Rod Stewart has been around seemingly forever; from his days with Ronnie Wood, the Faces and “Maggie May” to the present, Stewart has managed to keep his career going with a variety of musical styles with many hits along the way, with that iconic voice and his rock and roll roots that never goes out of style. I have no particular recollection of this 1993 Jones Beach Theatre concert. Rod Stewart returns to the outdoor venue this August after a couple of years of Covid tour postponements. Sadly, the last time I saw Rod play the beach a couple of years back, the crowd looked like they had piled out of a senior center bus and the concert had a Vegas sort of vibe about it; time marches on. My wife and I swore then that we were done with Rod Stewart shows but I have been holding on to these orchestra seats since before the lockdown and we will endeavor to attend, with Cheap Trick opening.

The Warrior

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GQ

I vaguely remember attending this Santana and Bob Dylan concert at the Jones Beach Theatre in September of 1993 with seats in the orchestra to the left side of the outdoor venue’s stage. Truth be told, I am a somewhat casual fan of Santana, and while I have been a fan of Bob Dylan through the years, I only more recently truly appreciate his genius, now finding myself playing catch up, obsessed with listening to all of the numerous phases of Dylan’s extraordinary career. Bob Dylan performed at the Beacon Theatre this past November and Santana is on tour this summer with Earth, Wind & Fire after last year’s Covid postponements. Some of the best, and most fun, Chicago concerts that I have attended through the years were when they toured with EWF and joined forces on songs from each other’s catalogues throughout the shows. While the bands are fundamentally different stylistically, they complimented each other magnificently, particularly the horn sections, making for a crowd pleasing joyous night of entertainment.

Black Magic Woman

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GQ

I always love an Aerosmith concert but this particular one is not ringing a bell. The first time I saw the band perform live I was standing on a folding chair on the left side of the orchestra at the Nassau Coliseum. Aerosmith opened up with “Back in the Saddle” and when it came time for a Joe Perry guitar solo, they turned the volume up to 11 tilting me straight back snd nearly off my perch; it got loud fast. Stories of the band doing pop up club dates around Long Island after their peak, then drug fueled decline, and before they returned to the rock and roll mountaintop are the stuff of legend. To paraphrase Gregg Allman “the first million you just piss away” which apparently Aerosmith did, then amazingly came back bigger and better than ever. I saw the last Joe Perry Project performance at My Father’s Place in Roslyn where a YouTube video from that night reminded me that Steven Tyler joined the band onstage that night before an official reunion took place not long after. Aerosmith is scheduled to play Fenway Park this fall for a postponed 50th anniversary concert in their home town.

Kings and Queens

Aerosmith Rocks (on)

GQ

In August, 1993, Neil Young toured the northeast with Booker T and the MGs; Soundgarden and Blind Melon opened the shows making for a great triple bill. I vaguely remember seeing Blind Melon on stage from our Jones Beach Theatre orchestra seats to the right of the stage but I will never forget Soundgarden’s set that came next. The Jones Beach Theatre is an outdoor venue and when Soundgarden was on stage a summer lightening storm came through the area. A long haired barefoot Chris Cornell swirled around the stage as if possessed all the while the rain poured down and lightening lit up the sky. As puddles formed around Cornell’s bare feet, the band played on, spectators scampered back underneath the main structure for cover, and I wondered if lightening hit the water onstage would the band disintegrate before our eyes. As I recall, Soundgarden seemed empowered by the storm, and defiant, as the band powered through its set; when the band was finished, and just before Neil Young took the stage, the rain suddenly stopped and the sky cleared as if on cue.

Like a Hurricane

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GQ

My wife and I attended our first event at the UBS Arena, the new home of the New York Islanders at Belmont Park. I had entered a Newsday contest for Journey concert tickets and although I did not win, I received an email that I could have tickets anyway leading me to believe the concert was likely far from sold out. I was on the fence about going at all, but the seats were pretty good- first level adjacent to the rear orchestra on left side of stage, and valued at about $130, so we decided to venture out on this cold February Friday night. The parking was $50 bucks with a long hike to the arena but hopefully when the parking garage being built is completed this will improve. The UBS Arena looks a bit like a mall on the outside; we had arrived early so we could check the place out and froze waiting for the doors to open at 6:30 PM. It is a new facility with a lot of Islander photos and memorabilia throughout the wide spacious hallways and very unlike the Nassau Coliseum’s cramped walkways where beer vendors and bathroom lines make the navigating to your seat cramped and uncomfortable. The UBS was built as a hockey arena first with an upper deck that is pretty high up. From our vantage point, the orchestra section was large snd flat with no incline; I would not be purchasing any tickets passed the first twenty rows as sight lines in the rear appear to be problematic. There were plenty of concessions and the section we were in had it’s own private food snd drink situation which I wish I had realized before my wife bought her food in the hallway. I believe Billy Idol was supposed to open but I think his tour was another covid casualty opening the door for Toto to step in. The last time I saw Billy Idol perform was on a pier in New York City a few years ago and it was a lot of fun. We were not really looking forward to Toto but I have to say I did not hate them even though the sound was not so great. I have seen the headliner Journey a few times through the years, most recently at The Classic East at Citifield, and they are one of those bands that seem to never stop touring. Journey plays all of the many hits that you remember from the radio, and that the masses want to hear. The “ new” singer, who replaced Steve Perry quite a few years ago now, is energetic with an extraordinary voice that sounded a bit fried occasionally on this night, but overall was good. If not for the free tickets it would have been an expensive night out, but for what I ended up spending total, it was well worth the trek back to the car in the frigid weather. Would I go back again? They have some big acts like The Eagles and Roger Waters coming up but currently ticket prices are obscene, the service charges are abusive, and the parking situation is far from ideal, so It would have to be something special to get me back there any time soon.

Any Way You Want It

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GQ

Well, through the years I have been fortunate enough to see The Kinks perform at The Palladium in Manhattan, Ray Davies solo at the Westbury Music Fair snd at this July, 1993 Kinks concert at the Jones Beach Theatre. Unfortunately, I have absolutely no recollection of this particular show at Jones Beach; I wish I did as The Kinks are an iconic rock and roll band with so many great songs. Unfortunately, as great an all time band as The Kinks are, they have not really gotten the well earned recognition from the masses in the rock and roll pantheon of all time greats as some other acts who came up with them in the 1960’s and beyond. Undoubtedly, Ray Davies is one of the great songwriters of our time. Rumors of a 50 (plus) anniversary tour have been going on for years but the notoriously cantankerous brothers (Ray and Dave) have somehow never agreed on when, how, or if to tour again. I suppose some things are better left undone.

Waterloo Sunset

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GQ

Don Henley, drummer and founding member of the Eagles, played a solo gig at the Jones Beach Theatre on a Saturday night in June, 1993. I have seen the Eagles, and Don Henley solo, on numerous occasions, and if memory serves me correct, this was the concert that Henley sang Kermit the Frog’s “It’s Not Easy Being Green”.

Huh

The Last Worthless Evening

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GQ

Next up for me after Bobfest at MSG, another top 5 or top ten concert of all time took place at the Beacon Theatre on Tuesday, February 23, 1993. I never appreciated the genius of Keith Richards until I saw him play with the X-Pensive Winos. Keith as front man blew the roof off of the Beacon Theatre that night and if memory serves me right, I think I had strep throat but managed to still attend this extraordinary performance. My buddy Eric, the biggest Rolling Stones snd Richards fan, and I had seats in the orchestra to the left of the stage and had the best pure rock and roll time with an ecstatic audience that was into every tune. There is a live album and DVD of another of the Winos gigs, not the New York City, and as luck, and coincidence would have it, Keith Richards & the X-Pensive Winos will reunite on that same Beacon Theatre stage early next month for the Love Rocks We Deliver Benefit that will also include Hozier, Mavis Maples, and Warren Haynes. I was fortunate to grab a pair up top during the presale of the benefit that is now completely sold out and I am completely pumped for this upcoming show.

Talk is Cheap

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GQ

Thanks to my friend, the late great Pat, who owned the Video Connection on N. Park Avenue in Rockville Centre, I managed to purchase a pair of tickets to the star studded celebration of the music of Bob Dylan held at Madison Square Garden on Friday, October 16, 1992. Pat was what you would call a “character”; a heavy set bundle of energy Irishman with a husky voice and a hearty laugh who played softball and claimed to have gone to every recent Super Bowl at the time. For those old enough to remember, the Video Connection rented VHS tapes and had a Ticketmaster machine. Before the internet, if you wanted to obtain a ticket to a just about any show, one would have to wait on line at a Ticketmaster location early enough so to hopefully not get shut out of the hot concert tours completely; it seemed that popular shows would sometimes sell out in a half hour or less and good seats were pretty much impossible to get your hands on unless you went to sn old school scalper. This was also before tier pricing was invented, so tickets for the front row to the last row nosebleeds were the same price. Thanks to my buddy Pat, my wife and I were able to attend Bobfest and we sat up high to the right of the stage in the green seats. This was not only a top 5 or 10 all time concert for me, but one of the most celebrated concert events of all time well documented by audio recording and film; it was an amazing evening with too many highlights to mention. Fast forward to my European road trip a couple of years ago after I retired where I caught Neil Young and Bob Dylan together in Ireland snd Hyde Park, London. I would think that Neil, Bob and I, possibly a handful of others in the crowd, can claim to have been at both the MSG celebration and the Kilkenny gig. Back then I was still I was chasing the live rock and roll experience, and now I am really glad that I did at the time as Covid has crushed the live music industry for a few years now and Neil Young says he will not perform live again until Covid is under control. None of us is getting any younger, and the artists of the golden age of rock and roll are busy selling off their catalogs for a nest egg. Thankfully, I just saw Bob Dylan perform again at the Beacon Theatre just before this past Christmas and it was outstanding. I am holding some tickets for the summer concert scene, of course heavy on the Chicago shows; a gtoup that seemingly never stops touring snd still my wife’s favorite band, but where the rest of this is all going is anyone’s guess.

Forever Young (check out the Bob Seger version)

Seven Days

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GQ

Neil Young & Crazy Horse’s latest album BARN is yet another classic and the documentary by dhlovelife is extraordinary. Crazy Horse needs to be inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Let the band members, past and present, enjoy the induction ceremony, and think of the raucous jam that might end the evening’s festivities.

Crazy Horse

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

It is really a no brainer.

Let’s Roll

Barn on!

GQ