Putting Great Bands To Bed

Throughout most of my life, I have valued studio recordings over live performances when it comes to music. Really good bands will take their time crafting studio recordings as those serve as the reference when discussing an album or song. And given when I was born, this makes sense. The Beatles became a better band when they stopped touring. That is, their albums got a lot better, in my opinion. Some other bands, like Genesis, made great albums with the limited time and resources they had, but were even better live, as they refined their performances and impressed audiences through not just delivering complex compositions, but building and improving upon the studio recordings. And the more I think about it, the best live bands were those that exceeded the expectations of matching the sound of their records. That includes Queen, The Police, King Crimson, Rush, Tool, Radiohead, Talking Heads, Pink Floyd, and for short periods, R.E.M., Living Colour, Fleetwood Mac and U2, among many others.

The commonality here is that these are all bands, an increasingly rare sight on the mainstream pop charts. The world still has a lot of great bands, most of them in indie rock and international rock. Live shows restarted in 2021. I’ll set aside the fact that in 2021 and today, we’re still in a single, active pandemic. The restart of live shows made performance revenue bigger than ever for artists, and the pent-up demand of audiences to see their favorite acts -some for the final time- pushed ticket prices to new highs.

For the most past, I paused going to individual live shows from roughly 2004 to 2007. That was a long time when I was still young. I remember seeing Peter Gabriel’s Up tour at Madison Square Garden in 2002 and then Genesis’ Turn It On Again tour at Hartford in 2007. I sisn’t see another MSG show until George Michael did his last US arena tour in 2008 (the 25 Live tour).

I didn’t realize it at the time but I had put George Michael to bed. That was the start of this project that I’m now documenting.

My next big MSG shows were Prince’s massive greatest hits shows, the Welcome2America tour, in December 2010 and February 2011.

I had put Prince to bed. Again, I didn’t know it

Then I mostly switched from arena and theater shows in favor of festivals. I stopped going to New York City venues like Irving Plaza, Webster Hall and Bowery Ballroom. I started going to the Newport Folk Festival each July. And I would only go to a club or theater show to see artists I had seen at Newport like Glen Hansard, L.A. Salami, Khruangbin, and Yola.

Then I went though another adjustment in my relationship with live music. I started going to small shows again, provided the band or artist was really special and meaningful to me and/or my partner. In May 2018 I saw Editors at Irving Plaza. A year later, I saw Killing Joke at Saint Vitus, which just might be the most special small show I’ll ever see. It is also the last time I’ll ever see Killing Joke, as sounding guitarist Geordie Walker passed away just over 4 years later. So Killing Joke was been put to bed in 2023.

Then the pandemic started. After about 15 months, bands and artists started to tour again. They went into a new landscape of more audience demand, higher ticket prices, and more of a need to make money performing live than ever before. By the end of 2021, I decided to go see some important shows. I had to choose indoor shows carefully, and wear protection to the ones I attended.

First up was Genesis’ penultimate show in the United States, at Boston’s TD Garden. They played on December 15 2021. Delayed by at least a year, it was the most expensive concert ticket I ever bought. And it was somehow worth it. I got to say goodbye to Genesis, and they played Dutchess. I wept. My friend and I were masked.

Just a few weeks later, on February 19 2022, I went back to TD Garden to see Tool. Same friend. Closer seats. And my gawd they were amazing. I know I will see Tool probably one last time. But I’m including this here to show just how many great bands hit the road as soon as they were able. Live music had a boom once venues reopened.

After Tool, my concerts have been almost all outdoors. I transitioned into an outdoor venue concert goer. and since the Summer of 2022, I have gone hard. I was already an occasional festival attendee. But I can see myself going to outdoor shows and festivals very regularly for the next 10 years. Maybe longer.

I kicked off my ‘outdoor era’ of live shows with one that was delayed nearly 2 full years, which was Deftones at Pier 17. It was downright intimate. Just me and 4,000 other fans dressed in black took in a great set that included Royal. Yeah. That was my first Deftones show. My summer of 2022 then took me and my partner to Jones Beach Amphitheater. We saw Garbage, Tears for Fears, Berlin, Howard Jones and Culture Club, with its three primary members. All put to bed! (Well, Tears For Fears might not be finished yet.)

Then it was on to the summer of 2023, and I put Duran Duran to bed at the Minnesota State Fair.

And then this summer, I saw Joan Jett and the Blackhearts for the first and final time, as they opened for Alanis Morrissette. Jane’s Addiction imploded two nights after playing Pier 17, putting themselves to bed. And that in turn ended Love And Rockets, the great band that was opening for them! And I would have put Massive Attack to bed last week, but they canceled all of their US shows!

My next indoor show is another bedtime opportunity. Deftones are going on their very first, and probably last headlining arena tour. Stay tuned. I plan to review their Boston show next spring and compare it to their Pier 17 show from 2022.

10,000 Days Is Tool's Second Best Album

For years and years I thought 10,000 Days was weak. I've been a Tool fan since a friend forced me to listen to Opiate and Undertow in early 1994 at a snowbound U Mass. Each new album has arrived at a different stage in my life. But I was an idiot, an absolute idiot, for not loving 10,000 Days on the first listen.

My expectations for the album were low after the deafening, apocalyptic masterpiece of Lateralus. What on earth made me think that Lateralus would be as high as this band could get? Well, that was my very strange bias. And my bias that 10,000 Days would be a mild disappointment is the reason I didn't spin the album on my Yamaha CD player and Bowers & Wilkens speakers at home. I either ripped the CD to MP3 or copied the CD to MiniDisc and listened to the album, just once, on the NYC subway for an 80 minute ride. Seriously, I listed to it once in late April 2006, shrugged and thought, "It's okay, but I don't hear anything close to Parabola," and then filed the CD into my cabinet of 4,000 discs.

Fear Inoculum made me appreciate just how great Danny Carey has become. He's my second best active rock drummer after Gavin Harrison. The pandemic era let me finally collect and appreciate Puscifer's discography (as well as their two streaming specials during this pandemic). And then finally, just this past summer, I spun 10,000 Days, properly, at home. It was a revelation. It's their peak. It's MJK's peak vocal performance, for sure - as strong as his work on the first A Perfect Circle album 7 years earlier. The lyrics are clever. The band performance is incredible. This is the recording in which Carey shows us that he is a master percussionist. The mixing and mastering couldn't be more perfect. In terms of themes and track order, it is a very complete album, up there or better than Ænima and Undertow when played start to finish. And then there's the energy. Compared for Fear Inoculum, the boys sound more than 20 years younger.

In the summer of 2021, this progressive rock / metal fan finally listened to 10,000 Days and I now agree that it is their second best album. I now feel like a Radiohead fan who stands by The King Of Limbs or In Rainbows as their best, but I've made my choice. 10,000 Days is a continuation of Tool's peak, which began with Lateralus. And their decades-long run of great albums and epic live shows continues.