Tag: rock and roll

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Concert Reviews

CONCERT REVIEW: Roger Daltrey kicks off five date tour in Clearwater

Rhythm guitarist and brother of Pete, Simon Townshend

If you’re not crazy for British rock legends The Who, but enjoy them for their hits, this is not really the kind of show that would be up your alley.

Longtime, and current, lead singer Roger Daltrey has done solo tours before, but none quite like this. The A Quick Run While Pete’s Away five date tour was announced back in August, and only features Daltrey with members of The Who’s backing band. Pete Townshend is on a yearlong sabbatical from The Who, as the tour name says, but there was still a Townshend onstage – – his little brother, Simon on guitar.

Around 7:30, a somewhat newcomer to the music world, Grammy nominee Leslie Mendelson, opened with selections from her 5+ year career and her new album, Love & Murder. One of these songs were created with help from the Grateful Dead’s own Bob Weir. Really.

“Roger and I go way back. Well, we actually do.” Mendelson bragged halfway through. She once played Baba O’Riley with The Who during a benefit gig for charity. “I was tossed a harmonica, and I said ‘But I don’t play it.’ And they said ‘Well, you do now.'”

“The New York weather is following me around!” she earlier joked while acting surprised about how Florida’s weather has suddenly become cooler. Following her 35 minute set with guitarist Eric Kimock, a brief intermission occurred, as she made her way near the Ruth Eckerd lobby to where two Daltrey shirts were being sold to sell and sign CD copies of Love and Murder. Fans were immensely impressed at this new talent, but at 8:21, the lights went down for the real deal. The Pinball Wizard and company walked out to Clearwater for the first time in eight years.

Following a few jokes of how forgettable the night may be if he forgot the words, the band ripped into the overture from The Who’s legendary 1969 rock opera, Tommy. Immediately following was their smash hit Pinball Wizard, also off of Tommy.

As the songs kept dropping, they got more and more obscure. 1981’s Another Tricky Day was dedicated to Donald Trump. “Nothing to do with me, but I’m sure he’ll relate to this song.” There were also some songs that were obscure enough to have never been played in front of a live audience, be it Who, Townshend, or Daltrey. Athena off of 1982’s It’s Hard, the second most recent Who studio album, hasn’t been played since the tour to promote that album.

But the biggest surprise was the debut, the literal live debut, of The Who’s 1975 album track, How Many Friends, which has never in written history been performed live by the band. “Way back when we recorded this in 1975, you even wondered, and I doubt many of us can, count on our friends.” Daltrey recalled. “I knew people with…millions of friends.”

Just about every song had the audience give at least a standing ovation, from the doo-wop style Daltrey earworm Days Of Light, to the song to thank us fans for being fans (Without Your Love), to the electrifying Baba O’Riley. The latter had every member of the audience frenetically howling out the words, as you would likely expect – – After all, it was The Who’s biggest 1970s hit. (with the possible exception of Who Are You, which was also performed to a standing crowd.)

Two songs from The Who’s 1971 live album, Live At Leeds were performed. In comparison to other Who tunes, Young Man Blues and Summertime Blues have faded away into obscurity, but you know what? Nobody seemed to care.

The night ended with Roger and keyboardist Loren Gold playing Always Heading Home, a brand new song from a “forthcoming album.” Needless to say, it’s never been played anywhere else before, at any time.

Daltrey is very openly involved in the Teenage Cancer Trust charity, which helps out teenagers with cancer. “At least, before they turn eighteen, and get moved in with old farts like me.” Daltrey pointed out. He went on to praise the Tampa Bay area for having three hospitals working together to fight teenage cancer, including Moffitt.

And just keep that in mind. The next time you buy something related to The Who, be it a ticket, a licensed shirt, or Roger’s album when it releases, there’s a good chance that at least a portion of your sale will go to the trust.

Frankly, they deserve it.

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Concert Announcements

Roger Daltrey coming to Ruth Eckerd Hall

On April 15, 2015, one of the most popular British Invasion bands kicked off the US leg of their 50th anniversary/farewell tour (whatever) in Tampa. The Who’s two surviving original members, guitarist Pete Townshend and lead vocalist Roger Daltrey have been on the road nearly all their lives, be it solo or together. But following the 1979 death of drummer Keith Moon, they’ve seemed to make every tour since then a farewell tour, yet they always came back. It was a close call for them in 2002, though when bassist John Entwistle died only a day before the second leg of that year’s tour began. The Who was on the road a little bit this year, playing few cities in the US, and holding a nearly three-week long residency at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. Later this year, however, along with some shows in South America with Def Leppard and Guns N’ Roses, the two will (hopefully) temporarily go their separate ways to fulfill solo projects. Townshend will be doing a short Classic Quadrophenia tour with Billy Idol next month.

Daltrey will also be doing a solo tour of about five different cities. And Clearwater just got lucky.

Roger Daltrey will play Clearwater’s Ruth Eckerd Hall on Monday, October 30. The show will be opened by Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter Leslie Mendelson at promptly 7:30. While Townshend will not be there, other touring members of The Who – – including drummer Zak Starkey – – will be. Tickets go on sale this Saturday, starting at $63.50.

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Concert Reviews

CONCERT REVIEW: Paul McCartney goes “one on one” with Tampa

Paul McCartney astounded a Tampa audience on July 10.

Where were you on September 17, 2005? Maybe you were a teenager, child, or toddler. Maybe you didn’t live in Tampa. Hell, maybe you weren’t even born yet. But some special people were at Amalie Arena, then known as the St. Pete Times Forum, seeing Sir Paul McCartney, a quarter of the biggest band of all time, live. It was only his third time in Tampa. Until his 1990 stop at the old Tampa Stadium, his only time in Florida for a ticketed performance was in Jacksonville with The Beatles in 1964.

But now, things are different.

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Paul McCartney playing away on one of his two pianos onstage at Amalie Arena.

In April, the people over at Amalie Arena made the groundbreaking announcement that The Cute One was going to present his One on One tour at the venue, causing a practically instant sellout. People were literally standing in line at the box office to get their tickets the old fashioned way. Those that had seats behind the stage were probably feeling incredibly lucky because we all knew that if we didn’t have a ticket already, we’d have to be dedicated to Macca enough to risk buying an overpriced nosebleed seat on StubHub, and then face the fact that there would be a slight chance that you wouldn’t get in, considering all the bots on there.

The doors opened at 6:30, food and merchandise stands opened, and at 8:38, the blue spotlights on stage went out. Some eighteen-or-so seconds of darkness later, there he was. Macca, in a white button down and dark blue blazer, received probably the loudest roar of excitement ever given at this venue upon walking out. The show opened with A Hard Day’s Night, a song that he hasn’t played on tour since The Beatles’ 1965 tour, followed by a lively blast-from-the-past, Junior’s Farm.

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Paul McCartney told stories of his career, and cracked jokes with Tampa on Monday night.

“I’ve got a feeling we’re gonna have a lot of fun here tonight!” Paul declared. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that he was right. Every element of the show, from the 39 song set list to the psychedelic laser show during Being For The Benefit of Mr. Kite!, made the tickets worth purchasing in every way. And only two decades of his long and winding career were ignored. Though pushing the 90s and 2000s aside, Paul went as far back as The Quarrymen’s In Spite Of All The Danger. Whaddya mean “who?!” They were the band that would evolve into The Beatles! On the other hand, the first few verses from his 2015 collaboration with rapper Kanye West and singer Rihanna, FourFiveSeconds, was also given a segment to shine.

To bring the 60s into the show, Paul and friends made a point to pick and choose mostly the better known songs of his off of every Beatle studio album, except for Beatles For Sale and Yellow Submarine. Representing the 70s, to a lesser extent, were those monumental anthems from Wings. A piano-driven Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five, and a turbulent ride through Jet were both early specifics on the setlist. The 80s? We were treated to 1980’s Temporary Secretary, and also a heartbreakingly poignant composition from his career, which I’ll get to.

Paul told stories of all kinds, from the time he saw Jimi Hendrix open a show with the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band title track two days following its release, when he was told by the Russian Defense Minister how his records helped him learn English, and to when he fell in a hole onstage during his last visit to Tampa. “I’m lucky to be here tonight.” he remarked. Sadly, many of his musical compadres were not so lucky. He dedicated songs like Love Me Do to late Beatles producer George Martin, who passed away last year, and earlier, Maybe I’m Amazed to his first wife, Linda Eastman.

But the two major dedications he made were to the two fallen Beatles, John Lennon and George Harrison.

Paul dedicated his 1982 album track, Here Today to Lennon, following a twenty-six second applause, after Paul demanded to “hear it for John.” The song was written shortly after his 1980 death in New York City, and was written as “like, a conversation we never had, where I could tell him things I couldn’t tell him.” A lot could have been gotten out of the entire show, but he concluded that segment with a really good life lesson:

“If you want to tell someone something, tell them now.”

Later on in the show, Paul was handed a ukulele, and began a relatively upbeat rendition of the Harrison penned Beatles track, Something. But out of nowhere, once the first three verses were complete, the entire backing band broke in and finished the song off the way it originally sounded, with a slideshow of photos of primarily Harrison scrolling by.

Following his main set ending with Live and Let Die, which involved about four explosions and some fireworks, and Hey Jude, which surprisingly did not start much of a sea of cellphone flashlights, Paul brought up two fans to the stage: A Sarasota veterinarian in Paul’s Sgt. Pepper outfit, and her son, sporting a black shirt with the Beatles logo on it. They, by Paul’s request, danced onstage together to Get Back. “Speaking of getting back, we’ve gotta go home!” he concluded, to which boos and moans were his response. His band ripped into the medley you hear at the end of the Abbey Road album, which involved Golden Slumbers, Carry That Weight, and The End. “Tell you what, we’ll see you next time!” were his final remarks to Tampa.

Many people probably doubted that, but from the good spirits Paul was in, and the way he sang and played, there just may be a next time. But hopefully not with a twelve year gap in between.

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Concert Reviews

CONCERT REVIEW: Paul Simon and friends shower St. Augustine with hits

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Paul Simon playing for a sold-out crowd of old and young at the St. Augustine Amphitheater.

Paul Simon hasn’t played Florida since his 2014 tour with Sting, and he hasn’t been as a solo artist since late 2011. It seems like an eternity ago to some fans such as myself. Last year when he announced that there would be a massive US tour promoting a new album Stranger To Stranger, he totally snubbed Florida. The lowest in the southeast Paul played in was Atlanta. I would have gone, and still would go to Georgia for certain artists, Paul Simon topping that list, had my leg not been cooped up in a cast.

But in March, we Floridians learned of a miracle: The Kodachrome singer would be doing a summer tour, and where else would he start but St. Augustine, FL?

On Thursday night, the St. Augustine Amphitheater doors opened at promptly 6:00, and members of the sold-out crowd began to worry that one of Florida’s famous rainstorms from a few hours prior would start up again. The worst that happened was the show being postponed by ten minutes. “The rain came, and the rain…cooled us off!” Paul observed early on.

The turnout was enormous, quite like a class act you see at a sports stadium or arena. And this was not just a bunch of old folks who were fans of Simon’s days recording with his former partner, Art Garfunkel: There were actually quite a lot of fans who enjoyed his solo works, like his 1986 Grammy Album Of The Year winner, the South-African inspired “Graceland.” Most of those fans were in their thirties or forties. I’m fifteen, which is a bit young to have Paul Simon in your top 10, top 5, and top 3 these days, and I saw other people there that were my age – Most of them had been dragged there by their parents because they were just trying to be totally awesome parents. I mean, how many of today’s children will get the chance to say that they experienced this man live? But no matter, I was probably the only much younger fan who actually understood that this was Paul Simon for God’s sake, a twice Rock and Roll Hall Of Famer, a Songwriter’s Hall Of Famer, and the first recipient of the Gershwin Prize For Popular Song.

The theater itself filled relatively quickly with over 4,000 fans, and at 7:40, Paul’s backing band came out and played a breathtaking instrumental version of Gumboots off of Graceland. Three minutes later, their boss walked out onstage waving in a grey t-shirt with a dark blue overcoat. His ecstatic audience had an unusual but great amount of energy; more people were cheering than just plain applauding. Within seconds, he picked up one of his many acoustic guitars and ripped into Graceland’s exhilarating opening track, The Boy in the Bubble. Through the night, Paul really mixed up some of the songs by either changing their keys, giving them new rhythms during certain parts, or simply adding in more time for his band to play solos. He gave his fans two and a half hours of almost the entire first side of Graceland, some of his greatest hits old and new, and some deep cuts, including One Man’s Ceiling Is Another Man’s Floor.

Six songs from his days in Simon & Garfunkel were played as well, most notably an instrumental edition of El Condor Pasa (If I Could), Mrs. Robinson, a song that has been played only once per tour since 2009, and a tear jerking version of The Boxer. And that wasn’t an exaggeration. I never cry at concerts, but when Paul strummed the first chord of The Boxer, I just lost my goddamn mind. I bawled my eyes out for the first time in a very long time.

Early on, Paul gave a brief but amped up cover of Mystery Train, and later, during Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard, the entire audience actually got up and danced, clapped, or at least sang along, because apparently, it is a much bigger hit than most of the songs he played before. Paul’s backing band was much larger than a typical rock and roll backing band. It was about the size of Brian Wilson’s backing band – about eight other gentlemen onstage, one of which performed on Graceland in 1986. Guitarist Vincent Nguini even stepped up to Paul’s microphone to introduce The Cool, Cool River, “a very powerful tune that we haven’t done in a very, very long time,” of which they actually started playing again on the 2016 tour.

He wrapped up his main set with back to back songs from Graceland, starting with a beautiful rendition of Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes, and ending with a frenetic ride through You Can Call Me Al, which also had everybody standing up and dancing. After his band took a bow, they came back out for two generous encores, and then after everybody was offstage and it was just Paul and his guitar, he strummed the recognizable chords, and sang the magic words:

“Hello, darkness my old friend.”

Paul mentioned many times how all of the profits from this tour would be donated to the E.O Wilson Biodiversity Foundation, which is involved in saving the Earth and the human species. In fact, he’s so dedicated to it, the book that inspired him to do it was for sale at his merchandise stands, entitled Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight For Life by Edward Wilson.

But you know, regardless of what charity Paul chose, he sure as heck would continue to save at least the music world, long as he keeps playing those sold out shows for years to come.

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Concert Reviews

CONCERT REVIEW: Tom Petty makes it last all night in Tampa

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers play a show in Tampa on their 40th Anniversary Tour, their first time in Tampa since 2014.

How many big name bands originated in Florida? Not very many, with the exception of The Doors’ Jim Morrison being born in Melbourne. But one band that originated in Gainesville announced in December that they would embark on a 40th anniversary tour. Yes, it’s really been 40 years since Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers released their self-titled debut album.

A lot of shows’ opening acts are artists who are trying to get out there. But when the lights went down at promptly 8:00, who else walks out to open but Joe Walsh of The Eagles? “Good morning!” He rasped before beginning his electric 45 minute setlist. He played songs from his own successful solo career (Meadows; Rocky Mountain Way) and two songs from The Eagles (Take It To The Limit; In The City), the first one being dedicated to his “brother and fellow bandmate, Glenn Frey,” who passed away last year.

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The Eagles’ Joe Walsh opens for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers at Amalie Arena

Walsh left the stage around 8:45, and the roadies began to set up for Tom Petty. People went out to mingle with fellow fans, and to buy t-shirts and beer. Then, at 9:47, the lights went down, and the almost-sold out crowd of over 20,000 fans brought the house down as Tom Petty and his dearly beloved Heartbreakers entered the stage for their second Florida show, their first being the night before in West Palm Beach.

“We’re bringing you 100 percent natural rock and roll, no artificial sweeteners!” he announced as the Heartbreakers prepared their instruments for the best night that Tampa Bay has had in months. The band started out with “the first track from [their] first album,” which was Rockin‘ Around (With You). Petty then went onto his famous sing-along, Mary Jane’s Last Dance, which had the young and old in the audience singing along the whole way through.

Through the rest of the night, Amalie Arena heard mainly greatest hits: The acoustic guitars of Free Fallin‘ and Learning To Fly, and also some deep cuts from Petty’s second solo album, “Wildflowers.” After ending their main set with the frenetic Running Down A Dream, Petty and the guys walked offstage for about two and a half minutes as the ecstatic audience chanted “Petty” until they came back out. The group finished up the show with an encore of You Wreck Me from “Wildflowers,” and American Girl, which was their first album’s closing track.

Petty stated many times through the night how pleased he was to be back home in Florida, and how he “felt the mojo in this room,” to which the roar of the audience was the response he received. At that point in the show, he turned towards the people up in the nosebleeds on each side of the dome.

With Tom onstage were old and new members of the Heartbreakers, including his old buddy and original guitarist Mike Campbell, and also two new members on backing vocals. The Webb Sisters, Charley and Hattie, who were also backup singers in Leonard Cohen’s band from his latter days, are touring with the group for the first, and possibly last time.

In an interview with Rolling Stone from last year, Petty stated how he’s thinking about making this tour “the last big one” with the Heartbreakers, due to the fact that he has a granddaughter he wants to spend time with, and that they’re getting older. That being stated, last night was the perfect opportunity for Petty fans old and young to either relive the old days, or to discover something new.

“Before we leave, I want to hold the world record for the loudest sound ever made in this building,” was his final request to his hyped audience before ripping into his final song of the night.

A loud sound we made, and a loud sound it was.