Concert Review

So after many a day, its time to get back to blogging. I started this mess and I sure's heckfire gonna finish it. OK maybe not, imma take another tangent. This one will be my very brief history of all the bigger concerts i've been to. It may come as a surprise that this author's first concert actually was when he was 22! Well... again i mean big concert, and not one where I was cough* cough* on stage . I won't go into the full detail of the bands of these concerts and how i discovered them, thats for another blogpost, but I will tell the stories and the experiences/ratings.

First Concert: Now we turn back to that magical August Eve in Berkeley's Greek Theater. It had been a good summer working at Symantec. I had saved some moolah and even bought me my Taylor guitar. But the summer ended with a bang. Sky Blue Sky came out and Wilco was touring like mad (like they always do). I realized they would be in town and quickly introduced my dad to the band. He liked what he heard but hearing them live truly made him a fan. The venue was perfect, the acoustics were amazingly clear. Though the opening band sounded a lil rough, Wilco's roadies are professionals. Every little sound in "I'm trying to break your heart" was crystal clear. (that link doesn't do it justice, but no youtube link could). The crowd was a great mix of young and old, all great music fans. Many of whom had already seen Wilco and some even who had seen Uncle Tupalo. Jeff Tweedy has a great stamina, they played for 2 and a half hours! The concert spanned their career and my dad said during California Stars "it doesn't get any better than this."

Well since i'm on Wilco, I might as well share my other concerts with them. First sidenote, my cousin Sean got to play on stage with them, consider me jealous/proud of the fella. Anyways, the following summer I looked at their schedule and noticed they were in Idaho right after my next internship was over. I drove to Provo from CA. Then picked up Andrea Dahle and we left for the concert. It was fun introducing eachother to bands on the way. She can be credited for introducing me to the decemberists...thanks Andrea. Anyways, i was kind of sick so unfortunately I didn't hear the best that day. The venue was very small, it was at a winery. Despite being sick it was pretty classy. Also the opening band was Fleet Foxes who sounded amazing. Anyways, after another great and long show, we drove back to Provo (yeah we were crazy).

And so the next year My pops and I returned to Berkeley during my Internship with KPMG (my current employer) and saw them as the were touring for "Wilco:the album". Another Triumph, and i can't wait to see them again.

Moving on... I'd say my biggest "pop" concert was Coldplay. I went one summer in CA with my friend from freshmen year Spencer Kimball to see them at the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View CA. I remember being very impressed with them. They deliver live. They, like Wilco evolve their old songs throughout the years when they play them live, but do it in a way that still pleases fans of those songs. Funny story about this concert, my dad's boss sat pretty close to us (in the upper decks). Coldplay did a few neat things too, for instance they came out and played an acoustic song or 2 on the opposite side of the amphitheater so those far away could be close. I thought that was classy.

Most bombastic/weird concert: easy, Primus frontman Les Claypool's tour that included my bro Matt's band Secret Chiefs 3. There's no doubt that Mr. Claypool has genious talent with the Bass. Fun concert, very crazy. Perhaps someday The Flaming Lips or Of Montreal will take over this category :)

Most smile's concert: I'm gonna go with Flogging Molly. I'll give them the most energy too. I had a smile on my face the whole time, such a fun loving band. I really only knew a few songs going in, but somehow sang the chorus's along with the crowd. The frontman looks like Conan O Brian and his banter was hilarious. Also, they didn't seem to take many breaks, each song led into the next. They must burn a ton of calories up there. The opener Fitz and Tantrums were actually quite good too.

Close second to the above category: Weezer. I love Weezer, River's Cuomo is pretty much the greatest man that ever lived. I was smiling a whole lot there too. Their music wasn't quite as technical as many of the other concerts i've been to, but it sure made me happy. I saw them with Josh, Andrea and some more from the Raintree crew. Angels and Airwaves opened up for them, not my favorite, but they had a cool light show at least.

Most Chill concert: Jack Johnson. Don't get me wrong, i'm actually not even that huge of a fan of the guy, but it was a nice atmosphere when he played, and he put on a good show. Very different from all i mentioned before. It also was nice to hang out with my sister and her husband that night. I'm sad we only got to hear one song from the opener Rouge Wave.

Most Virtuoso esque: Ben Folds. Unbeknownst to me at the time but knownst to me now, this was my first concert with Emily Clay. She became my concert buddy afterwards and we realized that we were both at this one. My brother Matt and I went to the Great Saltair. Interesting Venue in the middle of nowhere. Ben Lee came on first and was pretty excellent as a one man show. Ben Folds came on last and really rocked hard. My goodness that guy can tickle them ivories like no other. He really is a master at his craft, and his voice is spot on.

Good but not my favorite award: Modest Mouse: let me explain myself gosh! While I love the band, and liked them a lot live, I realized that i didn't know much of their backlog before "good news for people who like bad news". They did a fine job, but as they played too many older songs for me. So where as most of my concerts i'd give a 10 out of 10, this one was more like an 8. (Emily Clay went to that with me as well and is probably gonna kill me here)

Most spiritual concert: ok ok, so i went to this one on a Sunday... but i swear it was a clean and dare i say spiritual concert. I'm talking of course of when i saw Sigur Ros. I went up with an old friend from the New York days Flora Hardy. It was nothing short of magical. It was funny too since I met up randomly with my aforementioned cousin Sean and with some Raintree peeps. Anyways, the show was very different, and had a very uplifting mood. It ended with confetti! :)

Overall most amazing Concert: alrighty, like i said, most of these concerts were 10 out of 10 quality. But since I like to turn it up to 11, I gotta hand it to... Spoon. The opener Deerhunter was pretty cool too. My goodness, I gave Spoon my album of the year and now i'm giving them my concert award. I was gonna give them my best indie award, but then realized they needed more than that. The lead's voice? unbeatable. Technical skill, all there. Groovy, fun, oozing of cool, every song was amazing. I had just got the album they were touring for, and the new material was just as enjoyable as listening to their "classics" They totally blew me away with "the beast and dragon adored" I can't recommend these guys live more. Emily knows what i'm talkin about. Jeff Tweedy said that people write music because the human languages are inadequate. I need to write music about how great Spoon was live :)

Anyways, thats a listing of all the bigger concerts that i can think of. Some of the smaller "concerts" such as various classical, ballets, broadway, or local bands have enriched my life and will be the subject for another day.

the tall tales of sir Matthew Stuart Harrington

This is the story of Big Fish. If you recall, the aforementioned Tim Burton tall tale relates the over the top adventures full of hyper-bole storytelling with a big heart. Yup, my brother Mathew Stuart…so unlikely to be one of the greatest liars of our time. This is a collection of some of mine and my fam’s greatest memories concerning his stories.

Note that none of these (with the exception of perhaps the lie to the cat…more on that later) had actual malice but were filled with good intentions. It is important to note that most of these fibs were bent on getting others excited for something that matt liked. Now after many a year, these stories make for great memories, and without further ado…

Ok so lets go back a long time and start with the first one I know of. This happened a long time ago, when I was dead (before February of 1985). In an effort to get my sister Nia excited for school, Matt informed her of a very exciting attribute of the school bus: Every seat had a steering wheel. It was a shameful lie that must have been quite disappointing when discovered by my sis. The design of such a bus is pretty fantastic and it’s easy to see why the story has been passed down for generation.

Not sure if this is before or after I was born but our next tale takes place in Vermont (oh Larry Daryl and Daryl:) . Again the story involved my sister, but this time with a twist. The victim of the lie was an evil cat my grandma had at the time. The Siamese cat was always bad news, but for some reason Nia was able to tame the lil guy for a bit. Matt naturally got jealous and went to extremes. You see the cat was accustomed to fine dining (wet cat food), and knew the sound of the can opener (an object that Matt always liked). Anyways, after some quick thinking, Matt turned on the can opener. The result was fairly instantaneous…the cat jumped of Nia’s lap and ran to the kitchen only to find out he had been the victim of a great deceit. As I mentioned, the cat was evil, and Matt paid the consequence. A very angry cat cornered my bro and there might have been tears involved. But I’ll end it there J

Ok fast forward a bit. Besides scaring me by saying sharks could come out of the bath faucet, another lie comes pretty high to the top of the list. Jaws was not only a great and terrifying movie, it was a huge franchise in our family (well with Matt and I anyways) We enjoyed the movie along with the good sequel (with the powerline electrifying the poor shark), and average 3 (was it a bomb that killed him then?) and the terrible Jaws: The Revenge "this time its personal" (less said the better). Again we enjoyed them all and loved the Nintendo game even more. The game was sweet, full of submarines, lil sharks, rays, jellyfish, and of course the great white shark himself. With 0 basis whatsoever, Matt got me excited for what I thought was an inevitable sequel to the game (turns out the rest of the world didn’t love the video game, a true shame since it still holds up today as a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon, but I digress…) The key feature he hyped up: hammerhead sharks! Haha, yup never a sequel, but I still want to play Jaws 2 to this day J

Alrighty, moving on a little bit. I won’t retell the excitement hyped up for Battlefield Earth since that wasn’t really a lie, but I will tell the tale of The Elder Scrolls 3. Arena: The Elder Scrolls 1 was a fantastic game. It was huge, had a well developed mythology and was a groundbreaking rollplaying game. The sequel Daggerfall might just be the most played game in the Harrington family (competing with Civilization 2) since Nate Matt and I played it for hours on end. Upgrading to Ebony or Daedric armor and weapens, casting powerful magic, joining the thieves guild, roaming the countryside… all classic times. You could even buy a house and have a horse. Anyways, it was awesome. But Matt knew what the Elder Scrolls 3 needed: ride-able flying fire breathing dragons. Yup I fell for that one too. But jokes on him: fast forward 15 years and the Elder Scrolls 5 might be the ticket. One can only hope…

Anyways, I'm sure there are plenty more where these came from... I just wanted to start the discussion and document the ones that came to my mind. Please comment and add more if you remember any more lively tales. (also this was a big detour of the usual subject matter, i'll stay on target next time)