Taylor Swift – Prudential Center – March 27th, 2013 – Her third tour, fourth album and post-High School if not College, Red finds the woman in complete control of everything but her heart and more than able to present it in a devastating rock concert.
She was dressed all in white, with a tape across her mouth with the words ‘Silenced by fear’ written on it, and she strummed her guitar while seated on the ground, in front of a few sentences she had written on pieces of paper pinned to a wall. She had even sent a few tweets earlier, inviting people to pick up a sharpie and write on her
The track is a seductive piece of action, mixing Karen O’s unique sexy-animal vocals emerging from a tunnel of weird echoing synths and groovy bass. It’s a bit funky, dance-y, super catchy and intriguing at the same time. ‘No fun for a night on the town’, she meows while you see her walking around the stage with her long legs
Winner – Taylor Swift – The tabs raved uncontrollably over Taylor’s performance at the Prudential center last week, so did I. But my review was significantly better than the big boys, especially the Times who followed the worst hook in the world with the simply wrong comment that the Red tour had bigger production values than Speak Now. Speak Now was a bigger show though not better. Still, Swift shut all detractors up and rock nyc was there first and better.
United Tenors – Fred Hammond – The Gospel stars singing Tenor here include Dave Hollister and Fred Hammond, the latter’s secular God, Love, Romance from last year was chock filled with great songs. Which can’t be said for this album floundering, not on singing or production, both of which are very good, but on lousy songs of worship – B
As a long term fan of the Stones cover of the Reverends original take on story of the Prodigal Son, and with no fatted calf on any side of the story, though my sense of fairplay suggest the Good Son got screwed over big time, I appreciate and how that at its heart Wilkins original is as much Gospel and Blues as either and beats down to Jesus original concept: a social pact and how to mend the rip.
Sheeran’s songs still go on to long and he still is the weariest and unsexists of teenage hearthrobs but opening for Swift he is exactly what you want, a very enjoyable preparation for the main event performed with a minimum of fuss and a maximum of skill and pleasure
It’s such an old and tacky institution, nobody I know is ever paying attention to it, but apparently it’s still going on after all these years, and this weirdo Estonian band is in competition this year. It would be really cool if Winny Puhh – that’s their name – would win, but you have to watch the video below to realize what these guys are up to,…
The lecture was spectacular and was exactly what I expected. Stories from the very beginning of how The Stilettos morphed into Blondie. The early days of touring with Television, down at Max’s & CBGB’s, how Blondie transcended genres from Fab Five Freddy to disco.
The film is being written but Lee Hall who wrote the wonderful Billy Elliot.. see how this is all fitting together now? I see a Broadway rendition of this in our future.. yuck. Oh and if anyone knows any little boys- they’re having a bit of trouble casting 5 year old Elton.. heaven help us.
The woman who ‘knew the way to San Jose’, is on her way to bankruptcy court. It is never nice to read about financial misfortunes but I do have a problem with blatant system abuse
It’s quite unusual for him, he has consistently be releasing albums with 9-10 tracks for more than 45 years, but an EP? This is a first! May be he is following the music business new trend, albums are dead, people buy/stream single songs, so it’s not worth it to release full albums anymore?
Britney is tired. lethargic, not into it. She looks drugged to the eyeballs but perhaps it is more a mental shadowing, a closing down to a public that want a piece of her but only in the worst way.
2013 is turning into a disappointing year. Alan Jackson and the Strokes both released new albums but you wouldn’t know it from this list. Shelton is a surprise and Pep is a new find, but everybody from Vampire Weekend to Justin Timberlake are not coming up with the goods and Lil Wayne needs to get off the Nyquil.
40% of this, including # 1, which Ed Sheeran covered, is the residual effect of Taylor swift’s Wednesday concert. 30% of this list reflects upcoming concerts. 10% was mentioned in the David Geffen American Masters PBS documentary. And I need no excuse for listening to the Blasters.
Taylor gave her fans a superbly crafted set. A just about perfect two hours of pop rock with a good band and a minimum of acoustic hi-jinx. She treated her young fans with all the love and respect while, impossible to overstate this, streamlining the Speak Now aesthetics to a fine point, a study in simple design well executed and the least indulgent, most creative arena rock show anywhere
The finger picking was getting more intricate on some songs, going from mellow parts to more country or bluegrass ones, and they were joking about the fact that people thought they were from the mid west because of the type of music they were playing. ‘We are from LA’, they said, ‘But we went to Michigan once and wrote this song about getting out of there!’… ‘Is there someone from Michigan?’
I see riots in parking lots lots of puking and at least 5 unplanned pregnancies with random strangers. This being said, you can opt for the Pitbull only tour if you want to avoid the filth doubling.
This is a form of infinite regression and an aphorism, people lose their faculties as they decay and degrade on the way to death. We are all the same. We are all turning and turning and getting worse and getting worse
The song showcases everything I remember about his performances, meditative electronic soundscapes populated by his subtle harp and angelic falsetto voice, slowly sprawling, with glitches of electronics cascading and sparkling with a rare serenity, despite the heartbreaking line starting the song: ‘Even if I wanted to love you, would you love me?
On the same stage, these guys will play very well off each other. Buble is sincere, Robbie plays sincerity like a roulette wheel. And they both seem to walk a line between old and new, hip and straight laced. I guess I mean they crossover.
The genre span is pretty interesting. Certainly not pigeonholed into one sound Demon Music has a bit of something for everyone. See below for their sassy offerings
Fran Warren auditioned to sing for the Duke ellington Band when she was just sixteen years on. She didn’t get the gig but she spent the next decades singing for some of the biggest swing bands in the country. And nailing down a handful of hits singles, including her signature tune “A Sunday Kind Of Love”. She died recently at the age of 87
We know we will never have to learn how to spell Baauer’s name again but Macklemore? Unfortunately, I don’t see how they can follow up this fluke but hopefully they can use it to stretch themselves into a long and lustrous career rapping it along with whatever else they’ve released recently. Back at # 1 in case you missed the obvious.
The second tier releases from Tuesday and this is pretty dreadfuls tuff. M83? I lost intereste after they sucked live but even by those standards this is terrible. American Idol? wasn’t he selling tickets to the Book Of Mormon or something. Even Fred Hammond is off his game and Jim Carey? If it’s a joke I don’t get it and if it is staright, there’s got to be better cowboy songs out there. Man, this is shaping into a pretty drastic year.
There were a few photographs hanging around the stage, waiting between the sets, and I was among them, checking my phone, when I saw a hand in front of me and a voice saying ‘Hello I’m Harper’, I was so surprised I must have said something quite stupid like ‘I know’!
Yeah. I don’t suppose that there will be any action for kids on this but I can say that their fathers (and maybe even grandfathers) may really enjoy this sense of nostalgia. Gene Simmons has made no secret of his desire to make money at all effort but this I cant see too much profitability,
The Sixties was such a powerful decade that it overwhelms modern times. I mean, we don’t even know what to call 2000 – 2009. The naughts? What sort of a name is that? And really, what we we have to show for it? File sharing and long lines at airports. Maybe women and gays became mainstream, the PC took over, and rap, pop and dance formed an unholy alliance. Rock and roll continued on a respirator
“ Our beloved drummer Tony Thaxton has decided to leave the band. We really hate to see him go, but we fully support him in his choice and wish him the absolute best in the future. Tony’s contribution to the band over the last 11+ years was immeasurable,…”
Lil Wayne put together a huge tour and yet again ignored the media center of the Universe. What’s that about? Incidentally, the rule of thumb is you announce five borough dates late because people hold out for them. But there aren’t enough off dates, he is giving us the miss
Does he suddenly feel too old? Sick? Probably not. The website just says ‘This show has been cancelled due to unavoidable complications’ and this is quite mysterious to me. If he was sick, they wouldn’t say this! May be he didn’t take the expression ‘Oldchella’ too well
Those shit kicking white trash Dixie whistling gay hating race baiting country god fearing truck driving fuck faces from way down South sure have their moments music wise
I know, you thought just because Timberlake had moved nearly a million units he would be the picture up front. but no, I am going with Kacey Musgraves because I said so. Not to make light of Timberlake’s achievement, hell he worked hard enough for it, didn’t he?
The first five of these songs are the lasting effects of Jon Pennington’s “Most Influential Singles” series. # 1 and # 3 is King Crimson plus Crimson cover, #5 and # 2 are blues variants and #4 is Americana. The two Modern Hut songs await release and Sigur Ros I went to see yesterday.
The basic idea was that the band was built around camaraderie and friendship, for me at least. At some point the band felt like, as stupid as it sounds, “a band of brothers.” It felt like more than a band. So, when it became a band, it became less interesting
Every time we check in on True Groove Record Label they are doing something else, whether is is Doncker opening for Ethiopian pop stars or trips to China or Mase’s extended version of her album Speak or anthem single “Piece Of Peace”, they are relentless in their pursuit of musical excellence.
On his earlier singles like The Rubber Band or The Gnome, Bowie does a twee version of the psychedelia in vogue at the time, but you can tell his heart’s not in it. It’s only with Space Oddity that the theatrical, glam, shape-shifting, chameleonic Bowie emerges that we know today
‘It felt like trying on new clothes when we first listened to it – it took a while to get comfortable with it, but now I like it a lot’ says José González’s to describe the song, and I feel quite the same way after my third listening. But don’t get fooled by the lightness of the melody
As the Yippies and Black Power were kicking out the jams, Geffen championed soft rock. Punk rock completely blew past him and while kudos for signing GNR, nobody thinks Geffen had a damn thing to do with Nirvana’s success because, well, because he didn’t. He never sullied his hands with rap at all and he wouldn’t know art if it bit him in the ass. The guy sued Neil Young for fucks sake.
Jann Wenner and his henchmen don’t give a damn, they are like the folks who sell flowers at graveyards. Nevermind breaking pop was no surprise, the buzz on the album was pretty deafening at the time. Only an insulated bunch of know it alls who fire any one who disagrees with them could get it wrong.
Using his ‘celebrity’ in such a way has become tiresome. We know your ‘solar bi polar panic disorder’ we know you got done wrong as a dad in your fathers rights crusade and we know your ex wife wasn’t nice and we know you adore your daughter more than life itself.
As I have mentioned here before there have been some insane auctions! Remember John Lennons TOOTH? Allot of rockers opt to auction for charity and I ‘get’ that. Its nice to use celebrity for a reason but to think 6 figures for an album that’s inked is amazing
If Vampire Weekend was at the Beacon or Radio City or something. But Roseland? really, I wanna drag myself out ona Sunday night after spending the weekend at gigs any wy to see the back of college kids heads for two hours?
2013 is becoming the year of the follow up to a bad album with a worse one: Lil Wayne and The Strokes are the two culprits here. Alan Jackson? George Jones has nothing to worry about when it comes to spirituals. Dido and Bugg are the surprises here, pretty good songs out of a fairly bland lot.
This is all such high energy stuff you wanna stick a valium in her orange juice or change her voice and her guitar from 78 rpms to 33 rpms. The woman picks a guitar so fast it is all single notes clicking like ice in a glass
They called him the perpetual teenager and I, for one, can totally relate. After strokes and age he became a shell of his former self and for some reason America allowed him to be propped up like a taxidermy moose next to Ryan Seacrest each New Years Eve so he could slobber out some indecipherable nonsense
Stage presence is not always about how energetically the person moves on stage, in any case, it should be spontaneous, unpredictable, personal, mysterious and why not, weird, bizarre, disturbing. That’s why I would never consider these rehearsed-to-death stereotyped choreographies as good indicators of stage presence
Over here at rock nyc HQ we are always fighting and shouting and worrying about the same thing: “what do the kids want, what do the kids want?” and once we’ve convinced Steve Crawford the kids don’t want all wrestling all the time and Mary Magpie no, we are not going to turn into an all theater blog, we are left with the same question: what do the kids want?
I have seen The Eagles live ( I assure you it was under duress ) and I have seen Don Henley way too up close and personal and I will say even in the glorious 80s– it was a horror. Lets add thirty years to it and its sure to be a backing tape atrocity.
It’s nearing the witching hour and a topless girl wearing a horses head, tights, men’s underwear and sneakers and drenched with beer is frugging near the stage to Shit Horse, while Odessa Records owner Paul Finn dances with wild abandon and Shit Horses’s lead singer Danny Mason is twirling center stage before settling back into a semi-improvissed rant about love and death “Twelve Horses”
