Most everyone has been to a concert, whether it was The Beatles, Taylor Swift, U2, Beyonce, Soundgarden – Well, you get the gist of it. But there are certain ones that I have been to that have absolutely changed my life in one way or another. So I’ll be counting down the top 5 concerts you must see before the band breaks up, the artist dies, or you die. And just know that I will be ruling out modern artists, and Weird Al.
5) Paul McCartney
Though his voice is not what it used to be, the former Beatle’s musicianship has not left him. Paul McCartney has toured with two other groups in his 60+ year career, and even so, the people of the world are still ecstatic to see him without Ringo Starr, the only other surviving Beatle, or Denny Laine, former guitarist of Wings.
McCartney’s dazzling stage includes not one, but two jumbo screens. And they are pretty damn jumbo, too. If you’re sitting all the way in the back, McCartney in person will likely look like an ant from your point of view. But with the two vertical screens zooming in on him on either side of the stage, his face up-close will be at least mostly visible. He plays for almost three hours a night, filling his setlist with songs that span his entire career, including selections from his latest record New, songs from his days as the frontman of Wings, and even one of the first songs he ever wrote with the late John Lennon as The Quarrymen, In Spite Of All The Danger. Then, of course, he rips through most of the McCartney voiced Beatle songs you would expect to hear – – Blackbird, Hey Jude, Let It Be, and A Hard Day’s Night (which is part of his current tour’s setlist for the first time since when he was touring with The Beatles in 1965) just to name a few.
Normally when a performer blabs in between songs, it really pisses me off. But McCartney on the other hand, tells stories every few songs that are worth hearing. And they’re very different from one another, from when Jimi Hendrix opened a show with a newly released Beatles song, to when Paul met the Russian Defense Minister for the first time.
I haven’t seen Ringo Starr and his All-Starr Band yet, but even so, no one can compare him to McCartney, even if they were both members of the biggest band of all time.
4) Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
Tom Petty has always been the laid back one of the music world, in spite of his wild side with cocaine and chain smoking. But the Florida-born Free Fallin’ composer embarked on his 40th anniversary tour with his longtime band, The Heartbreakers. Firstly, some of Petty’s opening acts over the years have been outrageously big names – Chuck Berry, Pearl Jam, Stevie Nicks, and The Allman Brothers just to name a few. And this year’s tour has primarily had former Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh, and most recently, country musician Chris Stapleton opening. When Tom and his band get onstage, he treats the audience like they’re guests in his living room that he can be himself around. On his stop in Tampa, he even turned around after a song to take a smoke. But regardless, Tom is very open to “feelin’ the mojo in the room,” and making sure that his audience has the time of their lives every night.
3) Yes feat. Anderson, Rabin and Wakeman
Last year, Yes fans finally got the reunion they wanted. For what seemed like an eternity, the only Yes that we knew still toured only featured three early/original members: Guitarist Steve Howe, drummer Alan White, and until his 2015 passing, original bassist Chris Squire. But now, another incarnation of Yes is out there: Original lead singer Jon Anderson, lead guitarist of the 90125-era Trevor Rabin, and keyboardist Rick Wakeman have come together for the first time since the Union album, and are currently working on many projects. Their first tour together was billed as simply ARW: An Evening of Yes Music and More, and was a wild success, especially in the US, the UK, and Japan. Anderson’s soprano voice has not deteriorated in the slightest bit, as haven’t Rabin and Wakeman’s instrumentation. They also had two backing band members: On drums, Louis Molino III, and on bass, Lee Pomeroy, who imitates Chris Squire’s sound so perfectly, you think that Squire may as well be there.
Their lighting is very different as well – They have a massive prop piece directly behind them, where lights, and even special effects, are projected throughout the show. Anderson tells very brief stories in between few songs about how, where, and when the songs they play were written. If you don’t like when artists blab in between songs, don’t be skeptical at all, as he only does so about three or four times total. They play songs from both eras of Yes: the progressive one with Wakeman present, and the rock/pop one with Rabin present. Anderson was, needless to say, involved in both, so he knows exactly what he’s doing the whole night.
2. Paul Simon
Paul Simon is one of those artists that you’ll likely just be honored to be in the vicinities of. His songs are legendary, he’s a twice Rock and Roll Hall Of Famer, and he has won the Grammy for Album Of The Year thrice within seventeen years, the first time alongside his former partner Art Garfunkel. But at his live shows? You think he sounds good on his albums.
His backing band is about the size of Brian Wilson’s – about 10 musicians, one of which, Bakithi Kumalo played on the original Graceland album in 1986. Usually, a large backing band can mean another add-on to an artist’s ego. But in terms of Paul Simon, these guys are just making every song sound precisely the way it did on the original album it was on. Now as for the man himself, at 75 years old, Simon still sounds as fresh as he did in the 70s and 80s. The only sign of age is when his voice quivers ever so rarely. Paul tells (and often entertains) his audience stories of his career, his travels, and of a lady who once asked him to play a song he didn’t write, and to his knowledge, doesn’t exist as a song.
Generally, Paul plays small venues rather than stadiums or hockey arenas, and typically in a small venue, the ushers and often times even the artist will do whatever it takes to make sure that you follow the venue’s rules that nobody plans to follow, such as staying seated throughout the entire show and not taking photos of any kind. But Paul sums up how it should be very simply: “If you wanna stand up and dance, that’s cool with me. Just think about the guy sitting behind you.
1) Billy Joel
Billy Joel has one of the most astounding, yet somewhat shortest, songbooks in American history. Sadly, I’m biased, but in my book, you either love him or don’t know who he is. While his music can crush your depression, seeing him in concert is even more uplifting.
For one thing, audience etiquette is very important to some artists. I’ve heard Brian Wilson tell people to “please be seated” after dancing to a song from Pet Sounds, and I’ve also heard about Art Garfunkel raiding somebody on the spot for having her phone out to take a photo. The Piano Man on the other hand just does not care. There could be people smoking pot and having sex right there in the front row, and all he’d do is do him. He doesn’t care about cameras, recording devices, and all the rules that the venue provides for the sake of the artist. Sure, he believes in people having a good time, and a big part of this makes him the greatest.
If you haven’t heard by now, when tickets go on sale for a new show, all the tickets in the first few rows are not listed. Why? The day of the show, Billy sends his road crew to the very back of the venue to offer folks with nosebleed seats some front row seats. He wants nothing but to see the real fans who can’t afford floor seats, rather than the “gold chainers,” as he calls them.
He often jokes with the audience, and pokes fun at other artists, an example being when he plays a few bars of Your Song by Elton John, and stopping at the point of which the lyric is “I don’t have much money.” Billy calls bullshit, and the audience laughs along. His interaction with the audience in general really goes to show that while Billy, needless to say, wants the money from the tickets, he gives 20,000 people the best show they’ll ever see. He gives them “fielder’s choices” at least once a night, in which they choose a song for him to play, and he’ll play the chosen song, based on the applause and cheering volume. For example, he often throws out two songs from his The Stranger album, having the audience select either Just The Way You Are or Vienna. Surprisingly enough, they always choose Vienna.
The stage equipment and his backing band are also key items to his shows. While his boss plays, guitarist Michael Delguidice often takes the mic to sing the operatic Nessun dorma, and closer to the end of the show, he’ll sing, and play, a song or two by Led Zeppelin. Now, regarding the stage equipment? The light shows are breathtaking, and while they do not involve lasers to my knowledge, every song has different colors, patterns, and in some songs, the lights blink to the rhythm of the song. For example, during Movin’ Out, the lights blink repeatedly as Billy sings about how working too hard can give you a heart “attack-ack-ack-ack-ack-ack.” Finally, if you get bogus seats and are worried that you’ll only be seeing the back of Billy the whole night, not to fear. His piano sits on a rotating circular platform the whole night, and it spins into a different direction every other song or so. It’s like a slow-going human sized Lazy Susan.
The only advice I leave you for one of Billy’s shows is as follows: Do NOT, under any circumstance besides getting lucky at the last minute in the box office, get tickets behind the stage. They are available for purchase, but you could get really unlucky, and only see half of Billy Joel the whole night. But if you take a chance and buy cheap front-of-the-stage seats, you just might get lucky and see the Piano Man up front.
Josh Bradley Live 