It's that time of year, where I take a few long strides backwards and cast a look over the last twelve months of live music. I will be the first to admit that I'm fortunate to get to see so many great shows, most of the time for no cost. However, I'd hesitate to say 'free,' as it's certainly a pretty big net loss when you factor in gas, mileage, occasional parking fees, etc just to get to the venue, never mind hitting the merch table after the show and one or two adult beverages during the show. And did I mention that I've usually got about 10K worth of camera gear w/ me at any particular show? And then there's the pretty big time sink involved; I don't just dump my memory cards to my computer, upload to imgur and then cut and paste. There's keywording, caption writing, and fairly in-depth editing of the photos, adjusting white balance, exposure, noise, contrast, color, etc. since stage lighting is rarely static, this has to occur to each photo deemed a keeper, rather than just running a batch action.
But this shouldn't turn into a Pomplamoose bout of whining about how bad I've got it...instead let's talk about the insanely great moments! I saw about 235 sets this year (some bands more than once), so paring it down to an arbitrary 30 seems pretty unfair for a lot of the shows that were really excellent...just take a look at who missed the list: St Vincent, Om, Steve Gunn, Pentagram, Sharon Van Etten, Elder, Thurston Moore, Truckfighters, Down, Deafheaven, Kurt Vile, Kvelertak, Mastodon, High on Fire, Courtney Barnett, Jack White, Houndmouth, Charles Bradley, Mavis Staples, etc... not to mention the shows where I didn't have a ticket and only saw ~10-15 min of the show, like Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Wonder and Nine Inch Nails.
I've divided the shows into two categories... the top 10 which are in order, and then the next twenty which are not.
1 - John Zorn's Masada Marathon @ Newport Jazz Festival
The guy who was awarded the 'genius' grant (a MacArthur Foundation grant, worth 500K to do whatever they want with it) certainly deserves it, and in recognition of his 60th birthday, the Newport Jazz Festival honored John by reserving the 2nd stage on the opening day just for him and his prodigious Masada songbook. Ten different ensembles played, each one a carefully cut piece of the puzzle, all held together with a common sense of passion for playing music, and playing it extraordinarily well. Sometimes Zorn played sax along with them, sometime he acted as conductor, other times he just stood offstage proudly beaming at the craft on display. This was a true tour de force, and ranks among the best shows I've seen, anywhere. Ribot, Batista, Baron, Wolleson, Feldman, Cohen, Douglas, Mori, Dunn, Friedlander, Saft, Courvoisier, etc. This is what music is all about.
2 - Ty Segall @ Great Scott
Not counting last year's Fuzz show, it had been quite some time since last played Boston - about four years ago at a DIY show in Jamaica Plain with a different lineup. Which seems really unfair when you consider he'd constantly played NYC in the interim. The bonus of this wait is that he'd be touring on his high water mark to date, the amazingly strong Manipulator. It seemed a bit insane that he played Great Scott which fits about 75 people near the stage if you've got a big enough shoehorn, especially in light of the fact that before hit Boston, he played the 9:30 club in DC and two shows at Webster Hall in NYC, the first date of which saw the crowd surge so intense that it broke the security barrier in front of the stage. So I got there early, found a place of relative safety at the far stage left in front of Ty, and hung on for the ride. And what a ride it was.
3 - Slowdive @ Royale
Shoegaze reunions probably started in earnest with MBV's return in 2008, but Slowdive was the show that really blew me away. Which is sort of funny in retrospect, since I didn't follow them after the first trilogy of EPs and Catch The Breeze, until much after the fact and found used copies of Souvlaki and Pygmalion long after they ceased to exist. I was especially happy to see Rachel Goswell return to stage, since the final Mojave 3 tour had her sitting it out in England, unable to even travel due to a severe ear condition. I'd heard glowing reports about the show at Pitchfork, and a live broadcast of a Holland show demonstrated that they were not remotely interested in half-assing their return.
4 - King Crimson @ The Colonial
Apologies for the iPhone photo, but there was a strict no-camera policy in effect so i took this after the show was over
Prog rock has a small niche in my collection, but I can't say that I am even close to approaching the Comic Book guy level of serious prog rock nerds. I've seen Yes a couple of times, Van der Graaf Generator once, and that might be it as far concerts go as well. Well, maybe Tool counts too. Anyway, the reason I got tickets the instant they went on sale is that 1) Belew was not in the lineup and 2) the material they were focusing on was the Red-era, a collection of fucking stompers if there ever was one. "Starless" was at or near the pinnacle of live show moments this year. Equally impressive was the trio of drummers, who didn't trip over their own dicks nor just play the same pattern. Pretty goddamn impressive all around.
5 - Sleep @ House of Blues
I've seen Sleep play about six times now though never w/ Hakius, and for once I didn't have to get on a plane to do it, or drive 5 hr into upstate NY, like the first time I saw them. This show also had the bonus having new material for the first time since they reformed, with "The Clarity" added to the set and sounding like a heavier OM. Pike was rocking the Goose Gossage 'stache, Cisneros had a full monk's beard (and he was pleased to be playing under the OM symbol that adorns the top of the stage lighting rig at the venue), and Roeder was pounding away with a heavy, precise hand. They were fucking around backstage before the show started, w/ Jason toying around with some sort of mixer/sampler plugged into Matt's guitar while he played it, but when the time came for rock, Pike stretched out before taking the stage and they were all business.
But this shouldn't turn into a Pomplamoose bout of whining about how bad I've got it...instead let's talk about the insanely great moments! I saw about 235 sets this year (some bands more than once), so paring it down to an arbitrary 30 seems pretty unfair for a lot of the shows that were really excellent...just take a look at who missed the list: St Vincent, Om, Steve Gunn, Pentagram, Sharon Van Etten, Elder, Thurston Moore, Truckfighters, Down, Deafheaven, Kurt Vile, Kvelertak, Mastodon, High on Fire, Courtney Barnett, Jack White, Houndmouth, Charles Bradley, Mavis Staples, etc... not to mention the shows where I didn't have a ticket and only saw ~10-15 min of the show, like Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Wonder and Nine Inch Nails.
I've divided the shows into two categories... the top 10 which are in order, and then the next twenty which are not.
1 - John Zorn's Masada Marathon @ Newport Jazz Festival
The guy who was awarded the 'genius' grant (a MacArthur Foundation grant, worth 500K to do whatever they want with it) certainly deserves it, and in recognition of his 60th birthday, the Newport Jazz Festival honored John by reserving the 2nd stage on the opening day just for him and his prodigious Masada songbook. Ten different ensembles played, each one a carefully cut piece of the puzzle, all held together with a common sense of passion for playing music, and playing it extraordinarily well. Sometimes Zorn played sax along with them, sometime he acted as conductor, other times he just stood offstage proudly beaming at the craft on display. This was a true tour de force, and ranks among the best shows I've seen, anywhere. Ribot, Batista, Baron, Wolleson, Feldman, Cohen, Douglas, Mori, Dunn, Friedlander, Saft, Courvoisier, etc. This is what music is all about.
2 - Ty Segall @ Great Scott
Not counting last year's Fuzz show, it had been quite some time since last played Boston - about four years ago at a DIY show in Jamaica Plain with a different lineup. Which seems really unfair when you consider he'd constantly played NYC in the interim. The bonus of this wait is that he'd be touring on his high water mark to date, the amazingly strong Manipulator. It seemed a bit insane that he played Great Scott which fits about 75 people near the stage if you've got a big enough shoehorn, especially in light of the fact that before hit Boston, he played the 9:30 club in DC and two shows at Webster Hall in NYC, the first date of which saw the crowd surge so intense that it broke the security barrier in front of the stage. So I got there early, found a place of relative safety at the far stage left in front of Ty, and hung on for the ride. And what a ride it was.
3 - Slowdive @ Royale
Shoegaze reunions probably started in earnest with MBV's return in 2008, but Slowdive was the show that really blew me away. Which is sort of funny in retrospect, since I didn't follow them after the first trilogy of EPs and Catch The Breeze, until much after the fact and found used copies of Souvlaki and Pygmalion long after they ceased to exist. I was especially happy to see Rachel Goswell return to stage, since the final Mojave 3 tour had her sitting it out in England, unable to even travel due to a severe ear condition. I'd heard glowing reports about the show at Pitchfork, and a live broadcast of a Holland show demonstrated that they were not remotely interested in half-assing their return.
4 - King Crimson @ The Colonial
Apologies for the iPhone photo, but there was a strict no-camera policy in effect so i took this after the show was over
Prog rock has a small niche in my collection, but I can't say that I am even close to approaching the Comic Book guy level of serious prog rock nerds. I've seen Yes a couple of times, Van der Graaf Generator once, and that might be it as far concerts go as well. Well, maybe Tool counts too. Anyway, the reason I got tickets the instant they went on sale is that 1) Belew was not in the lineup and 2) the material they were focusing on was the Red-era, a collection of fucking stompers if there ever was one. "Starless" was at or near the pinnacle of live show moments this year. Equally impressive was the trio of drummers, who didn't trip over their own dicks nor just play the same pattern. Pretty goddamn impressive all around.
5 - Sleep @ House of Blues
I've seen Sleep play about six times now though never w/ Hakius, and for once I didn't have to get on a plane to do it, or drive 5 hr into upstate NY, like the first time I saw them. This show also had the bonus having new material for the first time since they reformed, with "The Clarity" added to the set and sounding like a heavier OM. Pike was rocking the Goose Gossage 'stache, Cisneros had a full monk's beard (and he was pleased to be playing under the OM symbol that adorns the top of the stage lighting rig at the venue), and Roeder was pounding away with a heavy, precise hand. They were fucking around backstage before the show started, w/ Jason toying around with some sort of mixer/sampler plugged into Matt's guitar while he played it, but when the time came for rock, Pike stretched out before taking the stage and they were all business.
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