I’m sitting at JFK airport for a flight to Indianapolis to see Neil Young and the Promise of the Real who are on the road to Farm Aid in Milwaukee Saturday. My flight is delayed so I figured I’d check in and tell you what I did on my summer vacation. It has been a busy concert season with a trip to London, England and Kilkenny, Ireland to catch Neil and the Real with Bob Dylan at two incredible outdoor festivals. Neil and Bob took the stage together at beautiful Kilkenny for the first time since Bobfest at Madison Square Garden which I was fortunate to have attended also. Neil Young and Dylan’s European tours converged for these final two dates and it was an extraordinary finale for the two legends. After my London adventure, I stayed above a pub in Kilkenny, which was just down the road from the hurling field where the event was held, and where I had an incredible no frills whirlwind stay which ended in Dublin where I played tourist for a couple of days.

Upon my return it was on to Newport, Rhode Island for a family trip to the Newport Folk Festival which is always a blast. The weather was perfect, as it was for the two European festivals, and the three day folk festival with three stages and non stop music at scenic Fort Adams on the water was fantastic as usual. As long as the rain stays away it is a great venue. My wife and I had gone to the Newport Jazz Festival years ago during a three day monsoon, leaving us like drowned rats and a tough few days, so anytime you can get a good weather weekend in Newport it is a home run. The wide variety of acts satisfied the whole family and the perfect weather made for a great vacation.

Bob Seger and the Silver Bullett Band started off the summer concert season at Northwell at Jones Beach Theatre back on a rainy night in May for his farewell tour. Despite the rain, the sold out amphitheatre was rocking with Seger playing many of the big hit songs from his great rock and roll albums that dominated 1980’s FM radio.

Smashing Pumpkins with Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds was a surprising good show. I’ve never been a huge Smashing Pumpkins fan but they have many familiar hits, and Gallagher was a really strong opening act and he threw in some great Oasis tunes at the end of his set.

Just this week, I was supposed to see Peter Frampton’s finale show at Madison Square Garden Friday but due to a Groupon app snafu I was unable to pull up my tickets on my phone. Saturday night was a surprisingly great Jethro Tull 50th Anniversary Concert at Forest Hills Stadium. Jethro Tull was my favorite band freshman year in high school before I discovered Yes then Neil Young and the first album I ever bought with my own money was Jethro Tull’s “ Warchild”. In recent years and tours, Ian Anderson’s voice has been disappointing and the shows left you wondering if he maybe should have hung up his flute and retired but somehow this tour, with its audiovisual enhancements, was a huge success in my eyes. The limber Anderson balanced himself on one leg and pranced and strutted and entertained under a late summer sky.

The Who’s latest farewell incarnation with orchestra on the other hand was an utter disappointment. While 75 year old Roger Daltry looked and sounded fine, a crowded stage, power outages, and with Pete Townshend’s windmills feeling forced, after the opening “Tommy” excitement, we found ourselves feeling bored and somewhat disappointed. The orchestra tours were better done when Daltry toured solo with “Tommy” and Townshend played st the Metropolitan Opera House with “Quadrophenia”. The farewell 50th Anniversary Show at Forest Hills a couple of years ago was a rollicking good time and how I would prefer to remember the band, along with many of the great arena tours they did through the years.

There was also two nights of Chicago st the NYCB Theatre at Westbury at some point and I’m sure a few other shows I’m not recalling at the moment. The gate to my delayed flight has been changed again so I hope to be wheels up shortly.

Keep on rockin’ In the Indiana world

Rock on!

GQ

Billy Joel’s lengthy residency at Madison Square Garden turned into a massive birthday party this past Thursday.

I have attended many Billy Joel concerts through the years; young, old, with Elton John, large venues, at the Paramount in Huntington (could it really have been 2013?). You knew that this was not going to be an ordinary evening when MSG staff handed out “Happy Birthday Billy” cardboard hats and a variety of Joel baseball type souvenir cards in plastic casings as the crowd excitingly headed up the escalators. The band hit the stage at 8:20 with no opening act and the adoring, seemingly Long Island, audience were in a celebratory mood as Billy sang the soundtrack of the lives to many in the crowd. Video greetings from Pink, Brian Johnson, Don Henley and Paul McCartney were interspersed with the mostly familiar Billy Joel songs performed this night. A surprise guest performance at about the halfway point by Peter Frampton, who will be on a farewell tour this year, added to a joyful event. Mr. Joel’s daughter Alexa sang “New York State of Mind” with dad which led into a Happy Birthday singalong with his youngest daughter who joined the two onstage. There were no Springsteen or McCartney cameos as hoped, not even Howard Stern or Kevin James, but it was all fine. The night was a true celebration of a national treasure, and a seemingly good guy, who has never forgotten where he came from. It’s hard not to like Billy Joel; he’s one of the good guys. He cannot bound around on stage like he once could, but even at seventy it appears the show will go on for years to come.

It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me

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GQ

My wife and I traveled to San Diego, California last week to attend a wedding. The day after we arrived, we went to Petco Park and watched the San Diego Padres play the Seattle Mariners battle to a 1-0 hometown victory. After settling in at our La Jollia hotel, we Ubered our way to Humphreys by the Bay situated outdoors. in the heart of a resort and restaurant development. Despite the resort and restaurant packages, and overall reasonable ticket prices, the concert was nowhere close to sold out. Fortunately for us, for $59.00 (plus the Ticketmaster charges), we sat 3rd row center in the narrow plastic chairs that did not fold making it difficult to pass. Mr. Anderson opened the concert with the classic “Owner of a Lonely Heart” and proceeded to mix songs from his brand new album “1,000 Hands” with older solo works and the Yes catalog. Jon looked and sounded great with a capable band that played well but lacked the stage presence provided by some of Anderson’s other touring bands. The venue had the vibe that you were somehow at some private event with full service bar and cozy atmosphere.. Jon Anderson is still the ultimate showman and the music still holds up; and as all true artists do, he is still creating new and innovative sonic art. Jon seemed to be particularly attentive to a beautiful blonde seated at the end of the first row who I believe turned out to be his wife. She sang along to the new tunes and was seen briefly dancing with Anderson on the side of the stage near the end of the show during an instrumental break. My wife, who was never a big Yes fan, loved the concert and we happily exited with the encore “Roundabout” reverberating in our heads.

Makes Me Happy

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GQ

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony was held at Barclays Center where somewhat unbelievably, bands from the 1980’s are now getting their due. As usual for this made for HBO special event, the speeches go on for way too long, while the musical performances leave you wanting more. My wife and I missed Stevie Nicks open the festivities with guest appearance by Don Henley. Stevie’s set got good reviews but I don’t mind having missed it as Don Henley usually comes off as being a miserable rich guy and the last time I saw Nicks solo at Nassau Coliseum we walked out as she rambled so much between songs that the increasingly angry audience yelled for her to shut up and sing.

Roxy Music, The Cure and The Zombies played nice sets. Bryan Ferry was as dapper as ever, Robert Smith looked like the love child of Edward Scissorhands and Susan Boyle and gave an uncomfortable speech before rocking out with the band and The Zombies played legendary hits from their 50+ year career.

Radiohead, inducted by David Byrne, did not play (too cool?) nor did Janet Jackson who showed up and gave a speech that no one around us paid attention to. What is the point of inducting Janet Jackson, who arguably is not deserving of a Rock Hall Induction, particularly if she is going to decline to perform?

Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails gave the best speech of the night while inducting The Cure but the live event itself is tough to sit through (is the E Street Band dome accepting their recognition?)

We missed all of Def Lepperd also and the “All the Young dudes finale but I will catch the edited show down the line on HBO.

Get well soon Mick Jagger.

Rock on!

GQ

For the second time in weeks, The Wall concert rescheduled for last night Friday, 2/8/19 was postponed. I had won a pair of tickets from WBAB radio who was kind enough to call me again regarding the postponement. When I asked the young lady on the phone what was going on, she said that due to the government shutdown the band was unable to obtain the necessary visas to enter the country. Trump’s shutdown caused The Wall to not enter the country; quite ironic.

Here’s hoping that the band makes it through customs for the new date on March 8 or by way of the Mexican border if necessary.

Comfortably Numb

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GQ

Yours truly made a rock and roll road trip to Winnipeg, Canada to catch two concerts with Neil Young and Crazy Horse. The shows were originally placed on sale and advertised as “solo” performances as part of Mr. Young’s theatre stops but then to a Crazy Horse gig. Neil gave us the best of both worlds by doing solo acoustic sets before bringing his “friends” onstage. The beauty of these short bursts of touring is that the setlists vary from show to show. The Burton Cummings Theatre and Centennial Concert Hall were the two completely different venues in Winnipeg for the return of Crazy Horse. The Burton Cummings Theatre was first and the old structure seemed appropriate for the opening night of Neil Young’s return home. It felt like a reunion with old friends as Billy Talbot and Ralph Molina handled the bass and drums. Frank Sampedro is still missing in action since the injury he sustained a few years back causing Young and Crazy to cut short a tour that would have brought them to the Capital Theatre in Westchester at the time. Nils Lofgren stepped in for dates in California last year, and with his long history with Neil Young including the “After the Goldrush” album, and Bruce Springsteen recovering from a long solo stint on Broadway, multi-instrumentalist Nils Lofgren was the perfect person to help piece the Horse back together again. As luck would have it very early this morning I ran into Mr. Lofgren at the Winnipeg airport where we were both separately having breakfast. I told Nils he really rocked that “Like a Hurricane” organ; Nils said it was a lot of fun and that he nearly knocked Billy over a couple of times. It was a great three day adventure on the frigid streets of Winnipeg. As Nils, a real gentleman and seemingly nice guy, said to me, hopefully there is more to come.

Last night’s show at the Centennial Concert Hall is playing on the Neil Young Archives website now!

Don’t Spook the Horse

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GQ

Neil Young is live-streaming tonight’s solo acoustic show in Minneapolis tonight on the Neil Young Archives website. This show alone is worth the $19.99 yearly subscription. On Sunday I am off to Winnipeg to see Neil Young and Crazy Horse for two nights with Nils Lofgren stepping in for Frank Sampedro again. Neil may perform an acoustic set also as the show’s were initially advertised as “solo”.

I believe NYA will also livestream the Crazy Horse concert at the Burton Cummings Theatre on Sunday night. Look for me on the aisle in the fourth row (I’ll be the tall, good looking guy with the frozen Irish mug).

Ambulance Blues

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GQ

Warren Haynes and Gov’t Mule played the not quite sold out Beacon Theatre on a very rainy New Year’s Eve in New York City. Mr. Haynes was just recently in town for the Steve Earle benefit concert and he seems to make the rounds in the New York area frequently; the man is always working and we thank him for that. Gov’t Mule was in top form with three sets of music, balloons and lots of cover tunes including “Casey Jones” at midnight and my favorite Bob Seger song “Beautiful Loser”. Warren Haynes can play anything, everything and with anyone and his guitar virtuosity was on full display as we barreled through to another year of rock and roll in 2019. This show was a great way to end 2018 and propel us forward. Coincidently, the Chinese just landed a space craft on the Dark Side of the Mule; go figure.

The End of the Line

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GQ

Rest in Peace

Pegi Young was an incredible musical talent in her own right and the guiding force of The Bridge School in California.

The “Harvest Moon” video is currently being shown on the Neil Young Archives.

GQ

When I saw the great blues man Johnny Winter perform at My Father’s Place in Roslyn, he stepped on stage with long white hair and aided by a cane. If memory serves me regarding this particular Central Park concert we may have hung out on the rocks and listened to the show from beyond the fences. For anyone who attended these shows as regularly as my friends and I did after discovering this magical venue, the party on the rocks overlooking the Wollman Rink is where we got our education, our initiation into the world and culture of rock and roll.

Johnny B. Goode

Rock on!

GQ