Charles Russo

Live Shots: Nick Cave hypnotizes the Warfield two nights in a row

Steven T. Jones
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It took Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds all of two songs to whip the audience into a mighty frenzy at the Warfield Theater on Monday night [during the first of a pair of sold-out shows at the venue]. Not totally surprising, but all the more impressive when considering that Cave and company pulled it off by playing new material, a pair of tracks from their latest album, Push the Sky Away.

Starting with the uneasy rumble of “We Real Cool,” Cave began the night by plunging right out to the front of the crowd to render the line-up-at-3pm fans in the first row slackjawed and bedazzled with the song’s slow drama, before steadily building “Jubilee Street” to a rowdy climax. It was a moment worthy of the encore, even as they were only ten minutes into a two-hour performance.

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It’s hard to imagine many other bands accomplishing this some 30 years into their career with anything other than their greatest hits. But of course, Cave and the Bad Seeds aren’t your average…well…anything, and they showcased their singularity in fantastic form at the Warfield with this first of two sold out shows.

Playing close to 20 songs across a dozen albums, Cave had a lot to offer during Monday night’s performance. There were beautifully quiet moments, such as “Into My Arms” and “God is in the House,” as well as exquisite obscurities (if obscurities even exist with Cave’s fans) like “Sad Waters.” Still better yet was the poignancy and poise of “The Weeping Song,” with Cave calling up opener Mark Lanegan to join on vocals.

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Yet for as good as these offerings were, Cave is at his best when he’s at his meanest. Stalking in and out of the shadows on the Warfield stage with the menacing authority of a fire and brimstone preacher, he delivered furious renderings of songs like “Tupelo,” “Red Right Hand,” and “The Mercy Seat.” And while these may be typical tracks for Cave’s setlists, the small room combined with the crowd’s investment seemed to give them added weight, an intimacy and intensity that went well beyond Cave’s showing at the Bill Graham Auditorium earlier last year. This was most notable on “Stagger Lee”, the slowly unfolding massacre off of Murder Ballads, that built with greater and greater malevolence as Cave bullied the song forward, eliciting shrieks and hollers from the audience.

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The Warfield retained a dense capacity even as the show reached the two-hour mark and the band moved through a stellar encore that included “Deanna” and “Jack the Ripper,” before concluding with the “The Lyre of Orpheus.” As the house lights came up the speakers let loose a Tom Waits track amid the din of the departing crowd. It was a good  (and perhaps, the only) comparison to be made. Cave, like Waits, is so unique in his artistry that it not only defies every well-tread aspect of the known music universe, but seems to only be getting better with age. And, as Cave’s fans would have attested walking out of the Warfield, that all makes perfect sense.

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Sharon Van Etten banters happily through the sad songs at The Independent

Steven T. Jones
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2

Sharon Van Etten had yet to play a note before someone in the crowd shouted forth a marriage proposal toward the stage. The term “adoring fans” might sound generic, but it’s apt in describing the audience at Van Etten’s first of a pair of sold-out shows at The Independent last night [Sun/29 — the second is tonight].  For just short of two hours they sang along and showered the 33-year old singer with love at every chance they got.

“You guys seem really…happy,” Van Etten said, aware of the mismatch, “because my songs can be really dark.”

That certainly may be true, but Van Etten wasn’t fooling anybody: She was easily the happiest person in the room all night. Upbeat, droll, and genuinely down-to-earth, Van Etten threaded her fantastic 14-song set with banter and sass throughout the evening, inciting her fans to ever more gleeful misbehavior.

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Leaning heavily on songs from her recently released new album – Are We There – Van Etten showcased the new work in front of a deft four-piece band that provided lush and layered compositions on tracks like “Taking Chances” and “Break Me.” This new material carried the show forward with little lull, embraced by the fans with as much enthusiasm as the older songs (“Serpents” or “Don’t Do It”), possibly because Van Etten herself appears equally enamored singing them. Even still, her performance of “All I Can” (from her 2012 album Tramp) may have been the evening’s surefire highlight, carving Van Etten’s niche somewhere in the orbit of Suzanne Vega and Leslie Feist.

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But still, that juxtaposition is there. How do those “really dark” songs render such a jovial atmosphere? After all, Van Etten’s bio infers that her music was generated as a means to cope through some tough times. And if so, her presence and performance on Sunday night would give the impression that she has emerged successfully…with a small catalogue of wonderful songs under her belt, no less.

And that is where it gets really interesting. Before the last song of the night – “Every Time the Sun Comes Up” – Van Etten encouraged the crowd to sing along, because, as she put it, “This is the one fun song on the album.” And it really is, as cheeky as it is soulful (“We broke your glasses/but covered our asses”). As the last song on the album, it leaves you the impression that Van Etten’s next move might be her most interesting one yet. Maybe dark…but playfully dark. Less Joshua Tree and more Achtung Baby.

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As the last song of the show, it punctuated the evening with the feeling that Van Etten is on the ascent, destined to play rooms much larger the next time she comes to town. And maybe that is the answer to why she seems so happy.

The bulging eyes of rock-stardom absurdity: An evening with Tenacious D

Steven T. Jones
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2

About 15 minutes into taking a seat at center stage of the Castro Theatre last night before an enthusiastic and fairly inebriated crowd, Jack Black turned to the audience and sheepishly confessed, “I’m getting sleepy.” To which, his cohort Kyle Gass added, “Is any of this even interesting?’

It was an honest, and funny, way to acknowledge a slow-out-of-the-gate interview moment for Tenacious D — comedic duo Black and Gass as the greatest acoustic heavy metal band in the world — who would probably have felt more in their element battling Satan in an epic guitar showdown than awkwardly sitting in tall chairs answering questions with a moderator.

And after all, expectations in the room were considerable. For the high-profile opening night of SF SketchFest on Jan. 23, the devoted audience in attendance had waited outside nearly two hours — in a quarter mile line that rambled throughout the neighbor — in an effort to see the duo take the Castro stage to be honored for their hyper brand of rock-stardom absurdity and Spinal Tap genius. But after a big-screen montage of the duo’s funniest clips got the event rolling, the D sitting down to chat with moderator and fellow comedian Paul F. Tompkins took a moment to get momentum.


Although early musings on how the band got their start via Mr. Show and a short-lived HBO series lumbered along, the interview got interesting as the band deviated from explaining their origins and just started telling funny tour stories, such the D’s disastrous opening slot for TOOL (“The boos had extra strength, cause you know…that band’s music plumbs the depths of man’s soul”), an equally terrible promotional show for Miller Genuine Draft in Las Vegas (“It was unanimous, all these people from the around the country hated us”) and a concert that had to be stopped at the House of Blues because someone had been stabbed (“The Rolling Stones did a whole movie on their stabbing”).

The session of crowd questions got nutty quickly, ranging from the duo being asked to name their favorite Muppet (Animal), to what it would take to get another Tenacious D film made (“If everyone here could just donate $500,000”), as well as fanatical inquiries into the band’s song catalogue (“Alaskan Fan Club here, let’s talk about ‘Jesus Ranch’”).

All in all, the “seated” portion of the show actually proved pretty good, and the stilted vibe that surfaced early on had quickly given way to some genuinely funny off-the-cuff moments, like when a meowing sound filtered through the crowd and Black pondered its source (“I’m like a sommelier of bad trips”).

To the great joy of the crowd, the interview session soon transitioned to the band pulling on their acoustic guitars and charging into a riotous 15-song set ranging from the band’s self-titled debut album (“Tribute,” “Friendship,” and “Kyle Quit the Band”) to Pick of Destiny (“Kickapoo”) and the more recent Rize of the Fenix (“Low Hanging Fruit” and Roadie”).  Finally in their element, the D just started killing place as Jack Black went full throttle — all bulging eyes and rubber expressions — and Gass strummed along with mostly deadpan stage presence to favorites like “Classico” and “Double Team,” as well as covers of Van Halen’s “Panama” and Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs.” By the time the band reached “Fuck Her Gently” the crowd left their theater seats and just flooded to the front of the stage to sing along, “And then I’ll fucking fuck you discreetly/And then I’ll fucking bone you completely.”

What else can you say? It’s the Motherfuckin’ D, and long lines and tall chairs were a small price for such a big showcase. If opening night was any indication, it’s gonna be one hell of Sketchfest this year.

 

Live Shots: The Dodos at Great American Music Hall

Tony Robles
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0

All photos by Charles Russo

Fans of the Dodos flocked to the Great American Music Hall on Wednesday night, to catch the band’s final performance of its latest tour. It was a glorious homecoming played out before an adoring Bay Area crowd as Meric Long and company turned out a dynamic set that seamlessly alternated between quietly beautiful and downright fierce.

The band leaned heavily on material from its fifth album, Carrier, to deliver a dozen songs of its distinctive sound, and re-assert its status as one of San Francisco’s finest exports.

The Rolling Stones rock hard, bring surprise guests, almost make up for outrageous ticket prices

Tony Robles
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0

It’s one of those things about attending a concert – any concert – at HP Pavilion in San Jose: no matter how you approach the venue, you’re likely to run into those hardline Jesus freaks waving signs and condemning you to hell for whatever music you’re about to enjoy. So, like clockwork, last night as I walked towards the ticket office outside the arena, one of them turned his bullhorn on the bunch of us crossing the intersection and, in full brimstone righteousness, shouted – “what are you gonna tell the lord after you die?” To which, a lone voice from the crowd responded – “I’m gonna tell him I saw the Rolling Stones.”
 
It pretty much summed up the enthralled vibe of last night’s crowd, even before the group got into the venue. Neither obscene ticket prices nor the threats of judgment day were going to stop the concert-goers from catching the Stones one last time, and the enthusiasm was clearly palpable (if not heavily intoxicated) inside the arena from the start.
 
I went into HP last night with a million things on my mind about this show, and left with a million more. I could likely write a doctoral thesis about all the issues that surfaced in my brain surrounding the Stones and their half-century legacy: of what it means to grow old in rock’n’roll, or whether there’s any rebellion left in music (“punk rock” gala at the Met, anyone?), and most of all, this time around, of what we’re willing to spend for a concert experience versus the integrity of what we’re actually getting. But if we push all of that to the side for the minute and just attend to the million-dollar question, about the quality of the band’s performance last night, I’d say that the Rolling Stones were (excuse me Jesus freaks) pretty goddamn fantastic.
 
I can’t speak for their show last week in Oakland, or the earlier East Coast dates of this tour, or for that matter….whatever the hell happened to you that night when you went to see them at Madison Square Garden in ’75.  But last night, at the Shark Tank…the Stones seemed like they were out for blood.
 
Kicking off a 22-song set that would run close to two-plus hours, the band quickly blazed through a few big hits – including “Paint It Black” and “Get Off of My Cloud” – with Mick Jagger immediately charging around the length of the stage in dervish-like blurs of energy. The Stones were all smiles when they pulled up guest John Fogerty of Creedence Clearwater fame to turn out a rowdy cover of the Valentinos “It’s All Over Now” early in the set.
 
The show really got traction towards the middle of the night as the band stepped away from its biggest hits and settled into developing lesser known tracks (well…in comparison, at least), including riveting takes on “No Expectations,” “Bitch,” and “Emotional Rescue,” before calling up Bonnie Raitt to play slide guitar and duet with Mick on an epic rendition of “Let It Bleed.”
 
Yet, for however much the band sent the place ape-shit with “Honky Tonk Women,” the show-stopping cold blooded killer of the evening was clearly a ferocious 12-minute version of “Midnight Rambler” with former guitarist Mick Taylor surfacing to add formidable contributions to the already impressive mix. At any other concert, it was the slam dunk moment to shake your head and feel like you’ve officially gotten your money’s worth. But on this tour, the band really upped the ante on when and if that moment could occur.
 
Of all those peripheral issues surrounding the Stones performance, the ticket price was the one that –rightfully – dominated the conversation since this leg of the tour was announced. And since the moment we all realized that the $1200 asking price for a pair of lower tier seats didn’t include a four-night stay in Hawaii, Stones fans began to determine their threshold for paying to see the band, possibly for the last time.

Those prices (officially termed “dynamic pricing,” which really just means institutionalized scalping) were criticized in editorials, and kicked around in chat rooms. It was a horrendous strategy for the band on what really is a victory lap of its 50-year legacy, being both a betrayal of its fans and far cry from what is supposed to be to its roots as a group of bluesmen.
 
But it still brings us back to the same point, anchored off the actual performance, and whether or not the band’s showing could live up to those prices. And last night, Mick and Keith sounded pretty savage on that third verse of “Jumping Jack Flash,” and Ron Wood did more than his share of heavy lifting on some big tracks (in addition to just being the coolest guy on stage), while Charlie’s backbeat kept the house ushers busy all night trying to quell the manic dancing in the aisles from song to song. There was even a local choir (from SJ State) to properly deliver “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” And maybe most of all, Mick was still moving 900 miles per hour during the last few songs, even as much of the crowd watched the encore half-exhausted from the non-stop energy he exhibited all night.
 
So in this sense, the question regarding the quality of the Stones’ performance seemed to be pretty much a no-brainer to last night’s crowd.
 
But as far as the tour’s big question, of what you’re willing to pay to see such a show, well, I’ll leave you to answer that one for yourself.

Live Shots: Soundgarden at the Fox Theater

Tony Robles
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It took Soundgarden a full 10 songs before it began to flex its muscles at the Fox Theater on Tuesday night, before the band dialed in and proved what out-and-out Badmotorfingers the four musicians can be. I doubt that the enamored (and now half-deaf) crowd leaving the Fox would have agreed with me on this point about the band’s early setlist sluggishness. Soundgarden delivered in a big way, and you would have been hard-tasked to find an audience member complaining after the dynamic, eardrum-crippling, 27- song performance.

Even still, the band languished a bit in that first third of the set, partly a result of a muddy sound mix that rendered hard-charging classics like “Flower” and “Jesus Christ Pose” to just a massive rumble. But mostly, it was the stream of tracks off of its painfully tepid new album, King Animal, that kept the early set surprisingly disjointed. 

Yes, you’d be inclined to think that a Soundgarden album titled King Animal might infer some epically heavy songs, the growl of some primordial beast lurching forth from the muck of Puget Sound. Instead, it’s a creature without teeth, a ho-hum late career effort (think Jane’s Addiction’s Strays or the Stooges’ The Weirdness), with long odds on breaking its rusty cage.

So it wasn’t until Soundgarden delved into the snarl and sludge of “Nothing to Say” – off its fledgling 1988 debut Screaming Life/Fopp album – that the band tapped into its nerve center, of biting Black Sabbath riffs hooked around a punk mindset, to the sound of a band formed by a city with a heavy heroin addiction and a weather forecast of perpetual rain. 

“Nothing to Say” stood out as the tipping point, and the band soon gained its momentum, mostly from a big section of Down on the Upside crowd pleasers that took the lion’s share of the spotlight during the latter part of the set – “Pretty Noose,” “Burden in My Hand,” “Ty Cobb,” “Blow Up the Outside World,” and the lesser known “Tighter and Tighter.”

Nearing the end of its North American tour dates, Soundgarden is in serious fighting form these days, a spectacle to watch from song to song, from individual members to the collective sum: Kim Thayil’s livewire guitar work amid Ben Sheperd’s hefty bass lines, all set against Matt Cameron’s furious backbeat. At 48, Chris Cornell’s voice is still (amazingly) in formidable shape, seeming to gain greater strength as the night wore on.

The band closed with a stunning five-song encore of classic tracks – “Black Hole Sun,” “Mailman,” “Hands All Over,” “Superunknown” – that brought the place to a fever pitch by the time it reached “Rusty Cage” to end the night. 

Cornell sang the final verse in a wailing falsetto that tested the limits of the house sound system, as the band pushed and pulled the song to its crashing close, finally driving home what it really means by King Animal.

 

Live Shots: Santigold at the Fox Theater

Tony Robles
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Santigold was barely a full song into her sold-out performance at the Fox Theater Wednesday night when she began to stoke the lovefest with her Bay Area fans. “You know you’re my favorite place to perform…you guys have so much energy!” In a different room to a different crowd it may have come off as a cheaply-pedaled stage sentiment, but the show that ensued lived up to her assessment: the crowd never stopped dancing and Santigold never stopped smiling.

At just 80 minutes, the show was short but sweaty…a scorcher of a live performance that rendered the ornate theater a tightly packed dance party well into the upper reaches of the balcony.

Working through her two albums of material, the Brooklyn-based singer showed off her vocal range as she was backed by a trio of Devo-looking musicians who kept the sound beat-heavy in one instant, loose and textured in the next. More notably (and often scene-stealing) was Santiold’s stage dancing duo: a matching pair of hype women gracing the stage with all sorts of rump shaking antics and too-cool-for school posturing (complementing Santigold’s ear-to-ear Cheshire stage presence to a ying yang-like perfection).

“L.E.S. Artistes” and “Hold the Line,” (her collaboration with Major Lazer) proved crowd-pleasers early in the set. Later, the stage was swarmed with fans as Santigold worked through “Creator” amid an ecstatic bustle of concertgoers.

Santigold had scarcely left the stage for an encore break before the crowd responded with a foundation-rattling ovation. They kept dancing as she returned for two more songs, and then, as she said farewell with the house lights coming up and Prince beginning to blare through the speakers, they just kept dancing. Santigold was no longer in view, but I’d have guessed that somewhere backstage she was still smiling.

Live Shots: Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings at Davies Symphony Hall

Tony Robles
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0

Sharon Jones took to the stage at Davies Symphony Hall on Saturday night with all the energy of fourth-grade recess on a sunny afternoon. Not that she seems to ever take the stage in any other way, but it was the right approach for a big show in a big room.

After all, her sold-out concert with the Dap-Kings at the Symphony was a prestigious booking that spoke to her ever-increasing popularity over the past few years, a reputation that has been steadily earned through the infectious soulfulness and old-school cool of her dynamic live performances.

Saturday night’s show was the perfect showcase of Sharon and company at their best, not because it was a slam-dunk, but because they had to earn in. For as grand of a setting as Davies Symphony Hall can be, it proved more than a bit stilted early in the night, as the diverse audience remained seated and awkward in their space. A dance floor was in order for this performance, if not an out-and-out hefty dose of sweaty, drunken rowdiness. In this regard, the venue was at a disadvantage for what was taking place in its confines.

But Jones didn’t seem to be concerned in the least, and blazed through a 15-song set that increasingly set off pockets of dancing throughout the building, and steadily drew enthralled audience members down the aisles, revival-like, to the front of the stage. By the time the Dap-Kings laid into the opening of “100 Days, 100 Nights,” the entire hall was fully transformed into an appropriately matched dance party.

Indeed, if there had been any question as to how Jones and the Dap-Kings made it to the Symphony, the scores of people dancing their asses off in the aisles was answer enough.

Orange and black forever: The city greets its champions in a Halloween World Series parade

Andrew Lam
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Photographer Charles Russo walked 12 miles to snap these shots of our San Francisco Giants celebrating their World Series victory yesterday — on Halloween no less! Could it have been the most orange and black day ever, anywhere? The boys all looked good, but major props to pitcher Sergio Romo for his style sense.  

>>CHECK OUT RUSSO’S SNAPS OF THE POST-GAME FOUR REVELRY… AND ENSUING VANDALISM

 

Giants sweep the World Series, city goes buck

Andrew Lam
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Praise Scutaro, the Giants swept the World Series last night. And San Franciscans, loose after a brilliant sunny day in the city, with ample practice from the Giants’ victory two years ago, and half dressed in their Halloween costumes, acted accordingly. Photographer Charles Russo was on hand to capture everything from the cheers in Civic Center Plaza to the fires that were lit on Mission Street late last night. Not pictured: champagne geysers, the orange-and-black celebration of choice in 2012. 

Live Shots: Peter Gabriel at HP Pavilion

Tony Robles
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0

Peter Gabriel strolled onto the stage at HP Pavilion on Tuesday with the house lights still glaring and the upper tier of the arena empty save for a scant few concertgoers sprinkled throughout the vast space.

Standing at the center stage microphone, Gabriel matter-of-factly began to explain to the audience how the concert would be structured for the rest of the evening. For an ever artistically-minded musician known for the theatrical nature of his live performances, it was a strangely stilted beginning to the start of his concert, exuding all the excitement of a CPR certification course.

Gabriel came to San Jose touring on the 25th  anniversary of his much-celebrated 1980s-era gem, So, set to perform the album in its entirety, amongst other greatest hits material. It was a show that held unique promise as a concert experience, and was therefore all the more surprising that the results were merely, well, so-so.

Performing along with many of the highly talented original musicians from So, the 62-year-old Gabriel ultimately put on a mixed bag of a performance, at times stunningly brilliant, and at others, awkward under the weight of it’s own production. He started the show with three strong tracks – “Obut,” “Come Talk to Me,” and “Shock the Money” – only to have them languish under the fluorescent house lights of the hockey arena. Gabriel’s idea (as he carefully explained at the start of the concert) was to convey the atmosphere of an acoustic rehearsal session, or really, as it came across – soundcheck.

The show finally gained momentum as the lights came down and the instruments went electric. Gabriel delved into the depths of his catalogue with tracks like “Digging in the Dirt,” and “Solsbury Hill,” roaming back-and-forth from his keyboard to center stage amid pulsing lights, and embellishing the lyrics via his lumbering dance moves. The surprising inclusion of the obscurity “Humdrum” rounded out this middle set in subtle though engaging fashion.

The evening then transitioned into So, without a break, starting with Gabriel’s soaring vocals on “Red Rain,” and then delivering on all the heft and weight of “Sledgehammer,” much to the delight of his dancing fans. “Mercy Street” quickly proved to be a high point, beginning with a amazing harmony section before Gabriel fell to the floor and proceeded to sing the brooding lyrics flat on his back throughout the massive looming atmosphere of the song.

Yet for as solid as Gabriel and his band sounded, the show began to sag in spots. “Big Time” quickly obliterated the compelling mood generated by “Mercy Street” with its second-rate “Sledgehammer” pop, just as other tracks such as “That Voice Again” proved sub-par to the better material on the album.

As the performance proceeded to the latter part of the night, Gabriel’s choreographed dance moves grew redundant as they persisted from song to song, while the massive production of the light show – involving a small swarming army of lighting technicians, dressed ninja-like for discreetness – really only rendered mediocre (and distracting) results.

Of course, as Gabriel moved through a 10 minute-plus version of “In Your Eyes” and a spirited “Biko,” his adoring fans continued to embrace every second of the show. If there were flaws in the performance, or rather, better Peter Gabriel shows to be had in years past, they seemed to be met with a collective – “So?”

 

All photos by Charles Russo.

Live Shots: Blondie and Devo at the Warfield

Tony Robles
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2

I was flipping around on my car’s FM dial last week and had the bleeding-from-the-ears misfortune of coming upon Taylor Swift’s staggeringly awful new single. I thought for a moment that I landed on some kind of Disney or Nickelodeon channel, where corporate-oriented bands score those awkward tween TV shows. In reality though, Swift is currently selling the shit out of the thing on iTunes…and leaving me to question my faith in humanity’s hearing.
 
So I was all the more enthusiastic as I headed to the Warfield on Monday night for the Devo and Blondie double bill. Clearly, I was in need of some kind of authentic audio to counter balance the heavy dose of vapid pop I had stumbled into on the airwaves. And even as their 1979 heyday grows ever more distant, Blondie and Devo delivered in a big way on Monday.
 
In a Warhol-esque gold lame getup, Debbie Harry exuded all the badass charm that you would expect of her, delivering a great set to a dedicated crowd that delighted in Blondie classics like “Heart of Glass” and “Hanging on the Telephone.” Harry sang “Call Me” with an exquisite edge that seemed to all by itself unravel my modern music frustrations.
 
Better yet, was the aberrant entity known as Devo, which filled its opening slot with an eruption of live wire punk energy that proved strangely relevant to the age we reside in. It was more punk than anything you’ll find at Warped Tour, more neo-futuristic than Skrillex and his plastic space ship stage at Outside Lands. “What We Do,” “Are We Not Men,” and of course “Whip It” were all showcased as Devo built its sublime dozen song set to an oddball fever pitch, amid pixilated waves of scrolling visuals and numerous costume changes.
 
All told, I left Sixth and Market to return back to the future with my confidence restored in American music. Swift’s new single isn’t the first time that radio (or MTV or iTunes) has hurled all manner of sonic schlock in our direction. And if that’s true, then Blondie and Devo suggest that the inverse must also be true: that genuine audio eventually rises to the top in the long term, through one avenue or another.
 
And if it arrives wearing one of those weird red conical hats, then so be it.

 

All photos by Charles Russo.

Live Shots: Neil Diamond at the HP Pavilion

Tony Robles
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0

At some point during the massive “Sweet Caroline” sing-a-long deep into Neil Diamond’s concert at HP Pavilion, a rowdy female fan vaulted into my aisle, loudly proclaimed her love to Neil, skulked away from some security guards, and then just all-out bolted for the stage.

She made it as far as the fourth row before a scrum of ushers in royal blue jackets intercepted her in mid-sprint. At that point, Neil was really whipping the place into a tidy frenzy. In fact, by the time he hit his stride on “Cracklin’ Rosie” a couple songs later (“Play it now/Play it now my baby”), it seemed like the audience of dolled-up cougars and enthralled seniors might just erupt into a full-on mosh pit.

This was a relief really. I had been rooting for Neil the second I got in the building, though secretly, I still had my doubts. It wasn’t so much pessimism that Neil Diamond couldn’t still deliver, but a sort of “golden age thinking” that has come to infect my mind before seeing any older musician or band these days; essentially (as Woody Allen asserted via Midnight in Paris) “that a different time period is better than the one we’re living in.” When it comes to aging musical acts post-heyday, I just can’t shake the idea that we’re most likely being railroaded towards indulgent nostalgia….at futuristic ticket prices.

Neil took the stage to a packed arena on Tuesday, and thankfully, he not only dismissed my theory, but inverted it: instead of dealing in nostalgia, he made a case for what it means to be a performer. Working through two-dozen songs from a career that has spanned half a century, Diamond took to the setlist and commanded the stage as if he was intent on driving home the difference between a dinosaur and a veteran. Two hours later, there was little doubt he belongs in the latter category.

And Neil’s certainly got a wide range of material to showcase in the process, spanning his many facets: from pop gems (“Cherry, Cherry”) to poignant Paul Simon-style songwriting (“Solitary Man”) to outright Sinatra crooning (“Love on the Rocks”). During the Tom Jones vibe of “Girl, You’ll Be A Woman Soon,” Diamond flaunted his sense for stage theatrics by singing directly to a lone female in the front row as if she were the only person in the arena, and subsequently driving her into hysterics.

Of course, it’s the songs that don’t really have comparison, the ones that are just quintessentially his own that proved the nights biggest hits – “Forever in Blue Jeans,” “I Am, I Said,” and of course, “Sweet Caroline.”

He ended, appropriately enough, with “I’ve Been This Way Before,” with its lyric, “I’m sure to sing my song again.” Five decades in and still kicking, that remains a safe bet.
 

Live Shots: Refused and the Hives at the Warfield

Tony Robles
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0

Photographer Charles Russo shot Refused and the Hives at the Warfield. 

It took 14 years to happen, but the sweaty, sold-out, packed-to-the-rafters crowd at the Refused concert Wednesday night would tell you it was worth the wait.

Playing the Warfield at the top of supercharged sets by the Bronx and the Hives, Refused took to its old noise with new moxy, setting the dedicated crowd into a frenzy with favorites like “Refused are Fucking Dead” and “Liberation Frequency.” By the time the Swedish hardcore group got to “New Noise” the band had vaulted well beyond even the epic expectations put on them last night. Can they scream? Yes, yes they can.

Live Shots: Radiohead at HP Pavilion, 04/11/2012

Tony Robles
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0

The first time I saw Radiohead, it was opening up for Belly, back when “Creep” was an exquisite oddball of a radio hit.

Actually, it wasn’t so much opening for Belly as it was a double bill, but Radiohead played first and Thom Yorke had a platinum rock star hairdo and the band was touring on an unspectacular album with a title gleaned from a Jerky Boy’s joke.

None of it seemed to hint much towards a band on the cusp of becoming an audio force of nature for the coming decades. Even still, by the time it finished its set with “Stop Whispering,” Radiohead had worked the crowd into a tidy frenzy.

Playing the HP Pavilion in San Jose on Wednesday night, it showcased the full range of its music since: an amazingly dynamic body of work – from the Bends to the new track “Identikit” – which gave sonic testimony to Radiohead’s outlier longevity from the grungy but fertile musical era from which it sprang.

Working through nearly two-dozen songs beneath a pulsing onslaught of color and video, it rendered a high-energy performance from an eclectic setlist that was at once a gem for fanatics and a thrill for the casual fans that they dragged along.

From the get-go, Thom Yorke was all king of limbs as he wriggle-danced his way through beat-heavy tracks like “15 Step” and the “Gloaming,” before eventually settling into the larger vocal parts of a stripped-down “Reckoner” and an amped-up “Daily Mail.”

Talkative and punchy-as-expected, Yorke dedicated the Amnesiac-era b-side “The Amazing Sounds of Orgy” to the players of the economic meltdown and the “Silicon Valley bullshit” that factored into it. Here, the band played to other local forces, as it nestled into the aberrant niche between Primus and Tom Waits, equally eerie and menacing.

It was this darker end of their spectrum that provided some of the night’s standout moments, from the four-drummer assault of “There There” to the infectious pulse of “Myxomatosis.” However the best of the bunch may have been the hefty moodiness of “Climbing Up the Walls,” an OK Computer favorite that soon gave way to “Karma Police.”

The encores, in particular, were likely to provide fans with hours of chat-room fodder, as the band dusted off some rare live takes on “I Might Be Wrong” and “Planet Telex,” before ending the night with a ferocious version of “Idioteque.”

Poised to play Coachella this coming weekend, Radiohead appears in fine fighting form to somehow top its near-legendary 2004 performance. And that’s just the thing with where it’s at these days: for all that can be said about what it has done over the past 20 years, Radiohead still has a knack to leave you excited for what’s next.

Setlist
Bloom
15 Step
Morning Mr. Magpie
Kid A
Staircase
The Gloaming
The National Anthem
The Amazing Sounds of Orgy
Climbing up the Walls
Karma Police
Identikit
Lotus Flower
There There
Feral
Little By Little
Reckoner
—
Separator
I Might Be Wrong
Myxomatosis
Everything in its Right Place
—
The Daily Mail
Planet Telex
Idioteque

 

All photos by Charles Russo.

Elbo Room benefit to raise funds for fire victim

Andrew Lam
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Elbo Room benefit to raise funds for fire victim

Longtime Gamescaper, Larkin Street social worker, local hip hop emcee, walking comic book encyclopedia, and all-around dear friend Robert Strawder was severely injured in an early morning apartment fire at 24th Street and Valencia on December 1. After nearly a month of intensive care treatment and frequent surgeries, Strawder remains in a medically-induced coma on a long road to recovery. Friends, family, and co-worders are holding a benefit for him today, Tue/26 at the Elbo Room to raise funds for his rehabilitation.

The event will boast a top-notch silent art auction (featuring the likes of Jeremy Fish, Nate VanDyke, and Alex Pardee) as well as a full evening of musical performances (Bigga, Edison, 41FUNK).

Any and all donations and contributions will be welcomed and appreciated. 

 

Tue/26 8 p.m., donations suggested 

Elbo Room 

647 Valencia, SF

(415) 552-7788

www.robstrawder.org

 

Live Shots: Feist at the Warfield

Tony Robles
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SFBG photographer Charles Russo caught Feist at the Warfield on Monday. 

Live Shots: Portishead at the Greek Theatre

Andrew Lam
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Once while talking music with friends on a long road trip I was posed with the task of describing Portishead’s sound. Struggling to articulate the sum of their collective parts, I did a hasty mental cut-and-paste and said, “They’re sorta like…if Pink Floyd was a hip-hop band…and Billie Holiday was their singer.” It’s a clunky description, not so much for the references, but because Portishead’s greatest attribute is their ability to bend genres so seamlessly that it all morphs into their own sort of singular sonic universe. Even the prevailingly appropriate moniker of trip-hop (of the Bristol variety) really seems more of a launching point than a description.

So it was a rare opportunity this past week to witness Portishead’s audio empire live in the Bay Area for the first time in over 13 years (when in 1998, it recorded an epic version of “Sour Times” during a Warfield performance for the Roseland NYC Live album, later that year). Playing the Greek Theatre in Berkeley on Friday October 21, Portishead worked through a 16-song set as a six-piece live band, dark silhouettes set against a backdrop of vibrant visuals as band members broadcasted an eclectic mix of their catalogue (pulling most heavily from their more recent LP, Third). Singer Beth Gibbons was in fine tortured form, even as the early part of the set was dominated by surprisingly straightforward renderings. But during the second half of the performance Portishead delved deep in their element with a batch of expanded arrangements on some prime tracks that produced stunning results, most notably a massively ominous “Wandering Star” and an out-for-blood “Machine Gun.”

Tracks off of the band’s self-titled second album showcased Portishead’s mastermind Geoff Barrows working his way from a cocoon of varying instruments to the turntables were he cut up gargantuan spots on “Over” and “Cowboys.”  The night’s showstopper came in the form of “Roads” (off of the band’s landmark debut Dummy) as Beth Gibbons’ vocals hit their apex for the evening.

Seeing Portishead again for the first time in a decade, I tried to improve on my original description of their sound, but I’m still not so sure how to peg it all: they sounded like Nina Simone scoring a James Bond film, and the beginning of the end of a great romance, and a DJ battle under pulsing blacklights. Of course, none of these are fully apt either. After all…it’s Portishead. For those who know, it’s description enough.

Setlist:

Silence

Hunter

Nylon Smile

Mysterons

The Rip

Sour Times

Magic Doors

Wandering Star

Machine Gun

Over

Glory Box

Chase the Tear

Cowboys

Threads

(Encore)

Roads

We Carry On

 

 

 

 

 

Live Shots: Soundgarden at the Civic Auditorium, 7/21/11

Andrew Lam
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After capping off a monstrous 20-plus song set yesterday, on Thursday, July 21, with the tortured grind of “Slaves & Bulldozers,” Soundgarden put an exclamation point on their performance with a six minute shake-the-building-foundations, horses-of-the-apocalypse audio assault.

Amid waves of controlled feedback and blaring Seattle Sonic resonance, I thought my dental fillings were shaking loose. I was worried the Civic Auditorium balcony would soon collapse. I suspected that teenagers might start exploding throughout the audience.

If there had remained any wayward ounce of Superunknown sentiment regarding Soundgarden’s return, it had been extinguished long before the encore. The ear-bleeding onslaught at the outro was entirely (and wonderfully) gratuitous, then. Apparently the band just wanted to ruin our hearing for the rest of the week to make their point.

Yes, Soundgarden was in prime fighting shape. If you hadn’t caught it at the 1996 show at Kaiser Auditorium (now featured on their Live On I-5 disc) or the Greek Theater during grunge’s high watermark or the Warfield in all of its youthful glory — well, you still got the real deal last night. Not only did the band deliver on its trademark heft, but the setlist was epic.

The group relied most heavily on material from Superunknown and Badmotorfinger, but dug deep into the vault at times, with the likes of “Ugly Truth”, “Loud Love,” and the early-as-it-gets “Nothing To Say.” Soundgarden also gave San Francisco first listen to some glorious obscurities that have yet to surface on their reunion tour, with an amped-up “Drawing Flies” and an entirely anthem-oriented “Head Down.”

All of the band’s radio hits were included, which at times this made for a somewhat disjointed iPod shuffle-style pacing to the night. But the slower, quietly textured numbers are all essential to Soundgarden’s identity — and say what you like, but “Black Hole Sun” might very well be its generation’s “Strawberry Fields.”

As the band wound down the main set with the juggernaut creep of “4th of July,” Soundgarden plunged deep into their element with “Beyond the Wheel,” from their first LP Ultramega OK. Chris Cornell stalked the stage belting out upper register falsettos for the better part of the track, while Kim Thayil let loose on high wire guitar solo wizardry.

There is a stunning weight to all of this, to Soundgarden’s music when it locks one member to another like that. In this sense, their current tour shouldn’t be viewed so much as a reunion, but a question as to why they were apart in the first place.

End notes:

– Talk about grunge. The Civic Auditorium is seriously grimey these days. 

– Former San Francisco Giant and future hall-of-famer Randy Johnson is apparently Soundgarden’s tour photographer. He was seen early on in the photo pit at the start of the show and was photographing from the back of the stage during the show’s finale.

– Notorious for hissy fits prior to the band’s breakup, bassist Ben Shepherd was on good behavior throughout the night. Furthermore, the inclusion of one of his few authored tracks “Head Down” was one of the show’s highlights.

– Drummer Matt Cameron is really something to watch – his is sort of a precision bludgeoning — half barbarian, half perfectly calibrated robot. (Check him out on the Youtube clip)

– And…why aren’t these guys headlining Outside Lands?

 

Live Shots: Gillian Welch and David Rawlings at the Warfield, 7/7/11

Andrew Lam
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Call it soul music for soulless times: Gillian Welch and David Rawlings dazzled a devoted crowd on Thursday July 7 with a beautiful bluegrass showcase carried out with hefty Nashville flair. With songs of love and loss, murder and redemption, the duo created evocative atmosphere in the Warfield Theater despite their minimalist setup at center stage.

Playing two sets of about a dozen songs each, Welch and Rawlings made it through their entire new album, The Harrow & the Harvest. Yes, the songs from the duo’s 2001 album, Time (The Revelator) were all stellar, just as other crowd pleasers like “Miss Ohio” and “I’ll Fly Away” were well-received by the audience. But it was the new material that proved the most compelling and even claimed some of the biggest ovations of the night; mostly noticeably “Six White Horses,” for which Welch played percussion on her thigh and then performed a barn dance jig while Rawlings drove it all along on banjo and harmonica.

With their deft ability to conjure up heavy moods through their music, Welch and Rawlings took the atmosphere in the theater from the Southern glory of the Grand Ole Opry to the whiskey-fueled knife fights of a Barbary Coast saloon. It’s what the duo does best, shaking out a timeless sort of salt-of-the-earth Americana through their music – soulful harmonies matched by stirring melodies.

Having explored a wide range of their catalogue and worked through three encores, the duo sent the audience off with the heavy morphine drip waltz of The Harrow and the Harvest’s final track, singing  – “that’s the way the corn bread crumbles/that’s the way the whole thing end.”

Florence and the Machine at the Greek Theatre, 6/12/11

Andrew Lam
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Ace Guardian shutterbug Charles Russo reveled in the otherworldly Miss Florence Welch at Berkeley’s al fresco amphitheatre last night. Sheathed in a drape-y chartreuse toga, the lead singer of Florence and the Machine filled the classic venue with her goddess light. For proof, check this slideshow.  

Live Shots: U2 360 Tour at the Oakland Coliseum, 06/07/2011

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Ace Guardian photographer Charlie Russo caught Bono & co. in all their arena glory last night as part of the massive 360 Tour. Click here to see larger versions of the pics.

Live Shots: TV on the Radio, The Independent, 5/10/11

Andrew Lam
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0

Playing small quarters for their immeasurably large sound, TV on the Radio enthralled a sold out Independent audience for the second of two nights on Tuesday, May 10. Hard to define and even harder to resist, the band dipped heavily into the material from their latest release Nine Types of Light, while also letting loose with stirring versions of old favorites such as “Satellite,” “The Wrong Way,” and “Staring at the Sun.”

 

Setlist:

Halfway Home

Caffeinated Consciousness

The Wrong Way

Blues From Down Here

Will Do

Province

Red Dress

Crying

Young Liars

Staring at the Sun

Repetition

Wolf Like Me

 

Encore:

Forgotten

A Method

DLZ

Satellite

 

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