I did watch The Tragically Hip show on CBC television last night. It seemed the thing to do, and I was interested enough. I’m of the age where their music formed the soundtrack of my life, whether I realized it or not. I own only two Tragically Hip albums (Up to Here and Road Apples), yet I knew the chorus of almost every song they played last night.
For any non-Canadians who stumble on this: The Tragically Hip’s lead singer and songwriter Gord Downie has incurable brain cancer. He’s in remission, and the band has done a cross-country tour, ending in their hometown of Kingston last night. National broadcaster CBC interrupted their Olympic coverage to bring the concert to everyone, commercial-free.
There’s been a lot of great writing about this band, and this tour, in Maclean’s, the Globe and Mail, The Washington Post, The New Yorker. I can’t compete. It’s not only that I’m not as good a music writer—though that is true—but also that, familiarity with choruses notwithstanding, I’m not a big enough fan. I could observe that the band were quite good, that they mostly pumped through the songs without a lot banter with the audience (hard to know what to say, one thinks), that Gord Downie restricted his talking to thank you’s and a comment on First Nations people up north, that they did three encores, that the show was about three hours long.
Gord Downie from an earlier Toronto show as, in a very strange decision, the promoter would not allow official photographers at the Kingston show
But I couldn’t truly get into the emotion of it. I’m not sure why, in all these years, their songs have never really touched my soul. They’re catchy, they’re in a genre I like, the lyrics are smart and highly original.
Maybe it’s simply that, until last night, I had never seen this band live.
Friday night Jean and I went to our first-ever CD release party. No, not our CD (heavens!); Alysha Brilla’s. Alysha Brilla is a local artist with some (not Tragically Hip–level) national fame.
She once lived in LA, and was signed to a big recording contract. But she couldn’t fit into that little commercial box they wanted to put her in.
“They wanted me to write songs about going to the club. And picking up guys.” she commented on Friday. “And I’m like, but I don’t go to clubs. I don’t pick up guys.”
So she scampered away from that contract, and set up as an independent artist in Canada. And the only reason most of us have heard of her is the CBC Radio often plays her songs.
Her music has always been a kind of fusion of jazz / world sounds with a touch of pop, but the latest album, Human, has more Indian influences than her past work. I listened to it on Google Music (and yes, heard a couple tracks on CBC Radio) before picking it up on Friday, but I wasn’t sure about it. It has a lot of spiritual themes (one song is actually called “Spiritual”), it’s all peace and love and changing the world (another song is literally called “Changing the World”).
It’s very granola, you know?
Music, singer, songwriter, producer, artist Alysha Brilla
But after having seen her perform several tracks live, I’m kind of digging it. For one thing, she’s just such a charmer live—gets you in her corner right from the opening, and keeps you there. She was playing the Jazz Room, which has an unfortunate rectangular shape that is not ideal for live music, and was very full, and pretty hot, and during the 1.5 hour or so wait before she started, we actually pondered leaving.
But I’m glad we didn’t; the show was interactive and so fun. We got the stories behind some of the new songs: “Gender Rollz” was inspired by her time in LA, and the strict modes of behaviour expected of both men and women in the big music industry. “Ahimsa” (which means peace) came to her while on vacation in Kenya. The “Bigger Than That” singalong has great lyrics. And her cover of Amy Winehouse’s “Valerie” was awesome.(“Until Amy Winehouse came along”, she said, “I thought, ‘What hope is there for an olive-skinned weirdo like me?’”) It’s not on the album, but it is on YouTube.
My “big plan” for the Friday of the long weekend was to watch the webcast of the opening show of Queen + Adam Lambert’s tour, performed as part of the Rock in “Rio” festival in Lisbon. So it was a bit dismaying when, on Wednesday or so, the webcast company announced that, “at the band’s request”, they would no longer be showing it.
Someone contacted Brian May about it on Twitter. And he actually answered.
So then the Glambert hunt was on to find some way to watch Portuguese broadcast TV from the Internet.
The “best” source finally found was a bit of Trojan horse one that kept trying to lure you in with “free” logins and “mandatory” Flash upgrades that actually installed malware on your computer. But with the installation of a browser ad blocker + being very careful not to click anything other than maximize video button, we were in!
Of course, it wasn’t the full-fidelity video or sound we would have had with the official webcast, but it was still a professional recording of the whole show, not just some fan’s Periscope.
So it’s really too bad the concert itself sucked.
I kid! The show was terrific, as though they’d hadn’t taken nearly a year-long break from performing together. They added a bunch of new songs (truly new to many of the Glamberts): The Hero. Hammer to Fall, Stone Cold Crazy, The Game. They had some new props. And Adam had six costume changes, all of which featured very tight pants.
I do wonder at the promoter’s logic here as well. Surely the number of people who’d decide that, having seen the webcast, they don’t need to an actual show would be outweighed by the number who do see it and decide it’s awesome enough that they want to be there themselves? Certainly that’s been the history of this band (all of which I was there for—watching from my living room):
Their Live Aid performance, broadcast on TVs worldwide at the time, reminded everyone how amazing Queen was live. Increased album sales and sold-out tours followed.
A great webcast might be the closest to live you can get—but it ain’t live. It’s just not the same as being there.
Ah well. At least I got to see it, since I’m not flying off to Europe for this set of shows. And there is hope that a better-quality version will see the light of day eventually (as the promoter has also been diligent about getting any YouTubes of the Portuguese broadcast taken down). Queen Official did release this one high-quality track from the show today. Enjoy.
A steamy, packed room of 1500 people pressed close together, singing, dancing, screaming. Stripping down as it gets hotter. On stage, an unbearably handsome singer, framed by two gorgeous dancers, playing music with an insistent, irresistible dance beat. Effortlessly hitting notes that don’t seem humanely possible, moving sensually, singing lyrics of want and desire. Keep me on a leash tonight. Lay me down in darkness. My one and own, I want to get you alone.
Sexiest. Concert. Ever.
Standing rooms shows… I didn’t even know they were still a thing until this Adam Lambert Original High tour. For some reason he did no Canadian dates, and every venue I considered travelling to was no assigned seating / standing room. I hadn’t been to that type of show in decades.
It’s not my favourite thing, I gotta say. If the entry is well-managed and the fans reasonable, they can be alright, even fun. But if not, they are squishy, scary, unpleasant nightmare.
So when VIP “early entry” tickets when on sale, I was willing to quadruple my concert ticket costs for a chance to be among the first group to get in without having to wait in line.
The slightly nerve-wracking thing is you don’t get details of how exactly that’s going to work until you get an email “24 to 48 hours before your event”. It did nothing for my stress level that said email actually arrived more like 23 hours before my event.
VIPing: What we had to do was rudely walk past the people who’d been lining up all day, and head into the box office area ahead of them. There we were divided into two groups: Those who increased their ticket costs even more, such that they could also meet Adam Lambert before the show (those ladies were giddy), and those of us who just didn’t want to wait in line.
One of the Berlin meet and greeters with some dude
As that group went off for their pictures, we were allowed to enter the venue—warned to not run, push, or pass one another. “There’s no need anyway,” the coordinator said. “Because you’re all going to be in the front row.”
Uh? It actually hadn’t dawned on me to that point that we were small enough in number that indeed, we would be in the front row. (There were more “meet and greet” people, actually, and some of them ended up in the second row!)
But for me (and Jean), there was to be no visual obstruction whatsoever all night long. And we had a barrier to lean on. And it was less hot because of the lack of sticky bodies in front of us. It was awesome!
Crappy phone picture of me in the front row
The opening act, who started promptly at 8:00, were a German band named Eveline, led by an attractive blonde woman singer. They were pretty good—pop, dance style, good singer. She did all her speaking in German, and all her singing in English.
They finished around 8:30, and then we had a wait somewhere in neighbourhood of 45, 50 minutes, which got kind of long, really.
But right from the opening chords, all was forgiven.
For the benefit of those not steeped in all things Lambert:
Yes, he has a full band—guitar, bass, keyboards, and drums. And two dancers / backup singers. And a pretty awesome light show.
Though he does a few covers, the focus is squarely on “his” music, from his three albums.
The show is in three parts: The “darker” songs, the ballads, and the dance party. He wears a different outfit for each.
This tour’s been going on for a while now, so the band was tight. They seemed to really be having a good time this night—it was all very high energy, and the pacing seemed perfect. I honestly enjoyed the whole show, but I’ll note some particular highlights.
As I’ve already said, I had a great, close view of the stage all night, but I wasn’t right in the centre. Fortunately, Adam was kind of enough to regularly stroll (or dance) over to my end of the stage and stand right in front of me. He first did so at the beginning of Ghost Town. Lordy, he’s attractive in person. Every time he came near I was particularly mesmerized by those gorgeous, greenish eyes.
For the purposes of maybe getting surprised, or at least avoiding disappointment, I had somewhat backed off on paying as much attention to Adam’s shows that preceded my own. However, I still caught the fact that in Hamburg, the show two days before Berlin, they had omitted the medley that included the song Runnin’.
There’s no reason to expect him to play Runnin’. It was never a single—heck, it was never even a regular album track, but just a bonus on the deluxe edition of his second album. Nevertheless, it’s such a fantastic song, it’s been discovered, just racking up the YouTube views, despite its not obviously not having a proper video accompaniment.
So I was very relieved that it made its return to the set in Berlin.
Lucy, by contrast, is not one of my favourite Adam Lambert song, Brian May (Queen)’s presence on guitar notwithstanding. It’s the lyrics I don’t care for, mainly, as they come across as bit male judgmental about the titular Lucy. (Now, I’m no way suggesting that Adam is sexist. Only that this song is. A bit.)
As done live, though, it was saved for me by the dance moves. No, not Adam’s, but Holly Hyman’s, whose interpretation read, to me, as really powerful and defiant. She actually made me like the song for the first time. Which is cool.
Adam is not overly chatty in concert, preferring to letting his singing do the talking. Still, we got a “Hello Berlin” pretty early on, following the tidbit I didn’t know, that he had lived in Berlin for three months. “It wasn’t long, but it gave me a taste.
In the ballad portion of the evening, we got the longest talking sequence. Adam’s message here is that we should try focusing more on our commonalities than differences. “There’s one thing that everyone in this audience all has in common.” Pause. “ME!” Hee!
Now seems a good time to address what you might be wondering: Given our excellent sight lines, why am I cribbing pictures from other folks instead of featuring wonderful, original Jean photography?
That would be because security took away our camera. Which was very frustrating, as there had been no advance warning that a small camera would be an issue. Even more frustrating? They didn’t seem to take away anybody else’s camera! (Do Germans just like to pick on Canadians?) As my budget cell phone was useless for taking photos, we have none. Which still irritates me every time I think about it.
Another beautiful Berlin photo by Franke G., who clearly didn’t get her camera confiscated
That said… When you are attending the Sexiest Concert Ever with your sweetie, it’s actually not a terrible thing that his hands and face are free… To fondle something other than a camera…
Ahem. Now back to our regularly scheduled program. Adam’s vocals are a thing of wonder: this is not a singer who backs away from the high notes while live. And no auto-tune, either.And the terrific The Original High was quite the showcase for that. He Sings So High in this song.
I also found out later we were very lucky to have David Bowie’s Let’s Dance included in the set, as that’s another number they haven’t been doing so much lately. It was a terrific version. That then led into the super-hot trio of dance songs, “Lay Me Down”, “Shady”, and “Fever”. We especially enjoyed dancer Terrance Spencer’s moves during this sequence.
The audience by now was a sweaty, frenzied mess, but the band wasn’t done with us. They launched into “If I Had You,”—not the weird, reggae version presented earlier on the tour, but the irresistible original. The entire place was hopping to it in unison! So fun!
The encore was Trespassing, which happens to be a favourite of both mine and Jean’s. And got some more talking, including Adam presenting his lucky glitter mushroom (???).
“Want to hear some Queen?” he asked, and on the affirmative, we got some “Another One Bites the Dust”. And a crazy-notes Adam Lambert singalong. (“Some of you are acting too cool to sing. I see you!”) And he concluded with more “Trespassing.”
And what did Jean think? Jean… Actually had a really good time! He’s a people watcher, and he found Adam’s audience mix fascinating. He enjoyed watching me and the other adult woman around regress into teenagers. And he got into it. He danced a bit. He snapped his fingers. He pretended to sing so Adam wouldn’t pick on him.
(But for the record, he still prefers the Queen + Adam Lambert show, because that’s more his music. And also, we had seats for that one.)
Set list:
Anger / Darkness
Evil in the Night
For Your Entertainment
Ghost Town
Welcome to the Show
Runnin’
Chokehold
Sleepwalker
Underground
Rumors
Lucy
Love and longing
After Hours
Mad World
Whataya Want from Me
Another Lonely Night
Party!
The Light
The Original High
Never Close Our Eyes
Let’s Dance
Lay Me Down
Shady
Fever
If I Had You
Trespassing
Another One Bites the Dust
Trespassing (Reprise)
Ratings
Show: A+
I can’t think of a way they could have improved it.
Audience: A
Included a number of uber-fans I actually recognized from their tweets and blogs. And whether uber or not, it was very striking how everyone could and did sing along, with every song, not just “the hits.” They basically screamed instead of clapped to show appreciation. Lively, lively. Only lose + due to some veteran meet and greeters who (I heard) were overly stoic in the front row, which is just a waste. (This did not seem a problem with our VIP half.)
VIP experience: A
Very well-organized check-in and admission procedure, and made this such a great experience for me. Even the included merchandise was better than I expected: Quite a nice poster, and I hadn’t realized it would be signed! (Not that we need two, but…)
They only lose their + for the latish email that basically had the wrong time: It said to be there for 7:00, which made no sense, since that was general admission time. Fortunately, everyone figured that out and was there for the actual required time, between 6:15 and 6:30. Still…
Venue – Huxleys Neue Welt: D.
Apart from my camera problems, I later read on Twitter that this place didn’t have a scanner for electronic tickets! Meaning that anyone with those (like me) had to get out of the line they had likely been standing in for hours to go to an office and switch their eTicket for a “real” ticket. What the…? I also heard they weren’t very good at managing the general admission entry, which can be nightmarish, and I saw the security was really aggressive about removing items like balloons and glow sticks—even though fans had asked in advance and been assured those were fine!
So, I’d definitely see Adam Lambert in concert again, but never at Huxleys.
So before I knew I’d have VIP, I was trying to figure out how to improve my chances of actually seeing something at this show despite being short, and finally concluded that only shoes with wedge heels would work. So I got these:
Which added, like, 3 inches to my height. Not realizing I’d be ending up in the front row, I wore them.
So I can tell you that for 5.5 hours of straight standing, those suckers were surprisingly comfortable. And though not needed in the front row, they were kind of handy for looking over people’s head at the merchandise table after.
However… During the short walk to the train station, my feet basically had a nervous breakdown. I felt like I would die if I didn’t get off my feet. Thankfully, the train station wasn’t far, it had a bench, and I was able to find a seat on the train. So I survived the journey back to the hotel room.
So if you try the wedge shoe approach to seeing something at standing room concerts, remember: To survive, you will have to get off your feet every five hours or so. You’re welcome.
Thank you for purchasing tickets to the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony‘s Dancin’ Through the Decades. To enhance the overall concert experience, we have added a dance floor for these concerts. The dance floor will be located between the first row and the orchestra musicians. Since this floor is on one of the moveable lifts, it will be 14 inches lower than where the seating starts, in the first row, and should not obstruct the view of any patrons.
That seemed neat, but logistically problematic.
“We’re not going to go there in our dance shoes,” said Jean, pointing out the snowy climes.
But our early spring meant that we could, in fact, go there in our dance shoes without wrecking the soles.
However, it remained that our seats were right in the middle of the row, meaning we couldn’t get out to the dance floor without disrupting half of the people in said row. (And it was a pretty well-attended show.) Plus, we definitely didn’t want to be the first ones on the floor.
We stayed put during the swingin’ “In the Mood,” as did everyone else—much to conductor Matt Catinghub’s chagrin. But then a few brave souls made their way onto the floor.
“What is this one?“ my husband whispered as they launched into the new tune. And by that he meant what dance beat is it, not what song title. (Which is just as well, as now I can’t remember the song title.)
“Slow fox,” I answered.
Well, slow fox is like dance cat nip to my husband—he just can’t resist. We proceeded to disturb everyone in half the row and made it down the dance floor.
But, that’s about all the disturbing we did, because then we just stayed on the floor for the whole show.
For ballroom / Latin dance aficionados, the first half, with music of the 40s, 50s, and 60s, was especially appealing. Along with a number of slow foxes, we got to tango (I think), waltz to “Unforgettable” (I know), jive to “Twist and Shout”, and cha-cha to “La Bamba.”
I have never danced to such beautiful sound. The Symphony are terrific, of course; the Centre has some of the best acoustics on the continent; and the guest singer (Anita Hall), drummer (Steve Moretti), and saxophone players were also fantastic—and very energetic! (Matt Caringhub also did some keyboards.)
If you do a Where’s Waldo on this tweeted photo, you might be able to spot us
At intermission we drank a lot of water—and received compliments on our dancing from passing strangers, which was nice! (Maybe we can dance.)
The second half was 70s, 80s, 90s, and current. Disco like “Night Fever” is basically a samba, and I actually know the steps (yes, there are steps) to YMCA.
Of course, everyone knows the chorus part of this dance
Then we got some “Hotel California,” “Don’t Stop Believin”, “Africa”, “Vogue”, “Rock Lobster” (featuring KWS Assistant Conductor Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser on vocals), and “Happy” by Pharell Williams. So a lot of really fun songs—but also a lesson in why no one does partner dancing anymore, since that just doesn’t work as well to those beats.
But hey, it was a really fun night, and I’m so glad the symphony offered the dance floor setup. It was totally worth the sore muscles the next day!
(As for the television show So You Think You Can Dance, I find their new gimmick of featuring dancers age 8 to 13 completely mystifying and utterly uninteresting. I do not plan to watch.)
The Who’s “long good-bye” tour was extended even further when Roger Daltrey came down with viral meningitis last year, forcing all fall 2015 shows to be rescheduled for spring 2016. For my Toronto show, this meant attending a year and four months after I bought the tickets. So I think the Who were really hitting 52 or so…
Some of the Who trivia that played before the show started
Oh, I had my concert tickets, which is good, because both her shows were complete sellouts. And I knew she was an Inuit singer who had her own take on traditional throat singing. I remembered her winning the Polaris prize in 2014.
But I hadn’t listened to any of her music in advance.
And thank goodness for that! Because you can only hear Tanya Tagaq for the very first time once in your life, and what better way than seeing her live, from just a few feet away? (We were in the second row.)
The problem is, I have no idea how to describe her sound and performance to you. I’ve never heard anyone else do anything like what she does. As we were revelling in her show afterward, Jean made an attempt: “It’s like she took you on a journey through a whole lifetime of dreams.”
This is traditional throat singing:
The adorable 11-year-old Inuit girls throat-singing at Justin Trudeau’s swearing-in ceremony
Tagaq does use this technique, but—in own words—in a completely punk way. She plays with pitch, vocal styling, breathing, making no literal sense but clearly conveying emotion. And she puts her whole body into it, swaying, gesturing, sinking to the floor. It’s just mesmerizing.
And how does that work with the symphony? Well, first they prepared us to hear some unusual sounds by presenting the works of two Canadian composers (both in attendance, both women), along with a version of Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King” that was so rockin’ it rivaled The Who’s take on the same.
They then let Tanya Tagaq do her thing on her own, totally improvised.
Next was a work by another Canadian composer, Rodney Sharman, (“I texted with him today,” said Tagaq. “He seems nice.”), and she improvised over that soundtrack.
Finally, Tagaq and orchestra came together on a chamber music piece written for her, called “Cercle du Nord III”. Ms. Tagaq said that the fuller sound provided by the larger symphony (vs. original string quartet) gave the piece another dimension.
(Her personality is quite charming, by the way. For example, she was taken aback at having to come back and acknowledge the rapturous applause she was receiving. She was unsure to do, she said. What does she normally do? “I go out for dinner,” she answered. She then told us, mock sternly: “OK, I’m leaving now. Don’t make me come back out again!”)
I think he has a point. Much as I still love rock music, there isn’t much danger or innovation in it anymore, is there? What is more choreographed, corporate, and scripted than a big, modern rock show? Who can improvise when everyone has to play to same click track?
Whereas tonight’s Tanya Tagaq concert could be a whole different experience than last night’s.
And this is following on two other KW Symphony shows we saw recently, in which they:
Completely reconceived German opera Die Fleidermaus with local references, a hilarious narration absent in the original, and even a special guest spot for a former mayor.
Along with the Art of Time, presented the Beatles’s Sgt. Pepper not just orchestrated, but truly rearranged such that every song was both familiar and strange (though wonderfully so, in my opinion).
As rock retreats to safety, the traditional symphony is taking it to the edge. Don’t let the strings and horns fool you: today, this is punk.
The fact that Mozart in the Jungle won Best Comedy at the Golden Globes caused some consternation. I’m not going to argue that it was the best among the nominees, three of which I haven’t seen the nominated seasons of, and two of which—Silicon Valley and Transparent—I’d concede are more daring programs than Mozart.
But (even though the Globes are basically ridiculous), I couldn’t help be happy that this little show no one’s heard of got some attention. It is a fun one to watch!
5. Today’s feature: Mozart in the Jungle – Shomi / Amazon
The premise: Mozart in the Junglelooks at the workings of the New York Symphony as it ushers in a new, young, edgy maestro known simply as Rodrigo (Gael Garcia Bernal). He’s determined to shake up and revitalize the Symphony. In this effort, he has the support of symphony President, Gloria (Bernadette Peters), but not necessarily of the major donors and symphony union members.
Aching to join this organization is young oboe player, Hailey (Lola Kirke). She befriends cellist Cynthia (Saffron Burrows), which gives her a bit of an in, but it’s not going to be a smooth ride for Hailey. The series shifts between the symphony goings-on and Hailey’s jobs (oboe teaching, mostly), roomates, and potential love interests.
Notable participants: Apart from Gael Garcia Bernal and Bernadette Peters (whom I can’t believe is 68—she looks amazing!), the series has notable guest stars such as Malcolm McDowell as Thomas, the previous maestro; Jason Schwartzman as an arts blogger; and John Hodgman as an arts patron.
What’s good about it: It’s funny, and not too heavy, and it’s nice to have shows like that in the mix. The characters are varied and vibrant, with both genders well represented. The characters are passionate and attractive, and sexy scenes do sometimes ensue.
And as a regular symphony attendee, I really enjoy this “behind the scenes” look, even though events are clearly (I hope!) heightened for entertainment value. But I don’t think you have to be a classical music fan to enjoy the series; it’s not as though they play entire symphonies during episodes.
Any qualms? Much of the humour derives from the eccentricities of artistic temperaments, with very odd behavior on the part of some characters. Sometimes walks that line between this is weird but interesting and kind of funny and what the hell is going here?.
We saw Jersey Boys—the stage production, not the movie—on Friday. (And yes, it was a little weird to be at a peppy musical when all that was going on in Paris. But it’s not as though staying home to watch the news live would have helped anyone.)
I didn’t know much about this musical going in. Just what it says on the poster: That it’s the story of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons. And not being an especial big fan of The Four Seasons, I wouldn’t have been interested, except that members of my family, who saw it in Toronto, were quite impressed with it.
The local paper, however, had given this production a rather tepid review. Story is mundane, she said. Sound is uneven. One actor is underwhelming. Ushers are rude.
I guess we should be grateful this reviewer set our expectations so low, because we really liked it.
While it’s not exactly ground-breaking, how many other musicals are band origin stories? Meaning that, for once, it totally makes sense that the characters keep bursting into song: They are a singing group!
And their coming together, with the mob ties, and the singer with that astounding falsetto, who had a “handshake deal” with the songwriter—it’s not like any other band origin story I know of, so the arc wasn’t entirely predictable. I also enjoyed the structure of each of the four band members narrating one “season” of their career together. The most endearing of the bunch was definitely “silent” Nick, who occasionally broke out with the most astounding speeches.
The only part of the play that dragged, a bit, I found was the last part of the first act. Otherwise it moved along well, with a lot of humour. It reminded me of just how many Four Seasons songs I actually know. And as is essential, the actor playing Frankie did an excellent job with the falsetto singing.
It occurs to me that The Waterloo Region Record reviewer must not enjoy the music of The Four Seasons. That would indeed make this a painful experience, as the soundtrack is composed of nothing but (one a French rap version…).
So as long as you can tolerate a little “Sherry Baby”, “Walk Like a Man”, and “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You”, this is a fun production.
I don’t mind the smaller ones, where you can arrive at a particular time to see an act you’re interested in, then leave. But those big ones where you’re supposed to stay there all day, at the mercy of the elements… Not really my thing.
Would I have wanted to be at Woodstock? Of course not! Rain, insufficient food, inadequate toilets, overcrowded, bad drugs everywhere… Plus, the inadequate sound system coupled with the overcrowding meant that most attendees couldn’t even see or hear the amazing performances.
Woodstock festival crowd
Live Aid? Well it was certainly better organized, and they got great weather. All acts I loved, too. Still, that seems like a hell of long day to be standing there in the heat, watching one 20-minute performance on stage, one 20-minute performance “by satellite, from Philadelphia.”
Just the photo of this massive Live Aid crowd kind of gives me hives…
But the beauty of a really big festival is you don’t have to suffer through that to see it. Woodstock became a movie. Live Aid was shown on TV.
And man, can that reach boost careers. Woodstock, the movie, made The Who superstars in the States. Everyone who performed at Live Aid subsequently sold more records. And for Queen, the incredible response to their stunning performance possibly saved the band from breakup; it most certainly re-energized their career.
But that’s all ancient history. I had no idea, really, whether current artists benefit in the same way from playing big festivals. Logically, some must have had an earth-shattering performance at Coachella or Glastonbury or South by Southwest that changed everything for them. I just can’t name a single one of them. I generally don’t watch festivals broadcasts anymore.
So why Rock in Rio? Because—you guessed it—the headiners were Queen + Adam Lambert. That the performance start time was just after 11:30 pm and that they played for over two hours was no deterrent. Pyjamas on, Internet feed sent to the big-ass TV connected to the surround-sound system, husband conveniently out of town and therefore not bothered by the noise—I was good to go.
Background on Rock in Rio: Queen more or less established this festival 30 years ago, with (yet another) iconic performance. The band had never played South America before, and were stunned that the ginormous crowd (something like 85,000 people) knew all the words. Even to less popular songs like “Love of my Life”.
And… The modern Rock in Rio crowd. Imagine trying to get to the bathroom!
This was Adam Lambert’s first time in South America, and only his second festival performance ever. At pre-performance press conference, he was typically humble and respectful of Queen’s legacy, but also confident he was up to the challenge. Brian May agreed that not only did Freddie and Adam both have extraordinary vocal abilities, they both have an inherent ability to really connect with an audience.
The confidence and praise were borne out. The show was so worth staying up for. While the fan-made YouTube videos of various Q + AL concerts are plentiful and often of surprisingly good quality, they just can’t match what professional camera operators with full stage access, plugged into the actual sound system, can provide. The audio and video quality were terrific. I had no streaming issues whatsoever (other than having to get off my butt every 15 minutes or so to move the mouse so the computer didn’t go to sleep. Hadn’t thought to change those settings ahead of time.)
Some highlights were, of course, the usual ones you get any of these Q + AL shows: the getting on your bikes and riding during “Fat Bottomed Girls”; the camping it up during “Killer Queen”; the welling up after Freddie’s appearance in “Love of My Life”; reveling in the father / son drum battle; floating on the beauty of “Who Wants to Live Forever”; fist pumping to “I Want It All”; clapping along with “Radio Gaga¨ (yes, even in my TV room); drooling over the five costume changes (super-tight pants a key feature of each outfit).
That a song Adam co-wrote was included in the set and didn’t seem a poor cousin to the Queen classics, but truly was one of the highlights, is amazing. A good song is a good song. And I love this rock version of it.
And an interesting lesson in how modern artists do get a boost from festival appearances that are broadcast worldwide, even if the likes of me aren’t aware of it. The playing of “Ghost Town” seemed to be the major news items to come out of Q + AL’s appearance there. Adam’s followers on every social media have notably increased. And the original song–which has been out since April–has reached new highs on the charts not only in Brazil, but also in the US, Canada, and worldwide.
Bring on that Adam Lambert North American tour, baby.
(Umm, but with an emphasis on indoor performances, please! 🙂
The iTunes playlists that Google automatically backs up to their cloud get hopeless cluttered with multiple versions of each song, til you reach the maximum size of 1000 songs. You can manually remove duplicates — one by one, folks! — but others crop up in their place.
It’s irritating. You can’t add any more songs to those playlist. When you play them, they repeat songs despite the “No repeat” setting. And downloading a playlist takes way more space and time than it should.
How a 75-song playlist looks when bloated to 1000 via repeats. Google must think I really want my Afternoon Tea.
So I’m just going to live with the duplicate problem. Those aren’t my “real” playlists anyway–they’re just a backup. A free backup, at that. So it’s a little buggy. So be it.
Google music services: Take two.
I don’t know if you’ve tried to play a YouTube playlist in Chrome recently, but this week, I did. I found a nice 56-song playlist of live performances, started it off at song 1, and figured I’d have a good set of tunes going for a few hours while I worked away.
Only it kept repeating songs, sometimes just one, sometimes a loop of two or three. It took me a while to figure out that this happened whenever an ad played–every three songs or so. It seemed to then go back in the playlist instead of forward.
I could “reset” the playlist to the right song manually, but after the sixth or seventh time of doing that when all I wanted was a steady flow of tunes, I was getting really cranky.
This “no repeat” YouTube playlist wasn’t so much playing that way
I actually got to wondering if YouTube had a paid, ad-free version I could get instead. I was about ready to plunk my money down.
However, Google was not ready to take it. While they plan to launch subscription YouTube someday, it ain’t available yet.
But Google did help me out. Through their search engine I came across this solution:
Use Firefox, not Chrome
Add in the most wondrous (and free, no restart required) Firefox extension, Adblock Plus
After that, not only did the song repeating stop, so did all the ads! Woo hoo!
I’m sure many of you are like, “Duh!”, because you’ve been blocking browser ads for years, but if I’ve helped even one person not hear a song more times than they’d like (“these are my problems, my first-world problems”), my work here is done.
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