened to a studio album by either of them. I never knew anyone who owned a studio album. So they are the only bands that remain only as my Greatest Hits wonders. I could listen to their compilation albums any time, yet I have zero interest in knowing them more.

If Steve Miller were playing anywhere else, I probably would not have gone. But I love the Greek Theater, it’s a short drive from my house, and I know lots of secrets to unlock parking in Berkeley. And I knew that it would be a greatest hits concert, so off to Ticketmaster I went.

I loved Miller’s old timey touches. No digital signage or video backgrounds for him, instead opting for giant tapestries featuring old album covers. Miller immediately lets you know a couple things about him: he is a pretty unassuming guy for a rock star and he is a hell of a guitar player. Swingtown, True Fine Love, Space Cowboy, Jungle Love, Take The Money and Run, and the Joker all lived up to their Greatest Hits glory and satisfied the audience.

My all-time favorite Steve Miller tune, Jet Airplane, was a different story.  When Miller cranked it out mid-set, I thought the whole band was a beat slower than what I wanted. Basically, it was what I wanted but not how I wanted it. And then 15 minutes later, they played it again, this time a remixed, much slower version. I don’t think I have ever seen a band do the same song twice in the same show. It was weird, but appreciated, because the way too slow version was different and interesting, while the first slightly-too-slow version was just slow.

The concert was enjoyable, but probably will get lost among all the other shows I will see this year. But maybe the next time I start streaming Steve Miller Band Greatest Hits 1974-78 and I see the cover art on my phone, I’ll remember back to that time I saw most of the Greatest Hits album performed live with some wall art.

[hotflatrock]

English Beat at the Mystic Theatre

Ska was not something that I was exposed to as a youngster. Our House by Madness is probably the closest I came to the sound and the scene. By mid-college, however, I had one friend that loved Ska and loved going to live shows.

I remember my first Ska show was at the Bear’s Lair in the student union at the UC campus. In my memory, the show was Dance Hall Crashers and Skankin’ Pickle, two bands that I quickly grew to love and see many times over the course of three years. A little internet research bursts that memory, however, as the show was probably the Crashers and Let’s Go Bowling.

Dance Hall Crashers were amazing, with their infectious back and forth wordplay immediately capturing my attention and my heart. Given that Let’s Go Bowling got replaced in the memory by a band that wasn’t even there speaks volumes about my interest in their music. In fact, my biggest memory from their set was my fist-first introduction into the Ska-hall dance scene, as a pogo-ing bald guy in flight jacket suddenly transitioned from jumping to swinging fists, without provocation.

Away from the clubs, however, it was English Beat that got the most play. I played Mirror in the Bathroom on a loop, and I Just Can’t Stop It was always at the top of my stack of CDs, ready for another spin.

 We haunted Slim’s, Berkeley Square, and the Bear’s Lair to see ska shows. I estimate that I saw Dance Hall Crashers and Skankin’ Pickle 3 times each, along with some Fishbone, and various small time bands. But I never saw the English Beat in person. I don’t remember passing up a chance to see them, and pre-internet, it’s quite possible they came and went without me noticing an ad in the pink pages of the Chronicle.

I won’t even pretend I understood the relationship between the Beat, English Beat, General Public, and the International Beat until this year, if I’m honest. I knew the lead singer of English Beat was the same guy who did that song from the Clueless closing credits, but that’s about it. But when I finally saw Dave Wakeling using the name General Public for 3 songs at Mountain Winery at the Lost 80’s Live show, my old love from Ska shows suddenly reappeared, after 20 years of dormancy. Even though General Public didn’t really do Ska as I remembered it, there was definitely a Ska band up there on stage.

When I got home that night, I looked up the English Beat and found they are always playing around the Bay Area. And I bought in immediately.

The Mystic in Petaluma is the first club I’ve visited for a show this year, and man is it a stark difference from all the concert pavilions I’ve gone to first my first 15 shows. The sound system sucked, you could barely make out the voices over the murky base. It was hot. It was full of old people dancing. And it was glorious.

Wakeling fronted the same delightful ska band, this time as English Beat. As before, Antonee First Class handled toasting. I never had the live Rankin’ Roger experience, so I didn’t miss anything. Wakeling started off sounding fine, but his voice was shredded by the end of the show. I was a little surprised he made it to the end of Mirror in the Bathroom in one piece. At the close of the show, Wakeling left the stage, with the band and toastmaster continuing on for another 10 minutes. Maybe that is the normal routine, or maybe he just needed an early break.

Nonetheless, I loved it. I got sweaty. And thankfully, I didn’t have to dodge any punches.

[hotflatrock]

Kansas at Golden Gate Theater

Back in the 90s, Berkeley was a music wonderland. As a kid from the suburbs that was only exposed to single Warehouse or Sam Goody stores in strip malls that would take an hour to walk to, I was stunned to discover the extensive array of record store options available to me in college. South of campus, you could find Rasputin’s, Tower Records, and Leopolds all within a block of each other, each with massive selections of an eclectic array of music. And that was a couple years before Amoeba Records came to the area and ramped up the selection even more.

The hours… days… spent rifling through bins of used CDs would come in later years. Freshman year, though, I was still buying tapes.

Freshman year in the dorms was wonderous, gaining exposure to everyone’s music collections at once. Tons of new (to me) music packed into a single hall, with everyone willing to loan for a quick dub using anyone’s stereo that had two tape decks. And we all had two tape decks.

Other songs came to me via the radio. I was a KFOG man at the time, at the tail end of my Classic Rock salad days that started towards the end of high school. Most of what KFOG would play was already familiar, but every now and then, some mind-blowing track would force its way out of the dust and the weeds and thoroughly wrest my attention.

Carry On My Wayward Son was one of those tracks. I knew it was by Kansas but had no idea what other song Kansas played. No one in my dorms had an album to steal. Cassette singles were not a thing that readily available, and I was not going to plunk down cash for a full album for a single song. MP3 were not even a pipe dream at that point, still 10 years away from being a thing.

I found my solution in a strange machine at Tower Records, the likes of which I had never seen before… or since. It was part jukebox - containing a huge catalog of songs - and part dubbing station. Basically, you pick 10 or 15 songs out of a catalog, plunk down a couple bucks per song, and it would press a tape for you of your selections. I can’t remember if it spit the tape out within an hour, or whether I had to come back for it another day. What I do remember is that I created a 7-song compilation album of completely mismatched songs, with the lovely title of Confused Shit.

Carry On My Wayward Son was the clear winner of the Shit.

Flash forward 3 decades and I can name precisely 1 other Kansas song (Dust in the Wind), and I can recognize one other song as a Kansas song, although I can not name it. Let’s face it, seeing Kansas was a total lark, a decision the wife made months before we started Year of the Concert in earnest. It weighed down our calendar like an anchor, tethering us to the date as other more appealing concerts appeared as conflicts. But we stuck with it, and it was OK.

I’ve never been a big fan of 70s prog rock bands. The music is bombastic, a progenitor of 80s hair bands that I never really cottoned to.  Mentally, I lump them together with other 70s bands that I never took a liking to: Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, or Black Sabbath, for instance. What I can say honestly, however, is that the concert was fucking loud. It was the first show in this glorious concert binge that I felt might have damaged by hearing.

The guitarist, an original band member, never once looked up, instead spending almost 2 hours staring at his feet or his pedals. The fiddler was fun. The lead singer was solid. They played the unnamed song early, Dust in the Wind in the middle, and Carry on My Wayward Son at the end.

I’m probably not going to remember this one much in a few years, as it fades into the background of all the fabulous things we will have seen. This post and the ringing sound in my ears will likely serve as the only reminder of the experience and of the Confused Shit generated by that mystery box at a record store.

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Rick Springfield at Mountain Winery

When I was really young, say under 10, I had no interest in popular music. I didn’t have a radio in my room, and my only real exposure to music was via my dad’s stereo and turntable. I had a few kiddie LPs, like Sesame Street and the Rescuer’s soundtrack, along with a Star Wars Electric Moog Orchestra album. Otherwise, I was allowed to listen to my parents’ albums. While their collection was mostly classical and therefore uninteresting, there were several Beatles albums, Peter Paul and Mary albums, along with a Don McLean album – all of which I still love to this day.

It wasn’t until after 6th grade was over, however, that I started to actually obtain my own LPs.  I had a paper route for a newspaer during 6th and part of 7th grade, so I had a little of my own money, and I needed an avenue to spend my hard-earned cash.

I only remember one record store in my vicinity in those days, a non-descript store across the street from Kaiser Hospital in Oakland. It was probably a Wherehouse Records, but I don’t remember for sure.

I started dipping my toe into music collection via compilation LPs from a company called K-Tel, who used to crank out numerous generic compilation albums a year. I remember having a couple of them, but while doing some research on what those albums were, I settled on there being three in total. Each was likely purchased for one or two songs that I knew I liked from the radio, but the rest of the stuff on the album obviously shaped my music interest for the next 40 years.

The first K-Tel purchase was Hit Express, released in the summer of 1982. Given the location of the record store and the timing of the purchase, it was probably acquired as a distraction after a hospital visits dealing with my second broken arm. I remember I broke my arm falling out of a tree on the same day that I saw Star Trek 2 – Wrath of Khan, which was released in June 1982, so the album was likely purchased when I was getting the cast removed.

The other two K-Tel albums, purchased over the following year, were Blast Off and Hit Explosion. Looking over the list of songs on those 3 albums, I can see the massively influential impact of those albums on my concert choices this year, as I have seen or will see seven different artists represented on those albums during the year, along with 3 more that I considered seeing but the timing didn’t work. Those seven artists are Flock of Seagulls, Kansas, Foreigner, Loverboy, Steve Miller Band, Pat Benetar, and the subject of this post: Rick Springfield.

The wife was massively excited about Rick Springfield, as he was a star on her favorite soap opera way back in the day, and she drove the bus on the acquisition of these tickets. Unfortunately, she had to back out at the last minute. As I tried to find someone to go with, I ran smack into a massive disinterest in seeing him live from my friends. One even challenged me to name 3 of Springfield’s songs, which I was able to do… barely. As I could find no one else interested in attending, I went stag.

The opening acts were Tommy Tutone and the Hooters. Tutone’s set was what you would expect. 867-5309 Jenny plus 4 unrecognizable songs. The Hooters, on the other hand, were a revelation. Performing in Santa Clara County for the first time since 1990 (“We go where we are wanted,”) their 10-song set was a tight and wonderful way to spend an hour. Prior to the show, I couldn’t remember what their famous song was (And We Danced), and I certainly had no idea that their members penned more famous songs performed by others, like Time After Time (performed famously by Cyndi Lauper) and One of Us (performed by Joan Osborne.) The whole set was a ton of fun, but what really struck me is how much I enjoy a band that can have multiple folks on guitar/bass/mandolin/etc, all lined up at the front of the stage, singing and playing in unison. I loved it when the Hooters did it, as I did when the Romantics had the same formation the week prior.

Rick Springfield, on the other hand, was pretty meh. He acknowledged he was battling allergies that day, and his voice confirmed it. Aside from that, the show felt pretty rote. Echoing the Counting Crows experience from earlier in the week, Springfield seemed to be raging against his own success, while continuing to milk it for every last drop. He spent a lot of time talking about the girls he used to pick up back in his day, or promoting the rum he produces with Sammy Hagar. He even had the audience sing Happy Birthday to him, even though his birthday was three weeks prior.

Early on, he joked that Jessie’s Girl had been dropped from the set, but of course saved it for the closing song, with an intro video montage containing the many times the song had been performed by others on screen. He made the startling choice to strip off his shirt to play the song. Credit where it’s due, he is an incredibly fit 74-year-old man, but he still has the crepey skin of a 74 year old man. I couldn’t stop thinking about Skeletor while this was going on.

He played most of his other big hits from back in the day. During Human Touch, he roamed around the audience, getting pawed by lots of ladies and fist bumped by the men. Of special note for me, of course, was his rendition of Love Is Alright Tonight, my first introduction to him from my first K-Tel album 41 years ago.

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Counting Crows at the Greek Theater

For a large chunk of my life, I was a writer, working for a variety of technology magazines. The nature of the medium, most of what I created was ephemeral, temporary, and quickly obsolete. My writing may have had a temporary impact on the subjects or the audience, but I am under no illusion that the effect, for most, was transitory. And as a result, there was rarely a need, nor a desire, to revisit that which I produced three months after creation.

With that in mind, the Counting Crows concert had me pondering the act of creation, but this time, the creation of something long lasting and impactful, and what it must be like to be asked to constantly revisit your old, even oldest creations, perhaps long after they lose meaning to the creator. The impetus for this ponder was Adam Duritz’s performance during the Counting Crows concert at the Greek Theater.

Throughout much of the show, Duritz seemed bored. He started their set lying casually on the drum riser, and when he arose, he often seemed subdued. He acknowledged the importance of the Greek Theater to him and some band mates, as they spent much time in Berkeley as a youths. Yet he rarely seemed to display his claimed excitement, or enthusiasm, for the songs he performed in this venue he loves.

His passions seem to rise a bit for fresher material – rearrangements of old songs that he has likely sung 10,000 times already. And his most enthused performance actually came as he stepped aside to be a backup singer for a collaboration between opening act Dashboard Confessional and the Crows.

His melancholy performance was a bit of a downer, given how excellent the rest of the Counting Crows sounded. The music was tight and beautiful, hampered only by the low wattage performance from the front man. Dispute Duritz’s lack of energy, the show was a lot of fun. Rain King was a particular highlight, and an extended acoustic portion of the show sparkled.

I loved Counting Crows in the August and Everything After time frame, 30 years ago. Mr. Jones, Round Here, and Rain King were played constantly by a few of my friends, and I even had Rain King as the backing music on my answering machine message for a few months. But the band’s impact amongst my group faded quickly. The Parking Lot song (which I only now learned is called Big Yellow Taxi) got lots of airplay, but never generated any conversation in my circles.

You can see the strain of many of the artists I have seen during my Year of the Concert, as they seethe against the audience’s demands to play their oldest material, content that shot them to stardom, and overshadows everything they have done since. Rick Springfield (subject of an upcoming post) joked that they removed Jessie’s Girl from the set, and Bono is famous for his disdain for U2’s former creations. Everyone has a new album, and no one cares.

It must be tough having your current creations compared unfavorably to your oldest work, but that oldest work paved the way for you to have an audience 30 years later. Without the youthful success, there probably wouldn’t be an option to be creating mature works in the present.  Epherma vs passionate notoriety seems like an easy choice.

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Lost 80's Live at Mountain Winery

I love First Wave on Sirius XM. Full stop.  It’s my default station in the car, and I listen to it often at home. The music makes me happy, makes me wistful, gives me great memories from my youth. But weirdly, I don’t remember being that in tune with the First Wave blend of music during my youth. The Police were my favorite band in the 80s, sure, but I spent a lot of the 80s listening to music from the 50s and 60s, along with common 80s pop and whatever played on MTV. So why the station reminds me of my youth is a bit of mystery.

When I saw the lineup for the Lost 80s Live show, I was all-in immediately.  The show featured Trans-X, Musical Youth, Shannon, Stacey Q, Animotion, Naked Eyes, Missing Persons, Wally Palmar (of the Romantics), General Public, Wang Chung, with closing by Flock of Seagulls. I even dragged the wife, who has no interest whatsoever in 80s alternative. We had a little quid pro quo date weekend. Lost 80s Live for me, some college football featuring her alma mater for her. It was a pretty great weekend.

On the whole, the bands sounded terrible. Many voices were shot, some relied too much on the backing track. And I loved every minute of it. The wife said she had rarely ever seen me so happy.

Trans-X was unfamiliar, and unworthy of comment. Musical Youth used the backing track of their youth voices for large parts of Pass the Dutchie. I had no idea who Shannon was, but then she belted out the anthemic Let The Music Play. By belted out, I mean she relied on the backing track while shimmying around in an age-inappropriate dress. Stacy Q played 1 more song than everyone else, while only having one recognizable song. Still dressed like a teeny bopper in a lacy skirt, she also let the backing track do a  lot of work for her.

I know this sounds like a lot of bitching, but it was fun. You simply can’t get sick of someone if they are out after three songs.

Things picked up with Animotion, who were a lot of fun and sounded pretty good. Obsession is definitely a song I liked in the 80s, and it was great to see it live. Naked Eyes’ Promises Promises and There’s Always Something There To Remind Me sounded awful, but had the crowd dancing nonetheless. Missing Persons Walking in LA also got the crowd moving, although I never cared for that song.

The next 2 acts were the high point for me.

From my youth, I remember liking The Romantics’ Talking In Your Sleep. In college, however, I fell in love with What I Like About You. There was an 80s alternative station in Washington DC in the early 90s that played a lot of music that filled the early 90s for me: 10,000 Maniacs, Kate Bush, Crowded House. One day, they played What I Like About You, at the time over a decade old, yet I had never heard it before. When I got back to Berkeley, I frequented the local record stores, scouring the bins for a copy of the album that contained that song. I never found it, however, so I had to resign myself to some commercials that leveraged the song, and then, eventually, with some random 80’s alternative collection CD that included it.

The Romantics’ guitar-heavy, three-song set was an absolute blast. Like the others before, the voices were raspy, but the music was on point and dynamic. What I Like About You came the closest, throughout the night, of tearing the joint apart. The crowd was into it, at full roar, and people were dancing in the aisles.

Dave Waikling and General Public were an exception for the evening, in that they sounded fantastic. Most of Waikling’s band were youngsters, on point and in tune with the music. And Waiklint himself sounded pretty damn good. Tenderness was a blast. I liked their set so much, I went home and bought English Beat tickets a few weeks hence.

Wang Chung remains stupid. I don’t understand the appeal of that band, but appeal to the crowd they did.

Flock of Seagulls closed the show. The band became a joke in the 90's based largely on their hair in the I Ran video. Adam Sandler probably started it in Wedding Singer, with the same gag rehashed in countless other movies and TV shows. I remember I Ran from back in the day, as one of the many songs on the various K-Tel albums I bought back then (more on K-tel in a future post). But First Wave has taught me that they weren’t a 1 hit wonder, but rather a 3 or 4 hit wonder. I Ran closed the show, but Wishing and Space Age Love Song are still fresh for me, putting a smile on my face, and a dance in my shoes.

My one complaint is that I only just discovered this amazing retro tour in 2023, now in its 21st year in existence. And the guy who coordinates the show kept complaining about how tired he was and how ready he was to stop putting on the show. I can only hope it was just talk from the end of a grueling tour. But if it is not, I will continue to turn to First Wave as I start my car for my joyful, wistful flashbacks to an undermined time.

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Chicago at Mountain Winery

Over a couple decades, I collected hundreds of tapes, and later CDs, from repetitive sign-ups for freebies and the extortionate follow-on purchases. Many of those acquisitions were intentional, and some were accidental because I forgot to return the evil monthly mailer.

One of the evil, unreturned mailers delivered me a Chicago album, one that I never bothered to learn the name of. Upon receipt, I gave it a try and found Peter Cetera to be an earnest, lovelorn sort, and I thought it was ok, nothing monumental. So it lived on in my in tape rack, as one of the least listened to albums in my burgeoning collection. And somehow, it stayed in my collection longer than any of the other tapes.

All the other original Columbia House tape purchases went away because they were played a lot and eventually warped or broke, while other loved albums were simply replaced with a CD. The Chicago tape, on the other hand, gathered a lot of dust for decades. When I moved in the mid-2000’s, I decided I no longer needed a tape deck, so all the remaining tapes, including Chicago, got tossed. This ended a 20+ year run.

Chicago is a really weird band. I figured out later that my tape was Chicago 17. The band was around for almost 20 years before I acquired that album, and their sound for the first 15 or so albums was so dramatically different than the Chicago with which I was familiar from 17. Nowadays, I like the earlier, horn-heavy sound much better than the drippy Cetera sound.

Well, Cetera is long gone, but 3 of the original band members are still at it, 46 years into the band’s existence. The show spanned 2 sets, for a satisfying 28 total songs. The horn-laden 1st set was a pleasure, albeit mostly of songs unfamiliar to me. I think the first song I recognized came 45 minutes into the show. The Cetera-less Cetera songs from 17 are spread throughout set 2, but they are not the focus, and not the show closers. A rousing rendition of 25 or 6 to 4 closed the two song encore, ending a pleasant evening.

It was not my favorite show for the year, but it was better than ok. Maybe for some reason, the memory will outlast the other shows 20 years from now. But, probably not.

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Foreigner at Shoreline

I was on the fence about this one for a long time. I never loved Foreigner, but their music was ever-present during my junior high and elementary school years, which could only tip the option up to a maybe. Learning that the opening band would be Loverboy probably worked against the odds. My hesitancy meant we passed up 2 different TIcketMaster sales that would have made the price more palatable. Thanks to the wife’s continued insistence on this one, we made a spot decision to buy tickets in person at the box office when went to Shoreline to see Sam Hunt, removing the TicketMaster fees from the equation.

My worry was largely that the whole concert would lean to the 80s hair band. I have never been a metal head, a few songs aside, and I was concerned that both bands would trend that way in person. What I had ultimately forgotten, however, was how many legendary hits Foreigner cranked out in their prime in the late seventies and early eighties.

Loverboy did trend towards the hair band ethos, and I didn’t love their set. I could only remember one song of theirs from back in the day, although ultimately three were recognized. What was a delight was the contrast between the Loverboy of today vs the Loverboy of yore. I spent most of the set texting people with sight gags from the show. I loved that the lead singer continues to wear a headband, as he did in the eighties, even if he no longer sported the tight leather pants for which he was known. They closed, as expected, with Working For The Weekend. I may have left before the song ends to get to the snack bar.

Foreigner brought the nostalgia, and damn the nostalgia was fun. I don’t have any major life moments or memories where Foreigner provides the soundtrack. But I do have a handful of mental GIFs. Learning BASIC in my first computer class, while listening to Juke Box Hero. Eating pepperoni pizza with my dad in a Round Table Pizza, while Waiting For a Girl Like You played on the jukebox. Nice memories, but nothing special.

What was surprising was the depth of their collection that they could crank out in concert. Out of the gate with four giant hits from back in the day: Double Vision, Head Games, Cold As Ice, and Waiting For A Girl Like You. That was followed by three I didn’t recognize, then they closed with another half dozen memorable, singable hits, interrupted by some extended drum and guitar solos. 10 memorable songs in 2 hours is a pretty respectable showing.

I haven’t been following their roster movement over the last 4 decades, but I was surprised with how spry the lead singer was. Wikipedia informed by that Lou Gramm left the band a couple decades ago, so the lead was now Kelly Hanson. Hanson was so good, so active, and so enthusiastic, he single-handedly removed by concern about seeing legacy bands with replacement lead singers. I’ve always been about the voice and the lyrics. Most of the time, drums, bass, and guitars are all replaceable, for me, but a different lead singer was a dealbreaker. But Hanson was great, which I guess makes sense, since he has been in the role for 20 years. But this change of heart opens me up to consider seeing a whole raft of loved bands that now have a different lead singer: Journey and INXS are the first to mind.

Despite all my hesitancy, the wife was right. It was a good time, one of the better concerts I have seen this year. Since it was purportedly Foreigner’s last tour, I am glad she pushed the agenda.

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Boy George and Culture Club at Concord Pavillion

We were having a tough time deciding whether to go to this concert. Given our aggressive goals and wide net we are casting for potential shows, there are numerous schedule conflicts we need to wade through. This concert conflicted with one of Bay Area shows by Belinda Carlisle. Personally, I have much greater fondness for the Go-Go’s than I do for Culture Club, but we were swayed by some ridiculously cheap, no-fee tickets from TicketMaster for the Boy George show. Also, we had just watched Belinda perform at some July 4 concert we recorded this summer, and frankly, she sounded terrible.

$20 all in is hard to pass up, so off to Concord we went.

Culture Club rose to prominence during my late elementary school, early junior high years. It was before my record buying days, and prior to MTV for me, so any exposure to them would have been through the radio only. While my memories of them are limited, I do have one clear remembrance of playing Q-Bert in a Togo’s, while Church of the Poison Mind played in the background. Why do I remember that??

A few days before the concert, we finally learned who the opening bands would be: Berlin and Howard Jones. This was fantastic news, as I still listen to both of their music much more often than I do Culture Club, through the ever-present First Wave SiriusXM station playing in my car.

This was my first time seeing a concert at Concord Pavilion and we misjudged the traffic getting into the facility. As a result, we were walking into the Pavilion during the first 3 songs by Berlin, which included personal favorites The Metro and No More Words. Yet, I got to my seat in time for Take My Breath Away, which I truly hate. Teri Nunn did give me one surprise, singing The Cult’s She Sells Sanctuary as she waded deep into the crowd. That was a stunning surprise, totally making up for my missing the opening, while also whetting my appetite to see The Cult later this year.

The crowd was pumped up after Berlin, ready to have a good time. There was a full-bodied singalong to the recorded track Don’t You Want Me by Human League. And Howard Jones’ music was perfect to keep the singalong going, as his songs are kind of anthemic, and definitely easy to sing along with whether or not you know the words. I have to admit, his set was a stunning success.  Three keyboards on stage, and keytar in hand, Howard Jones had the place buzzing at a full throated roar for almost an hour.

And then Boy George and Culture Club came out and the mood mellowed. Truth be told, I fell asleep for  a bit in the middle of the set. Nonetheless it was nice to hear I’ll Tumble For You, Karma Chameleon, and Do You Really Want To Hurt Me live – even if I greatly prefer the latter when covered by the Violent Femmes. And Church of the Poison Mind made me want to head straight to Togo’s for some old-fashioned roast beef goodness, even if Q-Bert is nowhere to be seen.