Rolling Stones -Gillette Stadium, Foxborough Mass July 7th
Summer part two kicked off in Foxboro, for the re-scheduled Rolling Stones summer tour. Tickets for this show were insane on Stubhub, and held their inflated value even into ‘day of show’. Finally a section of partially obstructed view seats right next to the stage ($275 face value) dipped to 109.00 at 3 pm. Grabbed a few and set out in the party vehicle for Foxboro.
Open heart surgery should take more than an eight week recovery period, but here we are a short time after Mick was on the surgery table, with Jagger prancing up and down the runway that led 30 or so yards into the crowd moving like it was 1975. (Jagger was days shy of his 76th birthday.)
Opening act Gary Clarke Jr. was a solid blues based opening act, with a touch of Stevie Ray in there. He later came back to jam with the Stones on Ride ‘Em On Down (pictured above), pretty heady territory for someone on their third major label lp.
The band hit the stage while the sun was still up, and if anyone thought the band had lost a step over the last seven years since their last tour, or their singer’s hospitalization, it was not to be.
The opening one two punch of Street Fighting Man and It’s Only Rock n Roll peeled the decades away from 2019 and the impossibility of it being the 56th year of the Rolling Stones as a touring band, and the core of Jagger, Richards, Wood and Watts telepathically followed each other’s subtle cues- shifting gears seamlessly. Sometimes Richards blew a riff coming in early (Midnight Rambler the most obvious one), but hey 75 year old former junkies can miss a beat here and there. The Stones have a fan vote to pick one song per show, and the winner She’s So Cold was the rarity for the evening, only played twice on the world tour. Since it was just after the 4th of July, Jagger referenced Trump’s recent gaffe saying the revolutionary war was won because we’d captured their airports: “If only the British held onto the airports, the whole thing might have gone a little bit differently.”
Jagger also noted that this was their 29th appearance in Boston (even though Foxboro is 30 or so miles outside of Boston). Likely he is also including Worcester (45 miles away) where the Stones played their first area show in 1965 (plus many others).
A stripped down mini set at the end of the catwalk in the middle of the audience brought out acoustic guitars for Mick and Keith on Play With Fire and Dead Flowers, and showcased a playful side, showing how much fun these guys still have on stage (the core four tips in at 75, 75, 78 and 72–a cool three hundred years of rocker quartet in front of you). Jagger somehow managed to confuse the band members during introductions, including not correctly identifying Bernard Fowler who has been in the band since 1989. Oops!
An older drunk guy next to me spent a while yelling for Start Me Up every time they stopped a song. Finally as Midnight Rambler halted they flung headlong into said song. Every head near me turned looking for the guy, but he was gone. I raised my beer and yelled out “this one is for drunk guy!” 20 song set, by the original heroes of rock n roll, 56 years after their first tour. Beautiful.
Setlist here
PFM Premiata Forneiria Marconi, Piazza di Signorelli, Cortona Italy July 17
Ten days and 4,000 miles later…
Seeing PFM in Italy? Are you kidding? This was amazing to the bounds of disbelief. Tickets bought in America online are sitting in an envelope with my name on it at will call on a folding card table at the outdoor cobblestoned entrance to Piazza Signorelli in the fortified hilltop Tuscan town of Cortona?
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But it was all true. I was in a tiny piazza in Italy that held around a thousand or so people for the Cortona Mix Festival, who had PFM (Premiata Forneria Marconi), Italy’s best known prog rock band of the 70’s as their main event. Still a fairly well know affair in Italy, but now unknown in the States, PFM have never really stopped touring since their foundation in roughly 1971. That puts them in their 48th year of touring, and this summer’s tour was know as TVB, or ‘The Very Best”. The very best would translate into a set leaning on the best known pieces from their heyday of 1972-1977.
PFM was the most well known Italian band in America in the 70’s and early 80’s due to their being briefly signed to ELP’s Manticore label, and having Pete Sinfield rewrite their Italian lyrics into English, and I had most of their catalogue at an early age. They sound like most Italian prog bands of the era: violin, flute, synth, organ, electric guitar bass and drums spitting out intricate combinations of ELP/JethroTull/Genesis/GentleGiant/KingCrimson. The ratio of each within a given Italian band varied of course, but there is one more important ingredient-most Italian bands also lean heavily on local Italian melodies and themes-the pure heartbeat of Italian folk spirit in dazzling rhythmic and virtuosic solo spirals, an organized version of collective musical ‘chase me’ by the musicians. This is what sets Italian bands apart from their UK prog counterparts, this ability to bring faint hints of centuries past folk melodies into nearly every song.
Frontman and founding member Franz DiCoccio alternated between drummer and animated storytelling frontman (unfortunately all in Italian), a suprisingly strong lead vocalist who was a ball of energy–pulling drumsticks from his pocket from time to time to thrash anything within reach while occasionally leaping in the air like the best Biglietto per L’Inferno performance. Bassist Patrick Djivas (originally from the legendary Italian band Area) has been there since 1974, and is one of the most gifted musicians in any prog band in any country, able to put Chris Squire, Geddy Lee and Mike Rutheford’s best efforts to shame without breaking into a sweat. Violinist Luccio Fabbri has been on board following 1979’s Passpartu. The remaining musicians, some only in the band for 3-4 years, are seamless additions, as the band plays frighteningly fast with clockwork precision. The few songs I did not recognize were all covers of 1960’s folk musician Fabrizio De Andre tunes (with il Pescatore as the most well known), are all unknown in the States, but as familiar to Italians as Bob Dylan is to Americans. The crowd all sang in unison to the chorus of the De Andre songs as if it was part of their upbringing, which his songs pretty much are. (His association with PFM goes back to 1980, and is a story that could fill its own book.) Their setlist was a dream version of their stuff, which covered ALL their big stuff-(using English titles): from Four Holes in the Ground to start to Celebration (e Festa) to finish? Make no mistake though, this was a show that made no reference to their English song titles, this was one for their Italian familia. One of the best musical experiences of the decade.
In case you think this is hyperbole, here is a whole concert that is very similar to what I witnessed, amazing shit:
Iron Maiden Great Woods Mansfield Mass August 1st
Back in the States for less than a week, I realized that Maiden had been missed last tour and was on the radar since March this year. I grabbed some of the very last actual seats in the uncovered field, and Stubhub prices went through the roof over the next few days.
Opening band Raven Age features Steve Harris’ son, and were pedestrian nepotism infused metal not far from Dad’s territory, but updated for the 21st century. They’ve opened for Maiden on two tours, and a couple of tours for Eddie Van Halens’ kid’s band. Got that?
I’d somehow managed to miss Maiden in their heyday, and missed every gig since for multiple reasons. I was pretty amped for this show, even though the band is sometimes referred to as “a t shirt store with a musical accompaniment”. Aces High started the show with full fury of Maiden at the height of their game, resplendent with a life size WW2 British Spitfire wobbling overhead. Where Eagles Dare and Two Minutes to Midnight followed giving an edge to the evening, and hopes for an early 80’s heavy set list.
That didn’t happen. The setlist veered off course and dabbled in material from their four album run from 1992-2000, with X Factor, Virtual XI and Brave New World, their 10th-12th lps serving up some clunkers that significantly slowed up the party. But many of the new Maidenheads had no idea, they were thrashing along like it was their first album.
Sure Bruce can’t hit all the notes like he used to, and the triple guitar attack of Gers, and twin original leads Murray and Smith can seem off a step, they are in fact able to play some fairly challenging arpeggiated arrangements without cracking a sweat. Harris is still the commander, orchestrating the madness in a torrent of bass scales that have always been the hallmark of the band. Hallowed Be Thy Name and Run To The Hills, perhaps two of their strongest songs were wise choices to finish up the evening. Explosions? Fire? Oversized props? Eddie lurching around threatening to knock over everything? Check all the above boxes. You need to see this to believe it.
Arlo Guthrie Celebrate Holyoke Festival, Heritage State Park, Holyoke Mass August 24
A free show not far from home, and the site of Blue Oyster Cult and Derringer (two of my high school faves namechecked in my yearbook writeup) nearly 15 years ago to the day.
Arlo is one of the icons of the 60’s protest folk movement, not in the least because his father, Woody Guthrie, made the folk movement a household word 60 years ago. His son delivered the signpost of antiwar and anti authoritarianism with the 20 minute side long epic Alice’s Restaurant from the album of the same name. The band delivered that song in a delightfully long rendition (noting that not much of Stockbridge Mass, the scene of the ‘Thanksgiving crime” has changed since 1967)
But like many singer songwriters of the 60’s, it is their stories that are the treasures of the show. He noted that at a progressive school as a youngster, he was the only one who didn’t know the words to his father’s anthem This Land is Your Land, came home and mentioned this. Then his father took him out back to….give him a guitar.
His best gem roughly was this:
“In the early 1970’s, I’d noticed that Bob Dylan had put out so much new material, that year by year he’d been forced to retire much of his more famous pieces to make room for new stuff, and this kind of made me mad. So I would learn some of his early to mid 60’s classics and put ’em in my set because this was his good stuff. Well now I’m in the southwest getting off a plane on a staircase down to the tarmac, and there’s a few reporters waiting for me. ‘Are you Arlo Guthrie? Yeah? Did you know Bob Dylan is playing in town tonight? I said no, but that was great. He quickly said ‘But yeah but if he’s here, why would anyone want to come see you?’ Without missing a beat, I said ‘if anyone wants to see real Dylan songs, they will’ Now this is back in the day when there were multiple editions of newspapers in one day, and reading the evening edition in the dressing room, I read his piece and he quoted the whole interaction verbatim. I panicked as I only knew a few Dylan songs, but I got out my songbook and learned 8 or 9 songs quick just in case”
Folksy and energetic, belying his 72 years of age, Arlo is a national treasure.
In a weird coincidence, the next day I drove to Tanglewood to see the BSO do the closing show of the year: Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, his signature piece. On the way, I looked up: ‘hey! Stockbridge! Hey there’s Alice’s original restaurant. Weird synchronicities abound.
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard College Street New Haven CT August 27
I had been dragged to this show with no idea of what to expect by a friend who also pulled this trick on me with Moe fifteen years ago. Australia’s King Gizzard etc. sport one of the most unwieldy and offputting band names since the Butthole Surfers dared anyone to come see them. But this is where the comparisons end. King Gizzard are the most challenging band in rock in the last decade. Their prolific output is unmatched in history, with a jaw dropping five albums released in 2017 alone, including the magnificent Polygondwanaland, a krautrock prog-rock stoner jam hybridization.
This album featured heavily in the setlist, which instantly hooked me. This band has no comparison in the rock world for their chameleon like behavior. Their current album, Infest the Rat’s Nest, (15th lp in 7 years) is a blast of Motorhead circa 1982, while 2015-2017 yielded albums sounding like Seals and Crofts, Arabic 60’s microtonal psychedlia, sludge stoner, Italian western soundtrack, narrations, all acoustic folk, surf rock, garage rock…a variety that puts Ween’s take on genres seem tame. The four songs from Polygondwanaland were the highlight, in particular the mind blowing Crumbling Castle.
Start with Nonagon Infinity, and go from there. Think a little Ween, a little King Crimson, a little Hawkwind and a little Ty Segall and you are in the ball park. You will be hooked. Best new band I’ve heard in 15 years since Wolfmother, another Aussie breakout.
the Who Fenway Park Boston Mass Friday September 13
This began a mind boggling run of six shows in two weeks (including 4 shows in 5 days):
Fenway Park frankly is not the greatest place to see a show. I’d seen the Dead and Paul McCartney here, and there aren’t really any good seats in the place. On the other hand, there aren’t a ton of bad seats either, but wherever you are, a stage set up in center field isn’t close to any seat designed to focus on an infield at the opposite end.
With that out of the way, I was very psyched to once again see the Who, the last living original rock treasure besides the Stones. (if you think about it, the Stones and the Who have seen the whole history of rock n roll starting in the 50’s, and lived the whole history of rock n roll starting in 1962) I’d seen Townshend’s orchestral version of Quadrophenia two years ago, and Daltrey’s symphonic version of Tommy last summer at Tanglewood, and the full band two years ago. That most recent Who show was one of the best in the last seven years, which flies in the face of logic. But that short tour saw a rested Daltrey, an irritable Townshend and plenty of energy that saw some breakdowns leading to free form jamming in songs like they haven’t tried in decades.
Tonight saw them open with a six song mini set of Tommy, well played and crisp. They also began to debut some new material (Ball and Chain and Hero Ground Zero) from their upcoming album (!). Their last new album, Endless Wire in 2006 (their first in 24 years) had some very interesting things on it, particularly the ‘mini-opera’ and Tea and Theater, their tribute to John Entwistle and Keith Moon. But 13 years later, another studio release from the band is certainly a tribute to the creative well that fuels the band.
Pete! This one’s in ‘G’!
An acoustic Won’t Get Fooled again was a nice highlight, as was the rarely played Imagine a Man from 1975’s underrated Who By Numbers. The rush to the end started with a four song mini set from Quadrophenia and then hit all the expected turns to the finale of Baba O’Reilly (Teenage Wasteland). Pete wasn’t really at the top of his manic energy game, and Daltrey might have had some diminished power in his vocals (this was the end of a lengthy tour), but they certainly were far from listless, an affliction some other bands of that era can exhibit on stage. Still, at age 74, Townshend can windmill up a storm, when many septugenarians can barely get out of their recliners. Not the best Who show I’d seen, but let’s be clear: a middling Who show is light years away from most band’s performances these days. True rock gods are getting few and far between lately. The pulse of rock n roll was on display, pure and easy.
There once was a note, listen!
Blue Oyster Cult Big E Springfield Mass Sunday September 15
Two days later:
Although I’d paid the grandiose sum of 50 bucks to see them in April, and they delivered a perfunctory set, taking 2/3 of the set to even seem to warm up, I couldn’t resist going one more time to see what they had to offer. (At the Big E, all concerts are included in the 15 dollar general admission to the fair)
Cities on Flame, motherfukkahs, with Rock and Roll!!
The seating in the covered pavilion is general admission, and getting there a bit late, I found most of the seats were filled. Being the eternal optimist, I headed towards the front, an lo and behold, the whole second row was empty. Perhaps the fairground crowd thought that those clustered in the front on the stage would obscure their seated view and moved further back, but nevertheless I waded in and perched myself ten feet from the stage. (Ironically, everyone soon stood up for the whole show)
The band delivered a nearly identical setlist as they had in March, again starting with the dubious Dr. Music and likewise questionable Golden Age of Leather. Once again, they also ignored my shouted entreaties for Black Blade. But ME 262 is always a highlight, and the once rare Last Days of May from their debut album (written in 1969), led to the usual suspects ya know, Don’t Fear the Reaper, Godzilla, Cities on Flame…the essence of BOC on display. Perfunctory but effective, and much more energetic than in April. Would like some more variation in the set, but for an essentially free show? Fantastic.
Alan Parsons (live) Project Hanover Theater Worcester Mass Wednesday September 18
“Mike Oldfield Does Toto”
Three days later:
First thing, Alan Parsons bears an uncanny resemblance to Matt Berry as Douglas Reynohlm from the IT Crowd, one of the better British sitcoms of the century. See below:
Alan Parsons is legendary in the music business. An assistant engineer on the Beatles Abbey Road and Let it Be as a teenager, he rose to stardom as the engineer who created the magical soundscape that is Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, pioneering several recording techniques while getting a Grammy nomination for his work as a fifth member of the band at age 24.
The Alan Parsons Project was a fairly big thing in the late seventies and had a five album run from 1977-1982 where he had two gold and three platinum releases in the US (the only country that really took to this British studio only invention). I had the second album, I Robot early on, with the hits I Wouldn’t Want to Be Like You and the haunting Breakdown with Allan Clarke from the Hollies on lead vocals. A frustrating album, it veers from edgy progressive dystopian instrumentals to made for radio corporate rock.
I had gone to this on short notice when an old college roommate had a cancellation. He and his friends had been larger fans of the band than I back in the day, as I was wary of their FM radio aspirations being in conflict with their obvious prog chops. At the Hanover Theater, Parsons was less than engaged, mainly strumming on acoustic guitar and triggering sequences ( some tapes) and let the rest of the band get it on, more of a presence than an actual driving force. He is leaning towards the unhealthy end of the spectrum, and handrails aided his steps up to the platform where the drumkit normally would be. A couple of songs saw him showing his vocals, and his new stuff from the upcoming album wasn’t bad, but overall it was a frustrating show that illustrated the paradox of trying to mix the cerebral and the mundane in one moment. Breakdown lacked the powerful choir that brings that song to its conclusion, but having it segue into the Raven from their debut album was a decent make up play. Material from some of their later stuff like Eye in the Sky reminded me why I had stopped my Parsons adventure after I Robot, but the 50-60-ish year old fans in the crowd were enthralled.
At the set break, Parsons said ‘ok we are taking a break, go get a drink and watch all those terrible videos you’ve been taking.’ I turned to my friend and said ‘this is like watching Mike Oldfield circa 1981 trying to do Toto of the same era.’ My friend got quiet and said ‘there’s nothing in that statement that I can disagree with’. Fair to middling show but he so infrequently toured that this really was something rarely seen. Glad I went, but once will be enough.
King Crimson Wang Center Boston Thursday September 19
One night later:
As chronicled before four and two years ago here and here, the idea of King Crimson in 2019 is fairly mind blowing. The idea that King Crimson is still actually good in 2019 is really beyond any expectations. But tonight, King Crimson was far beyond good. They put on, once again, a master class in the art of rock n roll. Freed from their long term refusal to dip into back catalog, the last four years of Crimson touring have brought out things rarely or never heard, hefty dollops of material from In the Court of the Crimson King, In the Wake of Poseidon, Lizard, Islands, Lark’s Tongues in Aspic, Starless and Bible Black and Red (the classic stuff from 1969 to 1974).
Once again, we were either subjected to entreaties or directly threatened (depending on your viewpoint) to keep us from taking any photos or doing any illicit recording. Instant ejection from the theater would be the reward. This being the third rodeo though, security usually gave a warning to put stuff away. Still, this obsessive compulsive behavior sourced from Fripp’s bottomless well of paranoia is consistently a nuisance, and provokes this author to take as many illegal photos as possible.
This night the band got off to a slower start, but this usually indicates a second set that will blow the roof off as make up. Tonight was no different. Pictures of a City was the ripping opener (yeah the drum solo to start the show doesn’t count), but soon things got off course, with the powerful Red being dampened by Mel Collins’ ill advised Kenny G tinged soprano sax solos. In the Court of the Crimson King put an exclamation point on the first set.
Set two brought out Level (Lark’s Tongues )5 to complement Lark’s Tongues part 4 in set one, but the set was a consistently higher energy affair, and it was a wild ride to 21st Century Schizoid Man as the encore. Fripp has become much more interactive with the band, and is still able to send sheets of cacophonies riding to the rafters. Impressive in extremis. If you haven’t seen Crimson on this reunion jag, you are certainly missing one of the most awe inspiring musical experiences available on the rock scene today. For this experience to come from a band with its foundation in 1969? Inexplicable. But if you listen, and are patient, Fripp will try to explain. Wondrous things will ensue, I promise.
Flock of Seagulls, Naked Eyes, Missing Persons Big E Springfield Mass Friday September 20
Then and Now
The next day:
The vicissitudes of playing the summer fair circuit for fading bands can be unpredictable. (Ask Cheap Trick, when their stage blew over in a freak rainstorm,) Tonight was no different. The stage for the three bands was identical, or put another way, they shared their gear: drumkit, amps, one master synth in the middle of the stage. Not a promising look. The Missing Persons delivered a three song set, with Dale Bozzio and a cast of unknowns off the stage before you could say ‘was that Dale Bozzio?’
The Naked Eyes supposedly suffered some stomach bug which necessitated Flock of Seagulls being pushed onstage early, and forced to pad out their scheduled 35 minute set.
I’d seen them back in the day, and they had not sold enough tickets to the Orpheum in Boston and were forced to play a small club with a capacity of 800, which was half full, and were in a commensurate pissy mood. Two songs into the show, things unexpectedly screeched out of control as the song disintegrated in front of everyone: singer and main haircut Mike Score cursed at the sound desk, where the tapes propelling much of the goings on ground to a stop and the sound engineer tore at his hair and banged on the tape deck as the song ground to a shuddering and embarrassing halt-one of the lowlights of authentic 80’s music.
Oddly, the Flock acquitted themselves nicely, with hits like Space Age Love Song, Wishing and I Ran (so far away) getting some folks up and dancing, and they brought a fair bit of energy to what was essentially a shambles of an event. Yeah they still used tapes to flesh out the sound, but that’s nothing new. Final verdict? “They didn’t suck”
Philip Glass Ensemble-Koyanisqaatsi Live, Fine Arts Center UMass Amherst September 25th
1.5 days later, 3 pm show:
This whirlwind run ended on a Sunday afternoon at the sold out Fine Arts Center at UMass, an acoustically designed building where the sound is perfect in nearly every seat. Tickets were gone early, and somehow I’d missed the fact that one of Glass’ most legendary pieces was going to be performed close by. Monitoring their website, they promised that once the stage had been set up, tickets would be released that were within the sightlines. True to their promise, they did, and I popped 8th row on the floor 20 hours before showtime. The 82 year old Philip Glass led his ensemble through the soundtrack to the 1982 film Koyanisqaatsi (Hopi for ‘life out of balance’), which was projected behind them. The score to the film is one of the more powerful pieces in his lengthy canon, and the ensemble plays what seems to be sequenced electronic music by hand, each note played blisteringly fast, by musicians who are of an age more suited to gentle acoustic melodies than the blood pressure raising tempos of arpeggios played at demon speeds.
I’d seen the film in the theaters a couple of times decades ago, and knew that things would work well with a live soundtrack. I’d also seen the Ensemble a few times decades ago, and I’d have to say that this performance was one of the best I’d witnessed. The film itself is quite powerful, an 85 minute indictment of humanity’s greed, stupidity and eventually our irrelevance on planet earth. She will be fine once we are gone forever.
This conceivably might have been one of the last tours of the Ensemble. It is unlikely that Glass at 82 can continue this blistering pace of touring and physical exertion of playing. But as I watched from the 8th row, quietly during one of the powerful crescendos in the piece, Glass pulled his hands off the keyboard to subtly conduct the swelling oratio coming from the synths, eyes closed in musical intensity. It was a performance for the ages by one of the most iconic composers in the post modern era.
“Near the Day of Purification, there will be cobwebs spun back and forth in the sky.”
“A container of ashes might one day be thrown from the sky, which could burn the land and boil the oceans.” -Hopi prophecies
One could not think of a better way to end the summer-a haunting call from nature to restore the balance, and a finger pointed fairly clearly at the problem-all the while accompanied by some reality altering music.. The only worry is that this could legitimately be the last time we will see the Philip Glass Ensemble in public as he hasn’t had many full on tours of America since 2000.
Below is the original trailer and a short bit of Koyanisqaatsi:
Thus we come to the end of Part two of the summer, and what a ride it was. But something weird was in common to these shows: many of these bands were either huge or very active in 1969: Rolling Stones, the Who, King Crimson, Blue Oyster Cult, PFM, Arlo Guthrie, Philip Glass-and earlier in the summer Mott the Hoople, Pink Floyd, Uriah Heep, Jethro Tull, Grateful Dead…this says something, and it is not good. (to drive the point home, the local theater is advertising big upcoming shows: Bob Seger tribute band, Queen tribute band and Led Zeppelin tribute band, all bands active in some form in 1969). 1969 is known as one of the golden years of rock n roll, and it is now FIFTY long years ago. (for some perspective, 50 years before 1969 was 1919, galaxies away from summer of ’69) Although touched upon earlier here, there is a powerful double edged sword in play. On one hand, we are unbelievably lucky to get to see some of the real legends of rock n roll. I mean some of the biggest movers and shakers from the late 60’s and early 70’s are still out there showing what made rock n roll one of the most powerful phenomena in the world for twenty or so years. But on the other side of the sword is the troubling thought: is rock n roll dying? As a life changing cultural phenomenon, the short answer appears to be yes. Either way, get your ass out there while you can, because legends like these aren’t going to hang around forever. What a summer.
Cheers, Carwreckdebangs
addendum:
One week later: This show happened after the article was finished, so here we go with a tidy addendum to finish out the summer:
Stereolab The Royale, Boston Mass September 29th
Stereolab in 2019. They’d broken up over ten years ago and this reunion was kind of a big deal in the hipster doofus scene. (Tickets for their NYC two day run were going for double face value, yet somehow at the last minute some tickets showed up on stubhub for ten bucks less than face). The crowd mirrored this vibe: heavy on the mid 20 somethings hipster age group that were their bread and butter in 1995, and the hipster kids who actually were 25 in 1995, who were a large-ish minority in the crowd. I’d broken out some of their early stuff recently and was reminded of running into a long lost friend you hadn’t even realized you missed. Easy familiarity and warm feelings ran throughout their first three albums, an area I hadn’t visited in the last ten years at least, and I was wondering what they would bring.
One reason for trepidation was the passing of important backing vocalist and founding member Mary Hansen (killed in a bicycle accident in London in 2002). Usually backing musicians are easily replaced, but Hansen was able to create Stereolab’s signature harmonies with French lead vocalist Laetitia Sadler that defined the band’s sound. Without her? Things have been less successful. Harmonizers on the male bassist’s vocal mic created some harmonies that were vaguely reminiscent of their sound, but for the most part, Sadler was on her own.
The stripped down band featured Laetitia and Tim Gane, the heart and soul of the band. Songs still rely upon obscure references: a full on rip(off) on Hallo Gallo from the first Neu album–a krautrock masterpiece, some My Bloody Valentine and Kraftwerk swirled in, Stereolab has always exuded a ‘we are hipper than thou’ vibe. Add in a bit of Terry Riley and Philip Glass and you have a stew that somehow is greater than the individual ingredients. Name checking the coolest of the cool has always been their raison d’etre. But at the same time, they can be innocently endearing. As fans shouted for their favorites, French singer Sadler quietly said ‘hold your horse’ into the mic. Little things like this help break the barrier they used to put up between themselves and their fans. The setlist trended more towards their later material, stuff I had dismissed as stagnating formula, but oddly, the later songs hung in there pretty well with the classic mid 90’s stuff. Maybe I was wrong two decades ago? Nahhh..
If there is a second leg, get out there and see ’em. Setlist here
Overall a great end to the summer’s insane run of 25 shows in 6 months.
Final tally: 9.425 miles traveled on second leg.
Part one of the Summer 2019 reviews can be read here
carwreckdebangs 