Other Rock Bands

1990[-05-01] Ten Years After

in ,

Date and Location unconfirmed

Haven’t yet confirmed specific information about the date and venue. I saw Ten Years After during a reunion tour which I am pretty sure took place in 1990. This show was at a theatre in midtown manhattan (somewhere close to the roadhouse, if it wasn't the (Lonestar) roadhouse.

An important show for me to see because Ten Years After was certainly my very favorite rock band for awhile when I was growing up in the 70s, but they had mostly broken up since the 80s. With a friend who played guitar and later studied sound engineering, we got very tuned into Alvin and we proceeded to collect not only the 10 Years After records but also some of his solo work which was quite good. (I remember my buddy finding a great photo of Alvin jamming with Winwood on guitar back in the day, maybe from one of the Fillmores, and promptly tacking it up in the middle of his wall in his dorm room.) By this point Alvin had done his own thing for a long while. The reunion tour came as a surprise and rare opportunity to see them together again. Of course now Alvin is gone like so many other wonderful musicians included on this list. For me, TYA and Alvin are among the towering all-time greats of rock music, and at this point in time, perhaps one of the least mentioned and underappreciated of the great English rock bands of the 60s and 70s. They had a larger musical "footprint" than most people probably realize - and while "I'd Love to Change the World" regularly garnered radio time, their albums are mostly solid throughout and contain interesting songs rarely played on the radio. Although they are known as a blues-rock band (and they certainly played a lot of blues rock and hard rock), from early on they also incorporated some pretty heavy jazz influence and, later, funky clavinet and other more modern styles into their music. And they always rocked out and jammed like hell, before there was a category called Jam Band.

1991-08-05 Marty Balin

in ,

Stephen Talkhouse

1991-6-4.jpg
 

On a Monday night in August in 1991, Amagansett was pretty quiet, and much less busy than it has been in more recent years.

The Stephen Talkhouse was a very small, intimate scene. If you got a table, you felt like you were right on top of the performers. (Even after it was later expanded, the Talkhouse was still a very small and intimate club; in 1991 the Talkhouse was still in its original form.)

A local restaurant there featured a "4 hour salad" - made from ingredients picked out of the ground within 4 hours previous to being served. But that night we went to Mt Fuji - the sushi restaurant in Amagansett - for dinner before the show, and we immediately saw Marty and band members eating there. So we said hello to them and wished them well. They did not disappoint - an intimate musical experience with one of the true leaders of the 1960s San Francisco music scene.

I was really sad to hear of his passing and will always remember seeing him at this show, at which he played a beautiful version of “Summer of Love,” and other great songs…

1994/12/02 John Wesley Harding and Rob Wasserman (w/ Lou Reed)

in ,

The Bottom Line

1994-6-4.jpg
 

I was very interested to learn that JWH would be playing with Rob Wasserman at The Bottom Line. In a later year, JWH would join Hot Tuna and other bands to form one summer's traveling Further Festival lineup. The great drummer Pete Thomas of Elvis Costello and the Attractions had played on some of JWH's early albums, and his musical style through that period of time evoked comparisons to Elvis Costello's.

I really didn't think of Wasserman in that musical vein, although his "trios" album showed the great range of his musical interests and talents.

At the beginning of the show, JWH announced that a special guest would be joining them later in the show. We wondered who it might be. We were simply amazed to see Lou Reed walk out and play several songs with them, including "Busload of Faith." I later met Lou Reed one night at the Film Forum I mentioned my concert experiences to him.

The show is listed on Setlists.FM but without any details.

1995-08-[18] Suzanne Vega

in ,

The Stephen Talkhouse

 

I saw Suzanne Vega play solo at Stephen Talkhouse shortly after Garcia passed away in 1995. I thought it was the following weekend but may have been a subsequent weekend and couldn’t confirm the date.

I was aware of her since the mid-1980s and enjoyed a lot of the earlier material, including the great song “Left of Center” in which Joe Jackson plays lyrical piano runs behind Suzanne’s beautiful voice. And I knew she was one of only a few people who had actually played with the Grateful Dead, at the rainforest concert at MSG. Garcia’s recent passing was certainly in mind when she opened with “When Heroes Goes Down” to open the show. However, she mentioned nothing otherwise.

She mentioned her experience as a counselor at a sleep-away camp in the Adirondacks where she was the folk singing and disco dancing instructor.

Before the main room was enlarged, the Stephen Talkhouse was tiny - among the smallest venues at which you could see a show like this (and even after the first renovation it was still a very small room). We sat at a table probably about 20-25 feet from her, as she performed solo for the entire show, and I thought it was incredible - a really intimate and beautiful performance.

There have been some subsequent performances of noteriety by Suzanne there - a live recording of a 2003 show there has been released and is available, and she played there again a couple of years ago, when the Talkhouse added an extensive bio page about her background and reputation as a great songwriter.

1995-10-06 R.E.M.

in ,

Meadowlands Arena

1995-4.jpg
 

This was part of the Monster album tour, although the album had been out for awhile. Concerts given by R.E.M. in the mid 1990s were incredible and legendary. Friends of mine saw them more times than I did and I got the raves from them about some of the shows. At this show I remember Mike Mills wearing a "Nudie" suit (a rhinestone-studded bodysuit designed by Nudie Cohen, similar to those worn by Elvis Presley and which were also at times worn on stage by Jerry Garcia and by Keith Richards).

1999-06-18 Brian Wilson

in ,

Beacon Theater

1999-3-4.jpg

This show was supposed to take place on 2/24/99 but was cancelled - we didn't know the show was being rescheduled until we got to the Beacon and saw the notice posted on the door.

When the rescheduled show took place four months later everything went off like it should. It really seemed like a complete triumph for Brian, as a lot of wonderful positive energy pervaded the Beacon theatre that night. His “Imagination” album had been released earlier and the show included some of the songs from that fine album in addition to various classics.