Archive for the ‘austin’ Category
The Who and Joan Jett & The Blackhearts Concert Review, Austin, TX, April 27, 2015
My brother, Robert (RIP), had one favorite band and that was The Who. While he was the one who got me in to KISS, Alice Cooper, RUSH etc in the 70s, The Who was always top of his list. Through the constant record spinning in the 70s and 80s, I became and remained a fan. Anytime I hear one of their songs, it just punches me in the gut with his memory more so than any of the other bands that he influenced me with. He absolutely loved them and I am pretty sure he never got to see them. I had never seen them before last night either.
Typically when a ticketed show comes to town, I’ll buy 2 as seeing a show with a friend is typically a fun thing to do, but for this show, I wanted to see it alone.
In 10th grade we had to do a book report, written and oral presentation, and I had chosen Full Moon: The Amazing Rock and Roll Life of Keith Moon as a I was a big fan of his frenetic drumming. During the oral presentation, I hung my brother’s Live at Leeds poster behind me and had the tape of that show playing in the background. At the end of the report I quoted one of the last lines in the book which said (paraphrased), “To sum up Keith’s life, he basically upped and fucking died.” Take into consideration that this was a Catholic high school. Ms. Collins, who only lasted on year there, was pretty mousey and was appalled that I had “used such language” and sent me to the principal’s office. I didn’t go. I went to the library and listened to a cassette until the bell rang. The next day I ran into the principal, Sister Ethelreda, in the hall and she immediately had me follow her to her office. I took a pretty good tongue lashing from her about foul language in the classroom etc. I didn’t care. I hated that place and Ms. Collins, who pretty much only spoke to me when she had to for the rest of that year. haha. I ran into her at a mall a few years after high school and spoke to her for a few minutes. I think she was terrified of me.
I’m a pretty big Who fan and prefer their 70s and 80s material more than the 60s stuff. Face Dances, Who’s Next, By Numbers and It’s Hard are my faves.
So here we are at show day. After work I get a ride downtown, grab a happy hour beer then make my way to the venue. I had a pretty decent seat with a side view of the stage, which was perfect as I really wanted to watch their drummer, Zak Starkey. Zak is the son of Ringo Starr, but I couldn’t care less about that and I’m not a Beatles fan at all. BUT…Zak played drums on ASAP’s Silver and Gold album. ASAP stands for Adrian Smith and Project. Yes, THAT Adrian Smith. This is the album he released after leaving Iron Maiden and I think it’s an amazing record from front to back. Great rock album with Adrian on vocals and Zak’s incredible drum work. I highly recommend it.
Joan Jett & The Blackhearts were the openers and while I’m not much of a fan, she put on a really good show and opened with my favorite song of hers, Bad Reputation. She pretty much played everything you’d expect to hear plus a couple of new songs. Her voice sounded great and her band was solid. And before last night, I never noticed how gorgeous her eyes are. Looking at the closeups on the big screen monitors just had me captivated for a bit.
After about a 40 minute set change, The Who come on stage and open with I Can’t Explain and The Seeker. Either before or after the next song, Who Are You, they have to change out one of Pete’s amps. While they’re doing that, he mentions that Jeff Beck was in attendance. He quipped that there was at least one guitar player at the show better than him. It was pretty funny and his delivery was right on. They carried on with their playing through mostly familiar hits sprinkling in a few deeper ones like I’m One, Amazing Journey and Sparks. Eminence Front is one of my fave songs by them and they played it. It was great.
The whole show was great in general. Roger’s and Pete’s voices are still very clear and full of range and I was pleasantly surprised by that. They rolled through 22 songs in about 2 hours and no encore. Impressive for a band of their age. Pino Palladino was on bass. He’s a monster player overall but didn’t do all of The Ox’s runs which I thought was odd. Zak’s drumming was solid. Beastly even. He did a lot of cool stuff but I was surprised and maybe a little let down that he didn’t really do any of Moon’s signature licks. It was most noticeable to me in My Generation. Moon plays a mean shuffle on the ride cymbal in that song but it was nowhere to be found last night. But just getting to finally watch him play was a treat. He did do a few buzz rolls reminiscent of that ASAP album that were awesome.
I’ll admit to getting emotional a few times during the set thinking about my brother. I probably missed him more last night than I have since he died.
Click photos to enlarge.
Alice Cooper Concert Review, Austin, TX, February, 12, 2015
No real review that would be any different than the San Antonio show. It was a blast again! I did get Chuck’s pick, an Alice $100 bill and the necklace, too.
Enjoy the pics!
Tesla Concert Review, Austin, TX, January 28, 2015
Happy 2015 everybody. Seems like it’s been forever since I’ve written. There just haven’t been that many touring shows since December but that all changed starting last night.
Tesla. To be honest, and I’ve stated it before, I’m not a fan. While I like Modern Day Cowboy and Heaven’s Trail, I just don’t get into them at all. A big part of it are the vocals. Just a bit too whiny for me. So why did I go? Free tickets! Good enough reason to go and to hang out with some friends who were going.
A little history. Back around 1990, the metal band I was in wanted to play Love Song. I was completely against it. NO BALLADS! I was happy sticking with the heavier covers we were doing and not pussing out to wimp rock, and this song qualifies as wimp rock. I’m pretty sure it was because of the bassist we had who had a new girlfriend and he was all goo-goo over her. The rest of the band didn’t seem to mind playing that song but I was adamant about not playing it. I had to maintain some integrity after all, yes? After the second or third practice of them trying to introduce the song and me bucking against it, someone stated that it was time to find another drummer. DONE AND DONE. I packed up my gear and rolled on. No muss, no fuss, no hard feelings.
We got there right as the opening band was going on and quickly went out to the patio. We stayed out there for most of the second band, too. To be honest, they weren’t memorable enough for me to care about their names, but hey, they were up there and I wasn’t, so good on ’em, eh?
Tesla comes on and opens with a song from their latest album, Simplicity. They ran through most of their catalog and the crowd responded accordingly. They played pretty much everything you’d expect to hear. We stayed near the back of the venue and I was quite surprised as to how many people were there. The venue holds about 1700 and there were roughly 1200 in attendance.
The band was tight and Jeff Keith’s vocals were hanging tough (sorry, I had to). Frank Hannon is a beast of a guitarist. Brian Wheat’s bangs were in full effect, too. Holy cow!
This was a great show for people watching, too. Saw some sights that I’ll never un-see, that’s for sure. Overall it was a good time and it felt great to catch another live show and to spend some time with good friends. It’s also nice when a show ends earlyish (1130PM) since I have to get up early for work.
Lots of things in the hopper in the coming months like Uli Roth, Doro, Krokus, Alice Cooper, The Who and Bob Seger.
Supersuckers Concert Review, Austin, TX, November 26, 2014
This is not the Supersuckers of yesteryear, but that doesn’t mean it was a bad show. It was a fun show as Supersuckers are always fun, but it seems a little more tame these days. It may be that I am a bit more tame these days. Who knows? Who cares, right? On top of anything, this was a free show at The Belmont. It’s not a bad outdoor patio venue at all, even better when it’s free.
Eddie and the boys take the stage, all with with Gibson Les Paul Goldtops. That looked killer and they rolled thought an enjoyable set, notably leaving out Doublewide, which is one of my faves. It was a decent crowd for it being the night before Thanksgiving, maybe 100 people.
Had a great time with pals Mark, Angelica, Mitzy, Ray, Sophie, J, Kristen and Ami. The drinks were flowing for sure.
Chrissie Hynde Concert Review, Austin, TX, November 19, 2014
Chrissie Hynde rolled through Austin, TX last night at my favorite venue, ACL Live at The Moody Theater. I was able to score front row balcony tickets and brought a friend who was back in town visiting her friends and family. The show was dubbed as “A Night With Chrissie Hynde”, which would make one think there was no opener. Ultimately, The Rails, which features her guitarist, opened up. We decided to skip them and just be there for the 9PM start of her show.
I’m a moderate Pretenders fan but have always liked her voice. I’m that guy who is basically only familiar with whatever I heard on the radio over the years, all of which I liked but not enough to buy the records.
Walking in and right before she hit the stage, they were announcing that no photos we allowed, which was fine by me. It’s nice not to look at a bunch of phone screens during a show.
She went on promptly at 9PM and right into the first song, someone in the front row pulled their camera out and she walked to the edge of the stage and wagged her finger in disapproval. That seemed to end it. She opened with 2 Pretenders songs, Don’t Lose Faith In Me and Biker, neither of which I was familiar with. Her voice sounded great and her backing band, as expected, was very good. She played 8 songs from her new album, Stockholm, 13 Pretenders songs and a Kinks cover of I Go To Sleep.
They played some of the radio hits like My City Was Gone, Back On The Chain Gang and Don’t Get Me Wrong (a favorite of mine), but left off Brass In Pocket and Show Me (my favorite of theirs). There wasn’t a lot of talking between songs and she played rhythm guitar most of the night. Early in the set there was a guy in the front row with a tambourine and she finally said to the guy, “Is there a story to go with this?” She waved the guy to the end of the stage and he told her that she had given that to him during a show 31 years ago. She said, “I don’t believe you!”, laughed and signed it and handed it back to him. About a song or 2 later, he was playing it along with the band and she motioned for him to stop. haha.
It was a fun show and about 3/4 through the set, the floor crowd ended up just rushing the stage and she was cool with it. Before the first encore, some woman jumped up on stage to get one of her guitar picks that had been dropped and tried to peel the setlist off of the stage. Security grabbed her quickly and rolled her off the stage. Before the second encore started, some other woman crawled on stage and tried to get a pick from the guitarist’s stand and quickly got rolled off of the stage. WTF, people? STAY OFF OF THE FUCKING STAGE!
Anyways, it was a good show and worth seeing if you’re even mildly a Pretenders fan.
Goodnight!
The Metal Files 
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