This new 3-DVD set consists of two shows by The Who.
Disc One is a performance of Tommy from a charity show in LA, one of two complete Tommy performances from the 1989 tour. The Who were in what I call their "Las Vegas" phase: a 15-piece band, including a horn section. Special guests for this show included Patti LaBelle, Phil Collins, Steve Winwood, Billy Idol and Elton John. This certainly isn’t the "classic" Who of yore. Townshend plays acoustic guitar throughout and the horns certainly add a new twist to the music. But there’s no question whatever their configuration that this is a group of excellent musicians clearly enjoying themselves. The musical highlight is John Enwhistle’s bass solo during Sparks.
Disc Two is a performance of Quadrophenia from a 1996 tour. Again another large band, this time augmented by a visual presentation and guests P.J. Proby as The Godfather and Billy Idol as Ace the Face. Again Townshend sticks mostly to the acoustic guitar and the band is in fine form. This time the musical highlight is John Entwistle’s bass solo on 5:15. (Okay, yes, you caught me. I’m a bass player.)
The third disc consists of the LA show’s second set and encore, an extended encore from the Quadrophenia show, and three songs from Giants Stadium from 1989. No big musical surprises here, except the Quadrophenia encore opens with an acoustic version of Won’t Get Fooled Again, and features a slightly reworked version of Who Are You.
Both the Tommy and Quadrophenia shows have a "visual commentary" track by Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend, both of which are excellent. Controlled by the "angle" button, you can turn the commentary on and Pete or Roger appear on the screen, commenting on the concert, the music, the story, or whatever strikes their fancy. A must-watch for Who fans.
The viewer is alerted to the start of these segments by a pinball flashing superimposed on the screen in the case of Tommy, or a mod target symbol in the case of Quadrophenia. The downside is that the commentary segments start and stop all the time during the performances, and the viewer is constantly distracted by large flashing round objects in the middle of the screen distracting from the concert. Why didn’t the DVD producers put a less distracting and smaller symbol in the corner of the screen that doesn’t interfere with the enjoyment of the concert to signal the beginning of a commentary segment? Beats me, I guess that’s why they make the big bucks. Note to Rhino Records: Never do that again.
Showing posts with label music reviews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label music reviews. Show all posts
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Thursday, June 07, 2007
The Transformed Man by William Shatner, and Mr. Spock's Music From Outer Space by Leonard Nimoy
These legendary albums, both recorded during the filming of the original Star Trek in the late 1960s, have been recently reissued on CD by Varese Sarabande Records. (Please don’t send them hate mail. They put out some good stuff, too.) It goes without saying that William Shatner’s versions of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” and “Mr. Tambourine Man” are the stuff that nightmares legends are made of (if John Lennon wasn’t already dead, listening to this would probably kill him), but when one listens to all of The Transformed Man, one gets the sense that Shatner is at least trying to make a statement of some kind. It’s a shame no one, probably including Shatner, knows just what the hell it is. Shatner recites some poetry and text pieces (including three Shakespeare pieces) against orchestral backdrops, which mysteriously segue into spoken-word versions of 1960s pop songs. Some of the text pieces are nearly effective, and the liner notes claim that the pieces are thematically linked. Yeah, right. But at least give Shatner credit for trying something different, and for not attempting to actually sing.
Leonard Nimoy, on the other hand, has no excuse. He does sing, and the results are even more excruciating than Shatner smarming his way through “It Was a Very Good Year.” Shatner’s album is at least funny (in the Ed Wood sense), whereas Nimoy’s album is just painful (in the Irwin Allen sense). His album consists of lame instrumentals, terrible readings, and actual singing (only in the strictest of definitions). While both albums are examples of commercialism at its most crass, Nimoy goes a step further than Shatner by prostituting the Spock character by his performing some truly hideous Spockian soliloquies. And sadly, although some bonus tracks are included, Nimoy's "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins" is does not appear in this collection of songs (and I'm using the word loosely).
If you, like me, are a fan of “it’s so bad, it’s good” stuff, then the Shatner CD is must. Nimoy’s is just painful.
Originally published by Under the Ozone Hole Number Fourteen – June, 1996
Monday, May 21, 2007
Alberta Reports - Edgefest Supplement
July 9, 1998
The job was easy: baby sit Ben at the Edmonton stop of Edgefest ’98. Bernie supplied me with a ticket and little else. But how hard could this be? I accompany a 13 year-old metal-head wannabe to the biggest rock festival of the summer. Easy as cake.
Held at Edmonton’s Commonwealth Stadium, Edgefest had two stages, the main stage and the smaller Bear stage, to supply nearly nine hours of continual music. The show started on time at one, a rare thing at rock concerts, under sunny skies. A woman offered me beer, weed, and eye drops. Ben ate too much candy.
Copyright was the sacrificial opening act on the small Bear stage. Bad songs, bad sound, bad band.
Bif Naked started the festivities on the main stage. A high energy, rocking act that pounded out fifty minutes of her hits, including “Spaceman,” and “Daddy’s Getting Married.” I almost bought her CDs. During her set, however, the rain started, and soon the enthusiastic crowd was a soggy, enthusiastic crowd.
Local Rabbits took the small stage and were eminently forgettable. The rain continued, and moved from drizzle into a full-blown rainstorm. There was one advantage – it turned Commonwealth Stadium into the world’s largest wet T-shirt contest.
Holly McNarland played a ragged, but enjoyable set on the big stage. She abandoned one song half-way through and promptly forgot the words to the next song, but she shrugged off the mistakes and carried on, much to the delight of the good-natured and thoroughly drenched crowd.
The Killjoys sounded okay, but I was eating pizza on the concourse. As the rain continued, the grounds, which were covered with tarps to protect the fields, allowed no run-off and huge puddles were forming. Even after the rains eventually stopped, the puddles plagued the popular pig skin palladium play field.
Econoline Crush stormed onto the big stage as the rain worsened. Crush, whose sound owes as much to U2 as to Nine Inch Nails, played a tight, grooving, energetic set. The first band to really get the joint rocking, Crush delivered the goods, including “All That You Are,” and “The Devil You Know.” The mosh pit was in full swing, and the rain ended as Crush took their bows. (I bought two of their CDs.)
Back on the Bear stage, the Matthew Good Band took over. Arguably the best band of the show, their set was criminally limited to a mere 20 minutes, but they made the most of their time, and the sunshine.
With the sun now blazing, Sloan wondered onto the main stage and played a loose set of power-pop nuggets. The between song patter was hysterical, and the band’s four-part harmony soaring. Quirky and off the wall, and well worth catching again.
Creed took control on the Bear stage, and I wish I had gone for more pizza. Instead I made a tally of mosh pit injuries: two broken arms, numerous bruises, cuts and bloody noses.
Next, the Foo Fighters commandeered the big stage. Wasting no time, they plowed into “Monkey Wrench,” and continued a great set that alternated between hard-edged grunge, cowboy song parodies, and the occasional ballad. Dave Grohl must have had an upset stomach as he kept belching into the microphone. (A good belch at 120 db is an impressive sound.) The highlight of the set was when Grohl dedicated a slow song to Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong, because “I love his ass.” Billie Joe then sauntered on stage and dropped his drawers so we could all admire his ass, too. Grohl, not to be outdone, changed the words of his song on the fly, and turned it into a love song about Billie Joe’s butt. Rock and roll is a vicious game....
The Watchmen, in the unenviable position of playing between Foo Fighters and Green Day, played a competent, if uninspiring set. The only memorable song was their current single, a great tune called, “My Life is a Stereo.”
Then came Green Day. The masters of post-modern neo-punk anthems did not disappoint. Billie Joe Armstrong strutted the stage like he owned it; cavorting wildly, yelling profanely, and dropping his pants again for good measure. The audience ate up his crazy antics like candy, and rocked, jumped and moshed its collective head off as Green Day crunched its way through its three-chord catalogue. A highlight was Billie Joe declaring himself, “the best fucking heavy fucking metal fucking guitarist in the fucking world,” and slipping into Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man,” then Metallica’s “Enter Sandman,” and even Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger,” before slashing out the opening riff of his own “Brain Stew.” To close the show, the drummer set his drum kit on fire, the bass player tossed his bass onto the pyre before knocking over a speaker tower as Green Day’s horn section (dressed up as a bee and a yellow pepper) played “Taps,” while all the while Billie Joe was crouched in front of his amps, calling on the gods of feedback to make us all deaf. Amazingly, he redeemed all this excess by sliding into the final song, the somber and reflective “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life).” If the name of the game was to entertain, then Green Day did just that, fully and completely.
Neither Ben nor I give a damn about The Tea Party, so we left.
We emerged unscathed, uninjured and with most of our hearing still intact. You can’t ask more than that, eh?
The job was easy: baby sit Ben at the Edmonton stop of Edgefest ’98. Bernie supplied me with a ticket and little else. But how hard could this be? I accompany a 13 year-old metal-head wannabe to the biggest rock festival of the summer. Easy as cake.
Held at Edmonton’s Commonwealth Stadium, Edgefest had two stages, the main stage and the smaller Bear stage, to supply nearly nine hours of continual music. The show started on time at one, a rare thing at rock concerts, under sunny skies. A woman offered me beer, weed, and eye drops. Ben ate too much candy.
Copyright was the sacrificial opening act on the small Bear stage. Bad songs, bad sound, bad band.
Bif Naked started the festivities on the main stage. A high energy, rocking act that pounded out fifty minutes of her hits, including “Spaceman,” and “Daddy’s Getting Married.” I almost bought her CDs. During her set, however, the rain started, and soon the enthusiastic crowd was a soggy, enthusiastic crowd.
Local Rabbits took the small stage and were eminently forgettable. The rain continued, and moved from drizzle into a full-blown rainstorm. There was one advantage – it turned Commonwealth Stadium into the world’s largest wet T-shirt contest.
Holly McNarland played a ragged, but enjoyable set on the big stage. She abandoned one song half-way through and promptly forgot the words to the next song, but she shrugged off the mistakes and carried on, much to the delight of the good-natured and thoroughly drenched crowd.
The Killjoys sounded okay, but I was eating pizza on the concourse. As the rain continued, the grounds, which were covered with tarps to protect the fields, allowed no run-off and huge puddles were forming. Even after the rains eventually stopped, the puddles plagued the popular pig skin palladium play field.
Econoline Crush stormed onto the big stage as the rain worsened. Crush, whose sound owes as much to U2 as to Nine Inch Nails, played a tight, grooving, energetic set. The first band to really get the joint rocking, Crush delivered the goods, including “All That You Are,” and “The Devil You Know.” The mosh pit was in full swing, and the rain ended as Crush took their bows. (I bought two of their CDs.)
Back on the Bear stage, the Matthew Good Band took over. Arguably the best band of the show, their set was criminally limited to a mere 20 minutes, but they made the most of their time, and the sunshine.
With the sun now blazing, Sloan wondered onto the main stage and played a loose set of power-pop nuggets. The between song patter was hysterical, and the band’s four-part harmony soaring. Quirky and off the wall, and well worth catching again.
Creed took control on the Bear stage, and I wish I had gone for more pizza. Instead I made a tally of mosh pit injuries: two broken arms, numerous bruises, cuts and bloody noses.
Next, the Foo Fighters commandeered the big stage. Wasting no time, they plowed into “Monkey Wrench,” and continued a great set that alternated between hard-edged grunge, cowboy song parodies, and the occasional ballad. Dave Grohl must have had an upset stomach as he kept belching into the microphone. (A good belch at 120 db is an impressive sound.) The highlight of the set was when Grohl dedicated a slow song to Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong, because “I love his ass.” Billie Joe then sauntered on stage and dropped his drawers so we could all admire his ass, too. Grohl, not to be outdone, changed the words of his song on the fly, and turned it into a love song about Billie Joe’s butt. Rock and roll is a vicious game....
The Watchmen, in the unenviable position of playing between Foo Fighters and Green Day, played a competent, if uninspiring set. The only memorable song was their current single, a great tune called, “My Life is a Stereo.”
Then came Green Day. The masters of post-modern neo-punk anthems did not disappoint. Billie Joe Armstrong strutted the stage like he owned it; cavorting wildly, yelling profanely, and dropping his pants again for good measure. The audience ate up his crazy antics like candy, and rocked, jumped and moshed its collective head off as Green Day crunched its way through its three-chord catalogue. A highlight was Billie Joe declaring himself, “the best fucking heavy fucking metal fucking guitarist in the fucking world,” and slipping into Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man,” then Metallica’s “Enter Sandman,” and even Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger,” before slashing out the opening riff of his own “Brain Stew.” To close the show, the drummer set his drum kit on fire, the bass player tossed his bass onto the pyre before knocking over a speaker tower as Green Day’s horn section (dressed up as a bee and a yellow pepper) played “Taps,” while all the while Billie Joe was crouched in front of his amps, calling on the gods of feedback to make us all deaf. Amazingly, he redeemed all this excess by sliding into the final song, the somber and reflective “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life).” If the name of the game was to entertain, then Green Day did just that, fully and completely.
Neither Ben nor I give a damn about The Tea Party, so we left.
We emerged unscathed, uninjured and with most of our hearing still intact. You can’t ask more than that, eh?
Thursday, November 02, 2006
The Wh o- Endless Wire
This week, I did something that I haven’t done in 24 years – I bought a new studio album by The Who. Recorded in fits and starts over the last four years, Endless Wire could have been an embarrassment, a lacklustre last kick at the can. Thankfully, it’s not, but neither is it a grand triumph either. It’s as good as the sum of its parts, it’s just that some of the parts seem to be missing.
The most obvious missing parts are The Who’s late and lamented rhythm section. With bassist John Entwistle four years gone and drummer Keith Moon’s death approaching its 30th anniversary, the survivors (guitarist and songwriter Pete Townshend and singer Roger Daltrey) have done away with the bass and drums altogether on some songs, offering a mix of acoustic numbers and mid-tempo rockers, followed by a ten-song mini-opera, Wire and Glass.
The album opens with Fragments, which starts with a deliberate re-stating of the famous Baba O’Riley synth riff, placing this album clearly in the pantheon of Townshend’s work associated with his early 1970s Lifehouse project, his aborted follow-up to Tommy that has driven much of his work since, including Who’s Next, Psychoderelict, and The Boy Who Heard Music. When the song starts and the band kicks in, we are in true Who heaven, glorious Townshend backing vocals supporting Daltrey’s unearthly growl. It must be noted that while Daltrey’s voice live has certainly lost its punch over the years, he lets it all out on this set of songs, sounding almost as good as ever.
Next up is one of those acoustic numbers, Man in a Purple Dress, a scathing indictment of organized religion, followed by one of those mid-tempo rockers (and one of my favourite tracks) Mike Post Theme. Next comes In the Ether, a solo by Townshend where he affects his best Tom Waits impression. Townshend thinks this is one of the best songs he’s ever written. Daltrey thinks it’s crap. The truth is somewhere in between.
Townshend’s tendency to pray in public continues with the songs Two Thousand Years and You Stand By Me, while It’s Not Enough is a great, glossy rocker.
Then comes the mini-opera. In some ways, Wire and Glass is disappointing not so much for what it is, but what it could have been. The plot, such as can be discerned, involves three kids who form a band, post their song on the “endless wire” (a concept that dates back to Townshend’s Lifehouse in the ‘70s and predates the Internet), have a big hit, and then the band falls apart. Somehow the character of Ray High from Townshend’s 1993 solo album Psychoderelict figures in this, too.
The good news is that the songs in the opera are terrific, great little hook-filled nuggets. The bad news is that they are only nuggets. Most of the opera’s songs are only 90 seconds to two minutes long, and end just as they get going. And that’s such a shame because so many of them are so darn good. Extended versions of two of the best, We’ve Got a Hit and Endless Wire, are included as bonus tracks on the CD and demonstrate just how good this could have been if only these songs had had a bit more room to breathe. Still, there’s some remarkable stuff here. Townshend is at his sarcastic best on They Made My Dreams Come True, while Tea and Theatre, another acoustic number, is a remarkable closer.
This is not the high point of The Who’s career, but it’s pretty good nonetheless. I look forward to their next album in 2030.
The most obvious missing parts are The Who’s late and lamented rhythm section. With bassist John Entwistle four years gone and drummer Keith Moon’s death approaching its 30th anniversary, the survivors (guitarist and songwriter Pete Townshend and singer Roger Daltrey) have done away with the bass and drums altogether on some songs, offering a mix of acoustic numbers and mid-tempo rockers, followed by a ten-song mini-opera, Wire and Glass.
The album opens with Fragments, which starts with a deliberate re-stating of the famous Baba O’Riley synth riff, placing this album clearly in the pantheon of Townshend’s work associated with his early 1970s Lifehouse project, his aborted follow-up to Tommy that has driven much of his work since, including Who’s Next, Psychoderelict, and The Boy Who Heard Music. When the song starts and the band kicks in, we are in true Who heaven, glorious Townshend backing vocals supporting Daltrey’s unearthly growl. It must be noted that while Daltrey’s voice live has certainly lost its punch over the years, he lets it all out on this set of songs, sounding almost as good as ever.
Next up is one of those acoustic numbers, Man in a Purple Dress, a scathing indictment of organized religion, followed by one of those mid-tempo rockers (and one of my favourite tracks) Mike Post Theme. Next comes In the Ether, a solo by Townshend where he affects his best Tom Waits impression. Townshend thinks this is one of the best songs he’s ever written. Daltrey thinks it’s crap. The truth is somewhere in between.
Townshend’s tendency to pray in public continues with the songs Two Thousand Years and You Stand By Me, while It’s Not Enough is a great, glossy rocker.
Then comes the mini-opera. In some ways, Wire and Glass is disappointing not so much for what it is, but what it could have been. The plot, such as can be discerned, involves three kids who form a band, post their song on the “endless wire” (a concept that dates back to Townshend’s Lifehouse in the ‘70s and predates the Internet), have a big hit, and then the band falls apart. Somehow the character of Ray High from Townshend’s 1993 solo album Psychoderelict figures in this, too.
The good news is that the songs in the opera are terrific, great little hook-filled nuggets. The bad news is that they are only nuggets. Most of the opera’s songs are only 90 seconds to two minutes long, and end just as they get going. And that’s such a shame because so many of them are so darn good. Extended versions of two of the best, We’ve Got a Hit and Endless Wire, are included as bonus tracks on the CD and demonstrate just how good this could have been if only these songs had had a bit more room to breathe. Still, there’s some remarkable stuff here. Townshend is at his sarcastic best on They Made My Dreams Come True, while Tea and Theatre, another acoustic number, is a remarkable closer.
This is not the high point of The Who’s career, but it’s pretty good nonetheless. I look forward to their next album in 2030.
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