So this post is a little late, I just wanted to make sure I logged this concert for my own good. Last Tuesday I saw Rob Curto’s Forró For All at the Elbo Room.
Forró is music from the north of Brazil a that includes an accordion and African beats. I didn’t understand the Portuguese but the music was great for dancing.
Gmail’s default avatar for its users is a ghost-like silhouette. I thought it was funny because it kinda looked like my silhouette. Then I thought of overlaying a semi-transparent photo of myself to personalize it. I found the perfect photo taken one day while the sun was glaring in my face. Since the picture is yellow, my expression looks like I’m saying, “this background’s way too bright.”
I did it by tracing over a picture, but it’s still pretty cool-looking.
My brother called me up yesterday offering me a ticket to see the Rolling Stones at the Oakland Coliseum. I sat in the 9th row of regular seats, directly facing, but still quite far away from, the stage. I had never seen the Stones and probably wouldn’t have bought a ticket because I thought the geezers were overpriced, but I was proved wrong.
Van Morrison opened up and unfortunately did not play Moondance, despite there being an almost full moon. (Correction: Apparently they did play it but I missed it; I missed the first couple of songs.)
The Rolling Stones and gang rocked the crowd with nothing but classics. I carefully recorded the set list for posterity:
I was amazed at how much energy McJagger has on stage and how he’s 65 and still a sex symbol; women were throwing their braziers at him and he lifted up his shirt to show them washboard stomach.
The stage decorations were the most I’ve seen at any concert before. I guess if you can’t really see the band, you’d better get to see some fireworks or something. For a couple of songs, a small part of the stage rolled down the catwalk, through the floor seats, to right in front of where I was sitting. They were close enough to where I didn’t have to watch them on the monitor.
The Rolling Stones are legends and still know how to entertain even a crowd as big as the Oakland Coliseum.
Australian band, You Am I, played to a not-so-sold-out show at Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco last night. They’re virtually unknown in the United States, unless you’re Australian or have visited Australia, but big in their homeland, so my one ex-pat Australian friend tells me.
Opening band, the Fleshies, was an easy act to follow, even for street musicians, even for a 3rd grade kazoo player. If they put as much energy into being good as they did making faces and rolling around on the floor, they might have gotten people other than their friends and other than You Am I fans to watch them play. They proceded to show their ignorance and lack of tact by saying, “We’re Men at Work. Get it? ‘Cause they’re Australian.” Not funny.
I must admit I’m not too familiar with their repertoire, but the show was still entertaining and front man Tim Rogers amped the crowd. The last two songs were ones I knew (most likely their biggest hits): Berlin Chair and Miss You like Sleep. (Berlin Chair actually inspired half of Silverchair’s name.) They also played a shortened version of Neil Young’s Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere.
Moral of the Story: No matter how big you are, there’re still a lot of people who don’t know you so stay humble and try to win their hearts too.
This post is kinda late and it’s about his second show; suffice to say this isn’t a “fresh” post.
I saw Tom Petty’s second show at the Berkeley Greek Theater on Saturday, September 30, 2006. Being the legend that he is, even lawn seats were upwards of $45, but worth it for me, since I hadn’t seen him before.
The opening act was Frank Black of the Pixies; a pleasant surprise. I don’t think he played many Pixies tunes and most of his songs were of the alt-country/classic rock style.
Mr. Petty could have opened with a song better than Listen to Her Heart, but he corrected himself next by playing Mary Jane’s Last Dance. He played other best-of hits like Free Fallin’ and Great Wide Open and songs off of his new album, Highway Companion. Mixing it up, he also played covers of Bo Diddeley, Chuck Berry, Fleetwood Mac, and the Traveling Wilburys, which he was a part of.
The “special guest” mentioned on the ticket referred to Stevie Nicks who sang with Petty their duet, Stop Dragging My Heart Around. Stevie also sang I Need Know solo.
Overall, Tom Petty and Stevie Nicks still know how to rock it but, sad to say, most of their veteran listeners (i.e. old people) don’t: the audience was a little stiff.
New Orleans rock band, Cowboy Mouth, rocked a sold out crowd at the Red Devil Lounge in San Francisco last night. I missed them when they played at the PB Block Party in San Diego in 2005, so I wasn’t going to let that happen again.
The venue is a couple of blocks from my home and the way I found out that they were playing was because, stumbling home the night prior, I saw their Southern Comfort-donated tour bus parked outside.
The opening act, a local San Francisco band, Whiskey Pills (& the PBR Street Gang?) warmed up the crowd for an hour. Their alt-country style is one that’s hard to find in the mainstream. Now that I’m aware of them, I’ll have to check them out sometime.
The Cowboy Mouth quartet took the stage shortly after and front man Fred LeBlanc riled everybody up like a summer camp counselor with his signature phrases “Are you with me?!” and “I can’t hear you!” and reminded us what a blast it is to be alive and encouraged us to go crazy.
This is a mural I helped paint while I was in Rosarito this past weekend. I did the guitar, tulip and grass. Brandon did the angry flower and Ali did the monster-looking thing and the lower beach scene.
I really just posted this to check out Flickr’s “blog this” button. Flickr is a daunting site and it’s quite addictive.
Cuban musical ensemble, Compay Segundo, named for the late musician from Buena Vista Social Club, played a free concert in Rosarito across from Festival Plaza hotel as part of an international cultural celebration. I was in town simply for vacation and was excited when a local informed me about the event.
The band sounded just like the Buena Vista Social Club and even played some of their songs including Chan Chan, Chicharones and El Cuarto de Tula. I’m still in disbelief that such a well-known act played for free and to such a small crowd at that. The same show in the United States would have sold out for $20 a ticket or more but due to the Cuban embargo, it never can. Their success in the United States is due primarily to a PBS special produced in the late ’90s. I remember being offered extra credit to watch the movie in my AP Spanish class (instead I went to another eligible move, Chiapas).
The concert was an opportunity for me to experience a real cultural event not included on the usual tourist to-do list. The crowd was all Mexican nationals and folks were dancing in the street and drinking mojitos. This would have to be one of the top five concerts I’ve ever been to, mostly because it was a surprise, free and on the streets of Rosarito in addition to being amazing music.
As if owning specific recordings wasn’t enough, now the recording industry is going after the hippies who make music in addition to the audiophiles who simply listen.
Guitar tab was one of the first forms of content to proliferate on the ‘net since it greatly aids musicians in learning to play popular and classic recorded songs. Olga.net, probably the oldest and least spammy of the tab sites, has shut down after receiving cease and desist letters. Olga was truly a Web 2.0 site in the days of Web beta; being that its content is all user-submitted.
Guitar tab sites have been protected up till now because the tablature is assumedly created by an independent musician by listening to a legal recording, which can be, and often is, incorrect at times. Now, even incorrect tablature, might be subject to copyright protection because it is considered a derevative work.
Even though The Man has a point here, this crosses the line. Any real musician has used tab at some point in his education would support it’s free distribution. Free recordings, as much as I like them, I agree, are a copyright violation, but practicing someone’s estimate of a song? C’mon.
Like a leaking pipe, you fix one leak, a new one will appear somewhere on the line. For instance, the floodgates are wide open in Russia and the Cayman Islands.