Briefly, since I'm on a highway...Here are some photos from the Candye Kane show at the Capitol Center for the Performing Arts in Concord. This was a benefit for the Concord Feminist Health Center. Go donate to them, it's important, I'll wait. She was great, huge voice, good songs. She spoke a lot about the importance of the work of places like CFHC, and about her own fight against pancreatic cancer. She seemed to be doing great and to really enjoy doing shows.

Here is the full set. A few extra ones that aren't below.

Guitarist Laura Chaves is an absolute monster. There is no reality in which she shouldn't be a hugely popular blues guitarist.

[music | Sleater-Kinney - Modern Girl]

Coheed and Cambria opened, and I've got to say they were a much more suitable opener than Juliette Lewis. It seems they had a pinch-bassist due to their bassist being arrested minutes before the show on charges of armed robbery of a pharmacy. Overall they were good, I've not been a huge fan, but they were good, maybe we'll give 'em $15 for the old legal defense fund.

Soundgarden was great, though sound wasn't so good. Much of the show was really bass & drum heavy, making them sound more like Drowning PooDleofMuddVvayynne. A lot of the time it was like "hear our bass line, and oh yeah, watch a Kim Thayil gesticulates wildly on some instrument he seems to be holding, but which must not be plugged in". Pity. This is often the case at Great Woods, but not always. Also, if a band has a loud opening band, which in this case sounded /really/ pretty good, the headliner seems to want to go One Louder, completely fucking up the sound. As is also often the case, the encore set sounded a lot better.

I'd have to say the Chris Cornell show a couple of years ago /sounded/ better overall, and since he played lots of Soundgarden, was pretty complete, however this is the only time I've gotten to see them all together, and I'm still really happy. Plus, at that show, we had to deal with Juliette Lewis. Even though we had 4th row seats right in the middle, some jackass didn't think cameras were permitted (which, at that venue, they totally are), and so didn't bring one. Wonder who that was?

Chris Cornell sounded good, but there are certain songs I don't think he can sing anymore. In particular I was hoping for Heretic and Loud Love, which didn't happen. Overall though he didn't really seem to have to re-arrange much. I think Natalie thought he sounded more limited than I did.

Here's the setlist courtesy of some kind soul at setlist.fm

Here are some photos I took from about 1/4 mile away way out in the top quarter of Sec. 8. I have many, they all look pretty much the same:

Coheed and Cambria:

Soundgarden:

Angry Bassist:

Searching With My Good Eye Closed
Spoonman
Room a Thousand Years Wide
Let Me Drown
Jesus Christ Pose
Blow Up the Outside World
The Day I Tried to Live
My Wave
Fell on Black Days
Ugly Truth
Hunted Down
Outshined
Rusty Cage
Burden in My Hand
Black Hole Sun
Superunknown
4th of July

Encore:
Beyond the Wheel
Big Dumb Sex
Like Suicide
Face Pollution
Slaves & Bulldozers

I don't generally write much about shows anymore, but the Pogues, well, they're special. Thanks to being at the Concrete Abomination of Lansdowne Street there are no photos.

We saw them a few years ago back when this was still the Avalon, and allowed things like going outside to smoke, and where they believed in the comfort of their patrons and provided us with a nice springy not-concrete floor to stand on for 5 hours.

This show was a good deal more coherent than that last one, if you forgive Shane for apparently thinking he was in Detroit; they've played 4 shows since Detroit on the March 4th, including the first Boston show last night. Shane was on stage for much more of the show and was definitely his lovable drunkard self. As an emcee he's worthless, but I swear that man has a switch. He goes from "be Shane MacGowan" to "Do Work" the instant music starts.

We did have a bit of a scare as Spider Stacy was doing a little jig, and Shane thought he'd join in. He spun around, fell flat on his back literally with his feet comedically straight up in the air. At first I thought this might have been plannery schtickery, but then the rest of the band seemed kind of genuinely concerned that Shane was on the floor, he got up, dusted himself off and was fine. I also thought he was going to burst into flames like a Chinese Walmart teddy bear when his cigarette blew back on him, considering how gin and whiskey soaked he is. Turns out he's impervious to fire, so he's got that going for him, which is nice.

The music was great, the crowd singing along almost all night. Shane was a good ringleader and Spider did great translating from MacGowan into English.

Personally, it's kind of sad to look back at videos and see Shane back when he could do S's and TH's and TCH's and see what's happened to the poor guy. On the one hand, hey fuck it, it's worked out for him. On the other, here's one of the best lyricists in the last 30 years and he can barely pronounce his own name anymore. This is a guy who can still raise a tear and as clear as it is that he can't live forever, it's just as clear that there's a solid chance of Shane hosting wakes for every other man on that stage.

I hate to say that Shane MacGowan is the Pogues, but really, Shane MacGowan is the Pogues. In much the same was I feel that a Clash reunion without Joe Strummer would be Big Audio Dynamite, I feel that the Pogues without Shane is the Irish Rovers. Still geniuses all, but not the same. I would still pay cash money to see the rest of the band, they're all talents in their own rights, but it would just be a different band with 9/10 of the same members.

Hopefully Shane goes on being Shane, and hopefully this isn't really the last call for Pogue Mahone.

--

What I know we got in no particular order:

Sunny Side of the Street... Funny story. Last time we saw them, Shane would wander on stage every so often with his bottle and say "now Sunny Side of the Street!", and the band would huddle him and say "no no no Shane, not quite yet, you just go back over there and drink while we'll play". This time, he said Sunny Side of the Street, and that's what happened. It was nice to see him get his way!
Bottle of Smoke
If I Should Fall From Grace With God
Thousands are Sailing
Streams of Whiskey
A pair of Brown Eyes
The Band Played Waltzing Matilda
Tuesday Morning
Dirty Old Town (Now Detroit, now THAT is a dirty old town)
Rainy Night in Soho
London Girl
The Sick Bed of Cuchulainn (?)
Sally Maclennane
Poor Paddy
Fiesta

That's probably about half the setlist, I have a shitty memory, years of drinking, lalala, sue me.

[music | Throwing Muses - Soul Soldier, Live At The Middle East]

Here are some of my favorite photos from the fantastic Gang of Four show at the Paradise. We even got Hugo Burnham for a few songs! I know one of Natalie's cow-orkers had him as a professor in school in Boston, so we were glad he sat in.

I've rarely seen a crowd that active at the Paradise, maybe Alice in Chains, but I think the added space just gives people more room to move around now. I liked the renovations, the club completely makes more sense now. It seemed cursed, since we've had like 3 or 4 shows booked since the re-opening and haven't made it to a single one.

Also, huge thanks to LiveNation for not ruining the Paradise for photographers. Now, fix the damned House of Blues!

There are lots more pics on Flickr:

I would have given any one of you $1000 American to knock down that microphone stand right then:

This picture does nothing to convey the massive sound coming from that instrument at that moment:

At some point, I developed a thing for people playing the melodica:

Infected Mushroom just lied to my face, and made me walk out. I just paid $50 to watch people pretend to make music. It was insulting to the audience, and I can only hope they feel like complete frauds, though I doubt it.

When we bought the tickets, I pretty much expected a DJ set, and at some point our friends pointed out, "no, they play instruments now", which sounded promising. However what we actually saw was some guy bashing away aimlessly at a set of v-drums that had nothing to do whatsoever with the sound coming out of the speakers. Note that I was sitting on the speakers, so it was pretty easy to keep track. Many points where the sound would be a riding cymbal, and his sticks weren't in the air, or the bass drum kicks had nothing to do with the rate at which he was kicking his drum thinga. LAME. I have no evidence that the guitarist and keyboard player weren't playing, they seemed to be, but who the hell is to say? If they're willing to drag around an entire electronic drum kit, who's to say they aren't willing to lie about the rest of their instruments to? They did have wires coming out of them, and the guitar pedals did have lights on them, so maybe it was just so far down in the mix as to be indistinguishable.

I go to a lot of electronic music shows. NIN many times, KMFDM, Skinny Puppy, oHgr, Thrill Kill Kult, Ministry, Hanzel und Gretyl, and on and on. I've seen laptops crash, and lead singers have to chat with the audience while the rest of the band frantically tries to fix it. I understand that a lot of things simply cannot be played. I expect there to be backing tracks, or that if a keyboard player hits a key, it might make more than one sound, that's fine. But to just go out and pretend to play, and lie to a roomfull of people, that's just wrong.

I would have respected them if it had just been turntables, a keyboard for some played fills or whatever, and a mic. I probably would have stayed, and not flipped off the band and walked out.

No pictures of these guys, I wa too annoyed. I did take pictures of one of the openers, and when I figure out who they were, I'll post them. The first opener (which I have photos of) was a really good jazzy/reggae/rockey fusioney group. Their singer sounded great and the crowd didn't just stand around as is usual with opening bands. The second opener was a good DJ set, though he had some pretty dork-tacular moves. He didn't take himself too seriously though and it was pretty fun.

Infected Mushroom though? Skip it, go watch a normal DJ and you won't feel taken advantage of.

This reminded me of a rant I read several years ago on the very same subject:
http://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/log/2003/10/