Guess What I Did Last Night?

Badlands
Adam Raised a Cain
Outlaw Pete
Radio Nowhere
She’s the One (!)
Working On a Dream
Seeds
Johnny 99
The Ghost of Tom Joad
Raise Your Hand
Growin’ Up (!!)
I’m Going Down
Prove It All Night
Waitin’ on a Sunny Day
The Promised Land
The Wrestler
Kingdom of Days
Lonesome Day
The Rising
Born To Run (house lights turned up throughout the arena)



And THEN:
Hard Times
Thunder Road
Jungleland (!!!)
Land of Hope and Dreams
American Land
Rosalita (after a false 'final ending,' with the lights up again)

And Max's son Jay Weinberg, who is 18 (and goes to school in Hoboken, thank you very much) was playing drums, and he was great!!

Sometimes, life is actually very, very good.

The Cradle WILL Rock

And, in this case, i'm not talking about a Marc Blitzstein musical. Or a Tim Robbins movie about a Marc Blitzstein musical.

I am talking about - wait for it - VAN HALEN!!!

Monsters of 70s and 80s Rock, Kings of the Hair Bands, Undisputed Lords of Metal Pop (well, ok, there's plenty of dispute over who get to be Lords of Metal Pop, but it's really not an argument worth having) played Meadowlands this weekend, and thanks to the dayjob, i got to go. Took Shannon as my date, as I'd been to see her husband's show earlier in the day with Sherin and JP, and they needed the evening to themselves. Plus, duh, Shannon's just super fun to rock out with.

As i wrote to the T-Day crew: that's right folks, i was runnin' with the devil and oh baby baby i danced the night away while jamie was cryin' in panama. Now, i ain't talking 'bout love, but i was hot for teacher (oh, she was a pretty woman, after all). And i'll wait for the women and children first, but fair warning: when push comes to shove, somebody get me a doctor, 'cuz i might as well jump.

Now perhaps you noticed in that photo that the guy on the right seems a little younger than the others. How perceptive of you! That's because the orginal bass player, Michael Anthony, has been replaced on this particular tour by Eddie Van Halen's son, Wolfgang. Who is 16.

Pause just a moment to reflect on that. Perhaps in light of what you did when you were 16. Me, i got my driver's license and thought that was pretty bitchen.

Wolfgang did a good job (though i am a little bothered by the rumor that VH is using Michael's pre-recorded backing vocals while excluding him from the tour), and the band put on a great show, of its ilk. It's not really my preferred music in general, but you gotta give credit where it's due.

Mad props to Shannon for coming up with the notion that David Lee Roth is the Liberace of his generation. Probably wouldn't have occurred to me, but it's inescapable: the broad smile, the brightly-colored matador jackets (one after the other, each with its pattern of spangly sequins), the - i'm not making it up, folks - explosions of sparkling confetti. A walking, jumping, roundhouse-kicking personification of flamboyant showmanship.

Bonnawrap-up

This will be the first of probably several posts on the Bonnaroo festival I went to last week with Sherin, J.P. and my brother-in-law Jason. You've seen some of the advance notice here - 4 days of music, art and camping in southern Tennessee, replete with acts that gave much cause for high hopes. Earlier today, I was asked why it's taken me so long to post about this at all, and while I could respond with the standard 'it takes time to recover, life is hard, blah blah blah,' you'd all see right through that because you know the truth: when you're a rock star of my magnitude, you end up spending a lot of time drizzling chocolate syrup on naked models and other such activities. Also, Sherin beat me to the obvious title and opening line in her 6/19 entry.

So for now, I'll just say that the Roo rocked our socks off. Seriously, you should have seen our feet; they were pretty gross by the end. It was more than worth treading around in sandals, though, and hiking the half-hour from the tent to the venue (including that huge bottleneck at the 'security' checkpoint - which was pretty comical, and seemed to be for show. They really looked for contraband the first day; by the end of which I'm guessing that the security team had confiscated enough chemical refreshment to keep the whole staff going the whole weekend, because by Friday they were pretty halfhearted about it, and by Saturday people were smuggling in whole coolers full of stuff.) There were plenty of moments that fell short of transcendent, and a couple that were really quite lame, but those moments were way outweighed by the awesome rockage of the best acts.

Diving right in, Sherin and J.P stood on line to catch Lewis Black and friends; I'd seen a full set of his before, and the line was long, so Jason and I went to "This Tent" to see The Black Angels instead. They're from Austin, which makes me happy, and took their name from the Velvet Underground's 'Black Angel Death Song.' True to this origin, they give good drone. Dark but not oppressive, their live show casts a long shadow on their (good) recordings. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this was a big theme for the weekend. Bands I already really liked got that much more of my respect when I heard and saw what they're capable of in person.

After the angels, J & I ducked over to "The Other Tent" to hear the end of the New Orleans Klezmer Allstars. They're just what their name sounds like: good fun dixieland meets Eastern European Jewish clarinet Jam. Moved on to "That Tent" (yes, I know, the venue names are like the "Who's on First?" routine. Just dreadfully clever, ain't it? :p ) to catch The National. Not much to say about them: they were fine, but I spent part of the set just chillin in the grass. Which was a-ok, because it allowed me to save my energy for Rodrigo y Gabriela who fucking rocked!!!!

[the usage of 'rock' and its variants as a modifier is already really old, I know, but sometimes it's the only word that will do...]





Mexican guitar duo, plenty flamenco, heavy metal 'tude; he has fieryfast picking skills and she whales on the git box with such percussive fervor that a couple times I caught myself scanning the stage looking for the nonexistent drummer. Maybe a teeny bit too cheerlead-y for my taste, and I don't think we needed both 'Wish You were Here' and 'Stairway.' But complaining about such details would just be perverse.

And on that note, it's back to the chocolate sauce. Another installment will follow shortly...