The last time I saw Chris Cornell in concert was at the Hammerstein Ballroom in Manhattan when Soundgarden played a couple of shows.? I’m kicking myself for not seeing the more recent Temple of the Dog show at Madison Square Garden as ticket prices had dropped and the set list looked pretty cool. 

Mr. Cornell had, without question, one of the great voices in rock and roll. My favorite memory seeing Chris in concert was when Soundgarden played Jones Beach with Neil Young and Blind Melon some years ago. Soundgarden was the second act on the bill and an extremely violent lightening storm passed through the area during their set. The squeamish among us bolted underneath the stands to avoid the downpour  and lightening strikes above the crowd but my wife and I remained in our orchestra seats and stood in amazement as a barefooted Cornell spun in circles, long black hair swirling,  ankle deep in water surrounded by electrical equipment and seemingly unperturbed by the danger in the air. Cornell seemingly dared the gods to send down a bolt that eould have lit up the stage and sky. Which became part of the light show. He and the band played on as the ongoing deluge at the beachfront venue continued throughout Soundgarden slot ending only right before Neil Young would hit the stage when  the audience found their way back to the seats. 

The power and the glory of unfettered rock and roll was on full display for anyone willing to withstand getting soaked.

I believe I saw Chris Cornell st a Beacon Theater show sometime after that and, if I remember correctly, one of his small children came on stage to join him near the end of his set. For whatever reason, I always believed that Chris seemed like a nice guy and  a family man. It must be a terrible thing to be in such pain or anguish to take your own life. 

“In My Time of Dying” is a great Led Zeppelin song that will unfortunately be connected to this tragic event going forward.

Say Hello 2 Heaven

Rest In Peace Chris Cornell.

Rock on

GQ

Metallica plays the “intimate” confines of the newly renovated Nassau Coliseum tonight following their concert at MetLife Stadium Sunday night. There are not a lot of stadium ready acts these days and Metallica are one of the few. They are scheduled to play only a couple of arena shows during this current stadium tour so this should be special and, of course, loud.

The new album “Hardwired…to Self-Destruct” is very good and they were smart to advance a CD or a download with each purchased ticket to appease the appetites of those only attending to hear the greatest hits. 

Dream No More

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GQ

Canadian legend Gordon Lightfoot takes the stage at the NYCB Theatre at Westbury tonight. I do not think I’ve ever seen the seventy eight year old Mr. Lightfoot in concert before and none of us is getting any younger. Robbie Robertson, Neil Young and Bob Dylan are Lightfoot fans so it is time for me to check out a “national treasure” and one of Canada’s greatest songwriters live and in person myself.

If You Could Read My Mind

At yesterday’s Relix Live Music Conference, Ron Delsoner ended the scheduled day proper as a keynote speaker. The legendary promoter Mr. Delsoner and Peter Shapiro, who owns Brooklyn Bowl and the Capital Theatre as well as promoting the Grateful Dead’s Fare Ther Well 50th anniversary shows, were interviewed by Rolling Stone magazine’s writer David Fricke. With a bottle of scotch on the coffee table set up on stage, the three exchanged stories and anecdotes while seated on a leather couch and chair. Ron Delsoner has no filter making for a lot of laughs and the segment had a great loose vibe ending the conference on a high note.

It was a great, extremely informative day and I learned quite a lot about the dynamic and intricacies of the live music industry.

Agents, promoters, managers, technology, ticketing and artists collaborate to bring us the great live events that bring joy and meaning to quite a few lives. It’s a lot harder task than it looks to the average concertgoer to be sure.

Exit…Stage Left

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GQ

The inaugural Relix Live Music Conference takes place at the Brooklyn Bowl today and is sold out at three different price levels. The conference is partially sponsored by Ticketfly whose charges are generally borderline abusive and, as expected, made a generous service charge for this event.

The conference will bring together some of the major players in the live concert business and will hopefully be an informative day of useful information for those in the music business, who would like to get into the music business or are just interested in how the whole dynamic works.

There have been two interesting panels so far about booking talent and festivals.

The attendees appear to be relatively young up and comers in the concert business.

Brooklyn Bowl is a cool room and the coffee is good.

Activism up next; So far it’s been an informative presentation.

Keep on Rockin’ in the Free World

GQ

Following a video tribute by Stevie Wonder, Jimmy Webb opened the rehearsal show for his Carnegie Hall tribute concert alone on piano and sang the Glen Campbell classic “Galveston”. The prolific Mr. Webb has written a slew of all time classic songs and helped propel enumerable artists with his iconic tunes.

A top notch band performed much of what tonight’s concert set list will be and there were several highlights even though “special guests” were few and far between during the relatively short hour and a half show.

Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr. sang “Up, Up, and Away” which was a radio staple during my youth and Billy Davis Jr followed by a song made famous by Johnny Maestro and the Brooklyn Bridge. 

BJ  Thomas sang a tune and Glen Campbell’s daughter played the banjo like a chip off the old block.

“MacArthur Park” is such an all-time great song and while the band did a good job recreating it musically, on this night it needed a vocalist up to the task to take the performance to the next level.

It’s always a wild card attending these City Winery rehearsal shows but this one was a bit of a disappointment, particularly when the band had to vamp with a blues tune while waiting for the final guest vocalist to make it downtown from Lincoln Center.

The Cake and the Rain tonight at Carnegie Hall.

Wichita Lineman

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GQ

The ticketing and venue monster that is Live Nation kicked off a week of $20.00 cheap seat offers for the summer tour season with a FREE concert at Irving Plaza in Manhattan last night.

The advertised lineup included country favorite Jason Aldean, Foreigner with Jason Bonham, Nickelback with Daughtry and the Roots. The show started pretty promptly at 7 o’clock and was hosted by a young gal from the Today Show.

Jason Aldean started the night off with a three song acoustic set with his band fousing on new material. After a short break where stagehands hustled equipment through the crowd to make room for an eight piece Foreigner band who kicked the evening into gear with “Feels Like the First Time”, “Jukebox Hero” (without the inflatable jukebox from their heyday headlining Madison Square Garden), and “Hotblooded”, which the Nickleback singer kiddingly said would be stuck in his head for awhile. Nickleback proved to be a dynamic arena ready act with Daughtry joining in for a popular tune about wanting to be a rock star.

The Gull and I skipped out before the Roots hit the stage but it was a successful early Monday night of rock and roll and the price was right- free is for me.

Tonight is yet another unusual night of music at City Winery for The Music of Jimmy Webb Rehearsal Show for the Carnegie Hall date tomorrow. I really do not know what to expect for this one but a Rolling Stone article reviewing Webb’s autobiography detailed his hanging out with John Lennon and Harry Nilsson during the infamous “lost weekend” and intrigued me enough to make me want to check out what this guy, who wrote tons of hits for other people, is all about.

MacArthur Park

Up, Up and Away

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GQ

The fact that I have almost no recollection of this particular Ramones concert may mean we never gained entry and hung out on the Wollman Rink rocks where we could hear any show that was sold out (or we just decided not to spend the $4.50 or $2.50 to get in that evening).

While attending Queens College, my buddies and I were more inclined to listen to Led Zeppelin or Neil Young than the punk sounds originating from England and downtown Manhattan. I still remember a heavy set student clad in leather punk garb telling me that the Ramones and the Clash were the present and future of rock and roll and me thinking that he wa crazy. It turned out that we both may have been correct.

Sylvain Sylvain of the New York Dolls opened the show.

I briefly met Joey Ramone at a Plasmatics concert at Bonds in New York City. An attractive gal had an apparently inebriated Joey Ramone in tow and were heading straight toward me at the gargantuan venue. I somehow knew that the Ramones had a gig somewhere on Long Island that night so I quickly came up with a plan to act like Joey and I already knew each other and I complimented him on the show they played that night that I did not attend. We were having a cordial conversation when his girl friend seem to realize that Joey was too discombulated to possibly know who I was so she tugged on his wrist and led him away into the crowd. 

Too Tough to Die

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GQ

Now long before Trump supporter Ted Nugent was in a Twitter war with the ultra liberal David Crosby, the Motor City Madman played his brand of guitar driven rock and roll in arenas. Ted Nugent had co-headlined with Lynyrd Skynyrd at the Nassau Coliseum when I had last saw him and, if memory serves me right, the somewhat mismatched but enjoyable double bill was scheduled to happen again at Madison Square Garden when the Lynyrd Skynyrd plane crash tragedy changed the southern rock landscape forever and made Mr. Nugent the headliner for this particular tour.

AC/DC with lead singer Bon Scott opened the show and Angus Young carried Bon on his shoulders through the MSG orchestra section much to the delight of the aspiring metal heads at the Garden.

I have always loved Ted Nugent’s gunslinger mentality and his blistering guitar leads which made the eponymous first album that contained “Stranglehold” and the “Free for All” collection rock and roll classics.

Ted Nugent is still periodically on the road and he will play The Paramount in Huntington on Wednesday, August 16, 2017.

Journey to the Center of the Mind

The Amboy Dukes

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GQ

Billy  Joel  opened the “new” Nassau Coliseum last night and tonight Stevie Nicks and The Pretenders play at the revamped arena.

It’s been a great stretch of women rockers coming through tow with Ann Wilson blowing the roof off of The Space in Westbury last week. Annie mixed in Heart songs with classics by other artists like The Who (Won’t Get Fooled Again,  Love Rein O’er Me), Prter Gabriel (Don’t Give Up), Jimi Hendrix (Manic Depression) and the Buffalo Springfield.  Ann Wilson is like David Crosby in that their voices are extraordinary gifts holding up after decades of rock and roll wear and tear. The show was one of those somewhat unexpected great events reminding me why I continue to attend as many  concerts as I do. Every once in awhile you catch lightening in a bottle and leave happily surprised and grateful you made the effort seek out the rock.

The Classic East concerts at Citifield with Fleetwood Mac go on sale tomorrow which turns out to be bad timing for Stevie Nicks as many seats are unsold at the moment. The somewhat overpriced event should have taken place in the sheds but the Coliseum must be paying good money to get a buzz flowing about the venue as they have quite a few shows lined up in the next couple of months. The added bonus of Chryssie Hynde and The Pretendrs makes this a great double bill worth checking out.

Neil Younf bailed on inducting Pearl Jam in to Rock and Roll Hall of Fame due to illness. Secondary market tickets for this event are sky high so even though Yes will be there, I almost surely will not. I think the E Street Band is still giving their acceptance speeches. Brutal.

Back on the Chain Gang

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GQ

It’s times like last week that one realizes how great it is to be living near the greatest city in the world for entertainment. Eric Clapton played two nights of what amounts to a tour for Slowhand  these days. Gary Clark Jr. And Jimmie Vaughn played opening sets before Clspton and his band mixed some bluees and greatest hits around his “unplugged” acoustic set that includes “Layla” and “Tears in Heaven”. Ticket prices were predictably outrageous to see a legend in the flesh but I left the arena wanting just a little bit more from the one hour forty five set.

Wilco’s four night stint at the more intimate Beacon Theatre was an Allman Brothers like celebration of the band’s music by diehards most of whom attended more than one performance  ( I was fortunate enough to be at three).

Jeff Tweedy snd the band are on top of their game, tight, and one of the best live acts around these days. The show’s set lists varied keeping the intensity high and the fans on their feet throughout the stay.

Roll Another Number

Passenger Side

Rock on!

GQ