Category: ConcertFlashback

June concert flashbacks

  • 6/01 Concert flashback #31: Fastball Live at the Herndon Festival in 2008. One of my favorite 90s bands so close to home.
  • 6/02 Concert flashback #32: Garbage at HFStival in 1996 plus Queens of the Stone Age at the 9:30 Club in 2002 with L’il Davie Grohl on drums.
  • 6/03 Concert flashback #33: Double shot of Herndon Festival – Brindley Brothers in 2005 and Girlyman in 2006.
  • 6/04 Concert flashback #34: Double shot of last time I saw artists: Lowen & Navarro at The Birchmere in 2009 and Mudcrutch (with Tom Petty) at the 9:30 Club in 2016.
  • 6/05 Concert flashback #35: The Excentrics at Friday Night Live. Remember when they didn’t just have cover bands?
  • 6/08 Concert flashback #36: Celebrate Fairfax doubleshot – Gin Blossoms and Sister Hazel, both from 2002.
  • 6/11 Concert flashback #37: Tom Petty with Trey Anastasio at Nissan Pavilion. All the hits, plus songs by Phish, Bo Diddley, Fleetwood Mac, Traveling Wilburys, Them [Van Morrison], and Stevie Nicks with a special appearance by Stevie Nicks? Just an amazing show.
  • 6/12 Concert flashback #38: One more trip to Celebrate Fairfax, this time for a double shot of Rick Springfield from 2005 and They Might Be Giants from 1999 (bonus points if you can spot me in the latter).
  • 6/13 Concert flashback #39: Da Vinci’s Notebook’s last show at Crystal City Street Fair in 2005. Still the most distractable band in the land.
  • 6/14 Concert flashback #40: The Pat McGee Band at the Alexandria Waterfront Festival in 1999. Notable for being the first time I saw them and Eddie From Ohio. Don’t have efo’s set, but Bob McNichols promises he’ll find it for me someday…
  • 6/15 Concert flashback #41: Robert Plant & Alison Krauss at Merriweather Post Pavilion in 2008. I really enjoyed them together.
  • 6/18 Concert flashback #42: A special number for a special show – the Tibetan Freedom Concert at RFK Stadium in 1998. Day 1 was cut short due to someone getting hit by lightning, but day 2 was super packed: Sonic Youth, Radiohead, Wyclef Jean, Blues Traveler, The Wallflowers, Luscious Jackson, Jungle Brothers, R.E.M., A Tribe Called Quest, Beastie Boys, and Pearl Jam (who snuck in Red Hot Chili Peppers to finish their set, but we left during Pearl Jam).
  • 6/19 Concert flashback #43: U2 at MCI Center in 2001. My first time seeing them and what a fantastic setlist.
  • 6/20 Concert flashback #44: Dave Matthews Band at Nissan Pavilion in 1997. Béla Fleck & The Flecktones opened and Béla Fleck sat in for quite a while. One of my favorite Dave shows.
  • 6/21 Concert flashback #45: The Beach Boys at Merriweather Post Pavilion with my dad in 2012.
  • 6/22 Concert flashback #46: The much missed 4 Way Street (Philly songwriters) at Jammin’ Java in 2004.
  • 6/23 Concert flashback #47: Guns N’ Roses at the Capital Centre in 1991. My first time seeing them, and as usual they started late.
  • 6/24 Concert flashback #48: Norah Jones at Wolf Trap in 2003. Good show, and she ended with an AC/DC cover. This one’s from a different show, but you get the idea.
  • 6/25 Concert flashback #49: Sting & Peter Gabriel at Verizon Center in 2016. Nice selection of hits, and I love it when the good double bills actually play together.
  • 6/27 Concert flashback #50: Counting Crows with The Wallflowers at Wolf Trap in 2013. Very nice career spanning sets from both bands – this is a good review.
  • 6/29 Concert flashback #51: Lindsey Buckingham & Christine McVie at Wolf Trap in 2017. A nice mix of their great album and Mac tunes.
  • 6/30 Concert flashback #52: Extreme at Bank Of America Pavilion in 2006. All the hits, all the members, plus half of Boston (the band).

May concert flashbacks

  • 5/01 Concert flashback #10: Equality Rocks concert at RFK Stadium in 2000. Also, the only time I’ve seen Garth Brooks or George Michael.
  • 5/04 Concert flashback #11: Blues Traveler at the 9:30 Club in 2001. I had to repost without the link to the audio that day, because the post was banned on Facebook (most links to archive.org were banned).
    5/05 #12: Robbie Schaefer at Jammin’ Java in 2003. I posted it late in the day because I discovered I’d never uploaded the show, and it features one of my favorite Eddie From Ohio moments. He mentioned both “Irish Dream” and the then new “Baltimore” were written from the viewpoint of an Irish female, and then completely lost it when starting “Baltimore”.
  • 5/06 Concert flashback #13: The Replacements at Echostage in 2015. My first time seeing them and apparently the last. Bonus show: Metallica MTV Icon.
  • 5/07 Concert flashback #14: Morphine at the Black Cat in 1995. Has it really been 25 years since I first heard the magic of “Pulled Over The Car”?
  • 5/08 Concert flashback #15: Prince in Baltimore May 2015. The only time I saw him and a great show. Scrubbed off the internet even though the first hour was streamed live on Tidal; I can offer some Foo Fighters from the very nice tribute show recently.
  • 5/11 Concert flashback #16: Nine Inch Nails at Merriweather Post Pavilion in 2000. I’m disappointed that I can’t even find a setlist for A Perfect Circle (who opened). Bonus: Trent Reznor & Peter Murphy – Live Radio Shows 2006.
  • 5/12 Concert flashback #17: David Byrne at The Anthem. Basically the same show he brought to Broadway, and my favorite one of 2018.
  • 5/13 Concert flashback #18: Coldplay at HFStival in Baltimore in 2005. No trace of it on the net now, so imagine it.
  • 5/14 Concert flashback #19: Dear Jerry: Celebrating The Music of Jerry Garcia. 5 years ago exactly. Amazing show, last one with the Jewells.
  • 5/15 Concert flashback #20: Eddie From Ohio on the 2nd Edhead Cruise, and our first cruise. Also Jill’s first real efo show.
  • 5/18 Concert flashback #21: Sons of Apollo (2 ex Dream Theater members) at Howard Theatre May 20, 2018. Not on the net (I taped but haven’t distributed), so here’s their new song.
  • 5/19 Concert flashback #22: Trey Anastasio in Baltimore at the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall.
  • 5/20 Concert flashback #23: Bangles at The State Theatre in 2009. Nice review here.
  • 5/21 Concert flashback #24: The Cars at the 9:30 Club in 2011. Only time I saw Ric, so worth it.
  • 5/22 Concert flashback #25: Paul Simon accepts the first Gershwin Prize at Warner Theatre in May 2007. Stunning show, and as a huge Graceland fan I had always hoped to see him perform with Ladysmith Black Mambazo. It didn’t disappoint.
  • 5/24 Concert flashback #26: emmet swimming at the Herndon Festival in 2003. And brand new, as HCTV just broadcast it this week and I hadn’t seen it before. Somewhere I have a DV tape of it too, but I know that has even more wind noise. At the time I was excited to record my first emmet swimming show, but I’ve had many more, but still excited to get a soundboard of this.
  • 5/26 Concert flashback #27: Double festival feature: Jane’s Addiction at HFStival at RFK in 2003 and Green Day at WBCN River Rave in 2001.
  • 5/27 Concert flashback #28: Velvet Revolver at the 9:30 Club in 2004. That was a fun supergroup, and being willing to play their old songs was a bonus.
  • 5/28 Concert flashback #29: Rush at Jiffy Lube Live 5 years ago. My last Rush show and Nina’s first and last.
  • 5/29 Concert flashback #30: Gotta end May the way we almost always do, with a trip to the Herndon Festival. Today a double shot of Pat McGee from 2015 and Carbon Leaf from 2002.

April concert flashbacks

After a month in quarantine I decided if I can’t go out to see live music, I’m going to start listening to my collection. A concert a day from this week in the past.

  • 4/20 Concert flashback #1: Earth Day 1995
  • 4/21 Concert flashback #2: Earth Day 2000. Carole King was joined by David Crosby and James Taylor for “You’ve Got A Friend”, but the most WTF moment was Clint Black covering Monty Python’s “Galaxy Song”.
  • 4/22 Concert flashback #3: Earth Day 2008. Umphrey’s McGee brought the crowds, but Warren Haynes was the highlight for me with some choice covers, worth braving the rain.
  • 4/23 Concert flashback #4: Earth Day 2010. Probably the most star studded of the 4 I’ve been to, as Passion Pit and Jimmy Cliff opened, then The Roots took over and did a set, then brought out guest stars (including Mavis Staples, Booker T. Jones & Bob Weir), and a set with John Legend before backing up Sting.
  • 4/24 Concert flashback #5: Alan Doyle and Fortunate Ones at The Hamilton in 2018.
  • 4/27 Concert flashback #6: Extreme at M3 Rock Festival 2014. Bonus flashback later: The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert.
  • 4/28 Concert flashback #7: Hootie & the Blowfish at Reston Town Center 2003 for the Jack Diamond Morning Show. Bonus flashback later: VH1 Honors April 1996.
  • 4/29 Concert flashback #8: Rush at US Air Arena for the Counterparts tour 2004. And “Winken, Blinken, Nod” is a great name for a bootleg. And as a bonus, my only published review of a Rush concert.
  • 4/30 Concert flashback #9: Steven Wilson at the 9:30 Club 2 years ago. Bonus content: Porcupine Tree at House of Blues Orlando 10 years ago.

25 years since Woodstock ’94

In the summer of 1994 I had just left my first software developer job after two years as the company was sold. Burned out by 80 hour weeks of working on tax software and nursing a case of carpal tunnel, I took advantage of a deal to stay on and write a data exporter for the new company and walked away with some nice compensation, most of which I sunk into Digital Exchange, a used CD store in Springfield, VA. It had been started the previous year by three of my fraternity brothers from Sigma Phi Epsilon at Randolph Macon College. John (aka Rusty) wanted to get back to the corporate world full time, so I bought him out.

instructions

I was a long time fan of music, but I hadn’t gone to a lot of concerts yet. My first show was in 1984, but I’d only seen a couple of shows a year after that. I started getting more into it in 1993, but with my exit from the 9 to 5 world, came a new goal: I would see 100 bands in 1994. I was making good progress by summer, especially going to my first two festivals: HFStival and Lollapalooza. But the announcement of Woodstock ’94 had me salivating: amazing lineups and the connection with the legendary original. By that time I was at the store full time, and my buddy Eric was interested in going as well, so we bought tickets when they went on sale in June. We convinced John to come back that weekend in August and help out Steve, and got on the road Friday morning August the 12th (after seeing Nine Inch Nails at the Patriot Center the night before).

parking pass front parking pass back

With 250,000 people expected, the festival organizers had us drive to a parking lot to take a shuttle bus to the festival. While things had gone well for us, this is where the problems started as we had at least a four hour wait for an orange bus (and I had my one and only experience with Goldschlager). By the time we actually got to Woodstock ’94, it was dark and Sheryl Crow was playing. We caught some of her set, but it was late and we needed to set up camp. We could see tents all around, so we kept going past the North Stage where she was playing, then the South Stage, still not finding any empty space. We ended up setting up our tent on a hillside past there.

map

We were woken Saturday morning to light rain starting to fall, but our tent was partly shielded by the trees. We got food and walked over to the North Stage where Joe Cocker kicked things off. He was followed by Blind Melon, Cypress Hill and Rollins Band before we took a break (and missed Melissa Etheridge covering Janis Joplin as well as Crosby, Stills & Nash).

We were back at the South Stage in time to see The Band featuring Hot Tuna, Bruce Hornsby, Roger McGuinn, Rob Wasserman, and Bob Weir (and that turned out to be the one and only time I saw them) as well as Primus before the main event. Sure, we’d seen Nine Inch Nails two days earlier, but they embraced the mud to put on a legendary performance.

Metallica was up next and took on the challenge. As the only act there with pyrotechnics, they had an added fuel to their ferocious show.

Aerosmith was more than willing to top that at their show, which started after midnight. It was epic, and ended with a fireworks display at 3:30am (and one of our neighbors offering me a hit from a Coke Can bong was the perfect last time I had any).

Saturday was epic, but it was a festival that was later nicknamed Mudstock for a reason. It got harder and harder to walk around, the porta potties couldn’t get serviced, and they started to run out of food. Knowing that the later we waited the harder it would be to get back to the car, we only caught Traffic that day before heading for the buses and home (I loved the two bootleg t-shirts I got there to death). Oh, and I hit my goal: 127 bands just in 1994.

wristband

scrip

25 years of Pearl Jam live

I was a fan of Pearl Jam right off the bat, but didn’t see them for the first time until April 1994 at the Patriot Center. It was very intense, I recounted it at the time here (and follow up here).

After such an amazing experience, I was determined to recapture the magic. They announced they were playing two nights of benefit shows for Voters for Choice at Constitution Hall in January of 1995, and the only way to get tickets was with a postcard lottery. At this point I was working at a record store I co-owned, and we would print and mail brightly colored postcards to our mailing list so I made 20 and sent them in. I got chosen for the first show and took my sister.

It was an amazing show. L7 and Neil Young opened, but the audience was clearly there for Pearl Jam. And they were rewarded for their patience with an epic show featuring plenty of songs from Vitalogy (still my favorite album of theirs). New drummer Jack Irons took on his first full length show without a problem and Neil Young joined them during the encore for Neil’s new song “Act Of Love”.

I then saw Jeff Ament’s band Three Fish in July 1996 at the 9:30 Club. There were rumors of special appearances by other PJ members, but nothing came of that. Then I saw Pearl Jam again at Merriweather Post Pavilion in September 1996. I still enjoyed the show (got my first “Yellow Ledbetter”) but the new album No Code left me a bit cold after the run on the first three albums and my fandom died down a bit.

Still, I was happy to see them again at the Tibetan Freedom Concert in 1998. I was happy to go both days, especially after the first day was cut short due to an audience member getting struck by lightening, but they put on a great show to supposedly end the day. I left as they finished, so I missed them setting down their instruments so that the Red Hot Chili Peppers could play a short set (didn’t see them until the next year).

I didn’t see them again after that until they played the MCI Center in 2004 on the Vote For Change tour. They played a short set that night with Tim Robbins joining them on “The New World”, my favorite was “Masters Of War” which I’d loved their version of since Eddie Vedder and Mike McCready played it at the The 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration. Eddie also joined R.E.M. that night for “Begin The Begin” and Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band for “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love, & Understanding” and “People Have The Power”. Full color coverage here.

I next saw Eddie Vedder when he did a solo set at Radio City Music Hall for the Change Begins Within benefit. He did a killer cover of “Under Pressure” with Ben Harper & Relentless7, which would have been the highlight of the night if there hadn’t been two members of The Beatles performing together (he joined Ringo Starr for his set and the last two songs of Paul McCartney’s set with Ringo and everyone else). More here.

Next my wife saw Pearl Jam for the first time when we attended the Austin City Limits Festival and they closed out the final night with guests Ben Harper and Perry Farrell. Too bad we left on the early side after squelching through mud all day. More details on the festival here.

The next time we saw Pearl Jam was by luck. I won an auction for Saturday Night Live tickets for March 2010, and that night turned out to be host Jude Law with musical guest Pearl Jam. They were great, and even turned up in a sketch. Many more details here.

No PJ proper for a long while after that, but I went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony in April 2013 to see Rush get inducted. An amazing night for me as a huge Rush fan, but one of the surprises was Mike McCready guesting on “Barracuda” with Heart. Full story here.

My most recent Pearl Jam show was really incredible, to see them inducted into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in April 2017. Ok, I was primarily there for Geddy and Alex from Rush, but I got to see the rehearsal and the show and they were fantastic. Complete wrap up here.

Top 10 concerts

I posted my top 25 several years back, but a friend posted a top 10 on Facebook and asked for responses, and I couldn’t resist updating.

10. The Beach Boys at Merriweather Post Pavilion on June 15, 2012
Got to see a fabulous reunion concert of the remaining five with my dad, a lifelong Beach Boys fan.

9. Monty Python at O2 Arena July 4, 2014
All my favorite songs (“Every Sperm Is Sacred”, “The Lumberjack Song”, “Bruces’ Philosophers Song”, and “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life”) as well as my favorite sketches (“Nudge Nudge”, “Spanish Inquisition”, “Argument Clinic”, and “Dead Parrot”) made appearances. The additional singers and dancers were used to good effect and the old video clips and new material were deftly edited together. A really great show, and they barely showed their age.

8. Brian May at Hammerjacks on March 5th, 1993
The solo CD had not left my CD player for nearly a month when I heard on the 98 Rock radio station the Queen guitarist was doing a last minute show in Baltimore. Amazing show with all his great solo songs and a number of Queen ones. I went with a girl I worked with on the school paper, and she ended getting us back stage just in time to meet him before he left.

7. Jimmy Page & Robert Plant at US Air Arena on March 23rd, 1995
I’m sorry I didn’t make the Zep reunion in 2007, but the pair of shows they put on in 1995 felt like a reunion.

6. Prince at Royal Farms Arena on May 10, 2015
There was heavy security at Royal Farms Arena (shortly after the Baltimore riots) and a long wait, but at last he took the stage, and it was all worth it. Not many people can get away with four encores, and that was after a pretty thorough greatest hits set.

6. Jerry Lee Lewis/Aretha Franklin (with Annie Lennox and Lenny Kravitz)/Jeff Beck (with Sting, Buddy Guy, and Billy Gibbons)/Metallica (with Lou Reed, Ozzy Osbourne, and Ray Davies)/U2 (with Patti Smith, Bruce Springsteen, The Black Eyed Peas, and Mick Jagger) at Madison Square Garden on October 30, 2009 for the 25th Anniversary of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
Look at that lineup. ‘Nuff said.

5. Pearl Jam at Patriot Center on April 8th, 1994
I don’t know if I can ever properly describe what it was like before this show. We had just gotten the news that Kurt Cobain had died and this show was his wake. Eddie Vedder can surf a crowd like he can surf a wave.

4. Rush at Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony on April 18th, 2013
I’ve seen them from the front row, in Canada, and with superfans when they recorded a concert for a live video. I’ve never heard a crowd be louder for them than this night (bonus points for drowning out Jann Wenner for 5 solid minutes).

3. Paul McCartney with Ringo Starr at Radio City Music Hall for Change Begins Within on April 4th, 2009
Never got a chance to see George, wasn’t passing up a chance to see the last two Beatles together. Totally worth it.

2. David Gilmour with Richard Wright at Massey Hall, April 9th, 2006
I did see the Waters-less Pink Floyd twice, but “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” and “Echoes” in a small theater blew the top of my head off.

1. Queen + Paul Rodgers at Continental Airlines Arena on October 16th, 2005
I was hoping for a show like this for years, and the anticipation before the amazing show was electric. I saw U2 for the second time a week later – they might as well been a tribute band, this show set the bar so high I wonder if it will ever be hit again.