There's a song by song account here:
http://soundroundreview.wordpress.com/2 ... o-6-11-09/
Nice work. My only question is, why is this guy sitting on the lawn?
EC & Sugarcanes at Wolf Trap, June 11 '09
Re: EC & Sugarcanes at Wolf Trap, June 11 '09
I think if he was in better voice it might have helped. As noted the sound mix lacked for a good part of the show. I brought up the AT show because it was such a contrast. That show's set list was not typical either but the energy just over took the crowd. EC and band were in great form. The Barns of WT or the Birchmere would have been a better venue for this show or maybe part of the WT BG festival.Who Shot Sam? wrote: Sounds like the Wolf Trap concert was a step down from the Beacon show, but people really should make an effort to understand what kind of concert they are going to get before they decide to come. It was never going to be a greatest hits revue.
-
Lester Burnham
- Posts: 247
- Joined: Tue Aug 08, 2006 4:55 pm
Re: EC & Sugarcanes at Wolf Trap, June 11 '09
Heh, that's my siteFAVEHOUR wrote:There's a song by song account here:
http://soundroundreview.wordpress.com/2 ... o-6-11-09/
Nice work. My only question is, why is this guy sitting on the lawn?
Lawn seats were because my friend is too thrifty to splurge ... also, I think she bought them too "late" to get anything closer.
Last edited by Lester Burnham on Sun Jun 14, 2009 2:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Re: EC & Sugarcanes at Wolf Trap, June 11 '09
You wrote this, Lester? Nice. I enjoyed all the detail, you obviously knew your stuff. What I meant about the lawn was, a fan so into it deserved to be up close!
Re: EC & Sugarcanes at Wolf Trap, June 11 '09
John Kelvie blogs an interesting perspective -
http://lightheatcode.com/?p=146
Beastie Boys versus Elvis Costello
June 13, 2009 – 2:25 pm
I went to see two shows last week - on Tuesday, the Beastie Boys at Rams Head Live in Baltimore, on Thursday, Elvis Costello at Wolftrap in VA. The Beastie Boys show was a bit of a fluke. It had been announced the week before, and though I love Rams Head Live, it’s a relatively small club for a band like them (about 1200 capacity) and getting the tickets required some luck, as well as jamming buttons on a website for about 15 minutes.
So it wasn’t planned, but I liked the symmetry. The two had done a great performance together on SNL a few years ago which was a very cool reference to an Elvis performance on SNL from 1977.
I was, though, looking forward much more to seeing the Beastie Boys. They are one of my all-time favorites - Paul’s Boutique in particular. Its on a short-list of albums I’d guess I’ve listened to more than a thousand times (Back in Black and maybe London Calling would be the others - though not easy to keep track of these things), and there was a good year in college where it never came out of my car cassette player, it was never turned off, never fast-forwarded: just one year-long loop of what was my favorite album. I’d seen them before, in ‘94 at Lollapalooza and loved them. It was a long time ago, but no reason to think they would be anything other than great.
However, they weren’t. In fact, I would say they sucked. Why? Well, here was there set-list.
http://mic-to-mic.blogspot.com/2009/06/ ... tlist.html
If you don’t care to read it all through, its one song off Licensed to Ill, one song off Paul’s Boutique, four off of Check Your Head, and then a bunch of other stuff - a lot of Ill Communication, some of the weird early stuff, and then some of the new rap (Intergalactic, etc.) along with some new, new rock stuff.
So what’s the problem? Several:
1. Not enough License and Paul’s Boutique. Their three best albums are Paul’s Boutique, Licensed to Ill and Check Your Head (in that order). I would actually argue that this is a fairly common pattern, with slight variation, for bands - their best album is their second (or third), their second best is their first, and their third (or fourth) is their last good one. This is true of the Beasties, and if you don’t agree with me, fine; we won’t agree on much anyway.
2. What they did play from their old stuff, they did lame remixes. “So Watcha Want”, which has a disgustingly catchy hook, they remixed halfway through so the hook wasn’t there: if they are tired of playing the song, they could have just gone off stage and let the DJ loop the refrain - would have been fine with me. It’s just not a song that needs remixing - the beat and sound are pretty close to perfect. They did this also on “No sleep till Brooklyn” and I think Pass The Mic. Argh.
3. Their new rap stuff blows. Songs like “Triple Trouble”, which mercifully they did not play, belong to a new, unholy category of music I would label “rap formalism”: it’s a style of rap that’s over-fussed, overly reverential of early hip-hop, and contains lyrics that seem like they came from this thought process: “As this hip-hop composition is a tribute to early rap, it’s essential that at this point I perform some braggadocio in the well-documented African-American oral tradition that traces back time immemorial. Yes, you are insubstantial compared to my well-learned song structures and rhyming patterns.”
4. In fact, I think way they perform now, pretty much all their rap stuff blows - with the exception of Mike D, the dork of the band, they’ve turned into a bunch of introverts. Or maybe they are just too cool for their material; it must be hard saving Tibet AND our right to party. Either way, MCA looked completely disinterested during all the rap songs (though did still sound the best) and at times it seemed like he was about to just wander off stage. And he missed some queues pretty blatantly, which I don’t really care about, but still not a good sign. Also, he’s completely given up on looking cool. At all. This is also a bad sign for a musician.
Let’s contrast this with Elvis Costello: his current tour is one with a group of accomplished bluegrass/country performers. He played a bunch of songs (about three hours worth), most of which I had not heard before, presumably off his new album though I’m sure some where also just country/bluegrass standards, and he played three songs that I know: “Everyday I write the book”, “What’s so funny about peace, love and understanding”, and “Alison”. And guess what? It was a great show. Now it benefited from being a wonderful night at wolftrap, and sitting on the lawn drinking beer and watching a great craftsman do his work is almost impossible to object to. But that’s sort of the point - he really put himself into his songs.
I’m not going to claim to be overly open-minded about music. There are some genres and bands I like, a relatively small number that I love, and a large cross-section that my feelings range between ambivalence to outright disdain. However, I’m talking about recorded music, on the radio or CD or whatever. My experience with live music is that almost any artist, if they are somewhat talented and very passionate, can put on a great show that I will absolutely love, no matter what I might have thought of them before. Case in point would be Alice In Chains, which I saw a couple years back, a band I had actively disliked for a long time (too grungy, sludgey), and they were incredible. In particular, their performance of the song “The Rooster” was one of the best and most moving I have ever seen.
So, my complaint with the Beastie Boys does not center on them not playing enough old stuff. Yes, in my perfect world they would just played their first two albums straight through, plus select songs from Check Your Head, and they would have done it with verve and care and a sense of fun. This is basically what AC/DC does at their shows - it’s the greatest hits plus the best one or two songs off their new album. They are the ultimate professionals, but it doesn’t feel like they are just going through the motions; there’s great energy and seeming spontaneity. Of course if you’ve seen them repeatedly, you realize this: Angus Young has been doing the same strip-tease, in the same sequence, probably down to the exact same steps, since approximately 1982. But hey, that’s AC/DC. They also wrote one song thirty years ago and have been reworking and re-releasing it with slight variation and varying degrees of success ever since. To their credit, it was a damn good song.
At the other end of the spectrum, you have shows like Elvis: he played stuff that he loved, maybe the audience didn’t, or didn’t when they came in but because he’s great he transferred that feeling to the audience and they enjoyed the show. Would they have liked the “hits” show more? Probably. But if he doesn’t want to play it, then don’t. I read a great quote by Clint Eastwood recently - he said “I don’t know any geniuses; a genius to me is someone who succeeds at something he hates. Anyone can do well at something he loves.” I agree, though no doubt it helps if one has some talent for what it is he loves. And the Beasties certainly have a talent for music. But if they don’t love it, well, I don’t know any geniuses either I guess.
http://lightheatcode.com/?p=146
Beastie Boys versus Elvis Costello
June 13, 2009 – 2:25 pm
I went to see two shows last week - on Tuesday, the Beastie Boys at Rams Head Live in Baltimore, on Thursday, Elvis Costello at Wolftrap in VA. The Beastie Boys show was a bit of a fluke. It had been announced the week before, and though I love Rams Head Live, it’s a relatively small club for a band like them (about 1200 capacity) and getting the tickets required some luck, as well as jamming buttons on a website for about 15 minutes.
So it wasn’t planned, but I liked the symmetry. The two had done a great performance together on SNL a few years ago which was a very cool reference to an Elvis performance on SNL from 1977.
I was, though, looking forward much more to seeing the Beastie Boys. They are one of my all-time favorites - Paul’s Boutique in particular. Its on a short-list of albums I’d guess I’ve listened to more than a thousand times (Back in Black and maybe London Calling would be the others - though not easy to keep track of these things), and there was a good year in college where it never came out of my car cassette player, it was never turned off, never fast-forwarded: just one year-long loop of what was my favorite album. I’d seen them before, in ‘94 at Lollapalooza and loved them. It was a long time ago, but no reason to think they would be anything other than great.
However, they weren’t. In fact, I would say they sucked. Why? Well, here was there set-list.
http://mic-to-mic.blogspot.com/2009/06/ ... tlist.html
If you don’t care to read it all through, its one song off Licensed to Ill, one song off Paul’s Boutique, four off of Check Your Head, and then a bunch of other stuff - a lot of Ill Communication, some of the weird early stuff, and then some of the new rap (Intergalactic, etc.) along with some new, new rock stuff.
So what’s the problem? Several:
1. Not enough License and Paul’s Boutique. Their three best albums are Paul’s Boutique, Licensed to Ill and Check Your Head (in that order). I would actually argue that this is a fairly common pattern, with slight variation, for bands - their best album is their second (or third), their second best is their first, and their third (or fourth) is their last good one. This is true of the Beasties, and if you don’t agree with me, fine; we won’t agree on much anyway.
2. What they did play from their old stuff, they did lame remixes. “So Watcha Want”, which has a disgustingly catchy hook, they remixed halfway through so the hook wasn’t there: if they are tired of playing the song, they could have just gone off stage and let the DJ loop the refrain - would have been fine with me. It’s just not a song that needs remixing - the beat and sound are pretty close to perfect. They did this also on “No sleep till Brooklyn” and I think Pass The Mic. Argh.
3. Their new rap stuff blows. Songs like “Triple Trouble”, which mercifully they did not play, belong to a new, unholy category of music I would label “rap formalism”: it’s a style of rap that’s over-fussed, overly reverential of early hip-hop, and contains lyrics that seem like they came from this thought process: “As this hip-hop composition is a tribute to early rap, it’s essential that at this point I perform some braggadocio in the well-documented African-American oral tradition that traces back time immemorial. Yes, you are insubstantial compared to my well-learned song structures and rhyming patterns.”
4. In fact, I think way they perform now, pretty much all their rap stuff blows - with the exception of Mike D, the dork of the band, they’ve turned into a bunch of introverts. Or maybe they are just too cool for their material; it must be hard saving Tibet AND our right to party. Either way, MCA looked completely disinterested during all the rap songs (though did still sound the best) and at times it seemed like he was about to just wander off stage. And he missed some queues pretty blatantly, which I don’t really care about, but still not a good sign. Also, he’s completely given up on looking cool. At all. This is also a bad sign for a musician.
Let’s contrast this with Elvis Costello: his current tour is one with a group of accomplished bluegrass/country performers. He played a bunch of songs (about three hours worth), most of which I had not heard before, presumably off his new album though I’m sure some where also just country/bluegrass standards, and he played three songs that I know: “Everyday I write the book”, “What’s so funny about peace, love and understanding”, and “Alison”. And guess what? It was a great show. Now it benefited from being a wonderful night at wolftrap, and sitting on the lawn drinking beer and watching a great craftsman do his work is almost impossible to object to. But that’s sort of the point - he really put himself into his songs.
I’m not going to claim to be overly open-minded about music. There are some genres and bands I like, a relatively small number that I love, and a large cross-section that my feelings range between ambivalence to outright disdain. However, I’m talking about recorded music, on the radio or CD or whatever. My experience with live music is that almost any artist, if they are somewhat talented and very passionate, can put on a great show that I will absolutely love, no matter what I might have thought of them before. Case in point would be Alice In Chains, which I saw a couple years back, a band I had actively disliked for a long time (too grungy, sludgey), and they were incredible. In particular, their performance of the song “The Rooster” was one of the best and most moving I have ever seen.
So, my complaint with the Beastie Boys does not center on them not playing enough old stuff. Yes, in my perfect world they would just played their first two albums straight through, plus select songs from Check Your Head, and they would have done it with verve and care and a sense of fun. This is basically what AC/DC does at their shows - it’s the greatest hits plus the best one or two songs off their new album. They are the ultimate professionals, but it doesn’t feel like they are just going through the motions; there’s great energy and seeming spontaneity. Of course if you’ve seen them repeatedly, you realize this: Angus Young has been doing the same strip-tease, in the same sequence, probably down to the exact same steps, since approximately 1982. But hey, that’s AC/DC. They also wrote one song thirty years ago and have been reworking and re-releasing it with slight variation and varying degrees of success ever since. To their credit, it was a damn good song.
At the other end of the spectrum, you have shows like Elvis: he played stuff that he loved, maybe the audience didn’t, or didn’t when they came in but because he’s great he transferred that feeling to the audience and they enjoyed the show. Would they have liked the “hits” show more? Probably. But if he doesn’t want to play it, then don’t. I read a great quote by Clint Eastwood recently - he said “I don’t know any geniuses; a genius to me is someone who succeeds at something he hates. Anyone can do well at something he loves.” I agree, though no doubt it helps if one has some talent for what it is he loves. And the Beasties certainly have a talent for music. But if they don’t love it, well, I don’t know any geniuses either I guess.
-
Lester Burnham
- Posts: 247
- Joined: Tue Aug 08, 2006 4:55 pm
Re: EC & Sugarcanes at Wolf Trap, June 11 '09
I agree! Though maybe next time I'll position myself up front and center.FAVEHOUR wrote:You wrote this, Lester? Nice. I enjoyed all the detail, you obviously knew your stuff. What I meant about the lawn was, a fan so into it deserved to be up close!
Cheap plug #1: Sound Round is indeed my site, though certainly nothing as professional as any of the other blogs out there. I'm just going through my music collection, reviewing it one album at a time.
Cheap plug #2: My friend's own account of the EC concert can be found on her website here.