Paul McCartney
MetLife Stadium
August 7th, 2016

This guy was in the Beatles.  Let me rephrase that…

THIS FCUKING GUY WAS IN THE FCUKING BEATLES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You should probably go see him if you haven’t, cause he was in The Beatles.  This was my 3rd time seeing this guy who was in The Beatles, but wish it was my 3,3333,333333333th time  Dumb me  

What’s really nice of this guy from the Beatles is how this tour’s setlist is varied from the previous tour’s setlist, when I last saw the Beatles guy tour, so I’ve been SOOOO blessed to hear SOOO many Beatles songs sung live by a Beatle (and also happy not hear ‘The Long and Winding Road’ again).  And you know what, this Beatles’ post-Beatle output is pretty fcuking prolific too.  And on this tour, he even dug up some deep deep deep cuts! Like TEMPORARY SECRETARY!!

https://www.instagram.com/p/BI1GiP9jLfH/

Time is not eternal.  Paul is alive, but won’t always be.  One day ‘Paul Is Dead’ will ring true, and then none of us will be able to see and hear this Beatle perform live.  I don’t even want think about it. A world without this Beatle?? I only want to think about seeing this Beatle again.  And again.  AND AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Setlist – A Hard Day’s Night / Save Us / Can’t Buy Me Love / Letting Go / Temporary Secretary / Let Me Roll It (followed by ‘Foxy Lady’ jam) / I’ve Got a Feeling / My Valentine / Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five / Here, There and Everywhere / Maybe I’m Amazed / We Can Work It Out / In Spite of All the Danger / You Won’t See Me / Love Me Do / And I Love Her / Blackbird / Here Today / Queenie Eye / New / The Fool on the Hill / Lady Madonna / FourFiveSeconds / Eleanor Rigby / Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite! / Something / Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da / Band on the Run / Back in the U.S.S.R. / Let It Be / Live and Let Die / Hey Jude

Encore – Yesterday / Hi, Hi, Hi / Birthday / Golden Slumbers / Carry That Weight / The End

yeah, nice show their Paul – you Beatle you – but how come you’ve NEVER played ‘Spies Like Us’ in concert, everr???????

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27ATt3FXAUY

Guns N’ Roses
MetLife Stadium
July 24th, 2016

Still – one of my biggest regrets in life is not seeing the Guns N’ Roses/Metallica tour in ’92.  I’m sure I didn’t miss anything earth-shattering, but I juss soooooo wanted to be there.  Not sure why I couldn’t make it work – be it economics, calendar conflict, being scared of the audience memebers, what have you  

I made up for it by seeing Axl and a bunch of other dudes that weren’t GnRers when they toured in 2006.  Sure, there was no Slash or Duff, but it was MORE than good enough.  It was great enough cause Axl was Axl – at least in voice – but he did look a little (read: A LOT) aged, and metal bands juss don’t age well – physically (and probably mentally too)

Even today, Axl looks worse for wear – and wearing some REALLY dumb hats doesn’t help his cause

but unlike the Nazi from Raiders, Axl is STILL melting faces, not having his own face melted!

Well, hatchets somehow got buried, and Slash and Duff were able to mend whatever burnt fences they had with Axl – lucky us!  Sure, there aint no Izzy or Adler or even Matt Sorum, but c’mon, if we can make do with juss Axl, we can beyond make do with juss Axl and Slash and Duff!  Side note – I’ve always found Duff to be such a pretty man.  He’s beautiful.  I want to play with his hair, as he rocks my world

The trio + some other people, handed in a very quality G n R show… which pretty much resembled the show I saw a decade ago – setlist-wise – although this time they DID play ‘Don’t Cry’, but last night they DIDN’T play ‘Patience’.  Why both aren’t a part of every show – and 3+ Chinese Democracy songs are – is beyond me.  Heck, they coulda even played even longer than they did, and perhaps skipped having an opener, although now I can check Lenny Kravitz off my ‘to see’ list

So, the only question left is, where do we go now?

https://www.instagram.com/p/BIRSnaQjebm/

Setlist - It’s So Easy / Mr. Brownstone / Chinese Democracy / Welcome to the Jungle / Double Talkin’ Jive / Estranged / Live and Let Die (Wings cover) / Rocket Queen / You Could Be Mine / New Rose (The Damned cover) / This I Love / Civil War / Coma / Speak Softly Love (Love Theme From The Godfather, Andy Williams cover) / Sweet Child O’ Mine / Better / Out Ta Get Me / Wish You Were Here (Pink Floyd cover) / November Rain / Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door (Bob Dylan cover) / Nightrain

Encore – Don’t Cry / The Seeker (The Who cover) / Paradise City

Ellie Goulding
Madison Square Garden
June 22nd, 2016

A few days back, I noticed that Ellie Goulding was playing a(n un-sold out) show at MSG, and then realized how many of her songs I knew, and BAMMMM – a few days later - the wife and I + a hella lot of teenage girls and gay men were sweating to her oldies (cause I don’t really know the new Delirium stuff)!!

LIGHTS!!!!!

https://www.instagram.com/p/BG8Hhukm3zn/

Setlist – Intro (Delirium) / Aftertaste / Holding on for Life / Goodness Gracious / Something in the Way You Move / Outside / Devotion / I Do What I Love / Keep on Dancin’/ Don’t Need Nobody / Heal / Explosions / Lights (acoustic) / Army / Lost and Found / Figure 8 / On My Mind / Codes / Don’t Panic / We Can’t Move to This / I Need Your Love / Burn

Encore - Anything Could Happen / Love Me Like You Do

I NEED HER GLOVES!!!

https://www.instagram.com/p/BG8THqkm38X/

Flight of The Conchords
The Heath at The McKittrick Hotel
June 1st

THEY BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Well, the never really went away – juss got all big and Hollywooded, but no matter how many riches and fames they’ve accumulated, they will always be good ole Bret and Jemaine, or good ole Jemaine and Bret (depending on how you like to order your favorite Kiwis) of Flight of the Conchords  

After a 3 year break from touring, the boys are about to embark on a big tour, and so they needed to fine tune their roadshow before showing the road, and set up a 5 night residency at the Heath.  For some reason I skipped out on their last tour, so it has been 7 years since I last saw them live, but now I got to see them in a venue that only served 200, and all 200 of us were well served

https://www.instagram.com/p/BGIri_2G3z2/

Sure, B & J sounded a little raw and undisciplined – starting and stopping and restarting tunes new and old, constantly being out of rhythm with one another, but luckily these two can fill dead air and stage hiccups with endless witty stage banter, like Jemaine asking the audience if they actually paid money to see this show [we all happily did].  But none of us cared how unvarnished the presentation was – cause we were all there to laugh with them, and at them (no one does self-deprecating humor like them), and so we did

They tried out 5 to 6 new/newish songs (see setlist below), and while these newbies don’t seem destined top anything they’ve created before, they were good enuff for everyone to sit thru AND thoroughly enjoy.  Most times you don’t want to hear any band play any new stuff, but most bands aren’t this one and that’s both a good thing AND a bad thing.  And the old stuff?  Still AWESOME, after all these years!  Even a song like ‘Bowie’, which was a once a creative lark, is now a song of soulful passion – a valentine to a man they and we love(d), who once fell to earth, but is now back in the stars, forever orbiting in greatness

Maybe one day someone will write a song about how great the Flight of the Conchords are.  That would be some mighty meta stuff there – meta world peace yo!

Setlist – Chips and Dips^ / The Seagull^ / Foux du Fafa / F**k on the Ceiling^ / The Ballad of Stana^ / Father and Son^ / Think About It / Business Time / Bowie / Shady Rachel^

Encore – The Most Beautiful Girl (in the Room)

^ not sure of the actual song title – as the songs were new or never released

https://www.instagram.com/p/BGIsEcuG30l/

https://www.instagram.com/p/BGIs-qzhf-_/

https://www.instagram.com/p/BGI2qVYwPD5/

Pearl Jam
Madison Square Garden
May 2nd

https://www.instagram.com/p/BE7i-7_G315/

It’s never too late to right wrongs.  Never have regrets in life, and if you do, fix them, if they are fixable.

Pearl Jam’s Ten owned the ears of high schoolers everywhere from 1991 onwards.  When grunge was grunge, these guys were like the fringe of grunge – rocking rock that had an edge (but not droning like Soundgarden and Alice In Chains’ music did), and this rock was rock built for the ages.  I LIVED for Ten.  We all did.  It’s not only the perfect debut album, but a perfect album – up their in my mind with the likes of Paul Simon’s Graceland, Pink Floyd’s The Wall, Beasties Boys’ Paul’s Boutique, most albums by The Beatles, and so on and so forth and so onforth

At the height of their and my hysteria, I somehow neglected to see them in concert, which is odd, considering how I saw a LOT of shows as a teen, including the original Smashing Pumpkins line-up, Nine Inch Nails, Fugazi, Alice In Chains, the Beasties Boys 128238823 times, Ice-T, Public Enemy, Urge Overkill, The Soup Dragons, etc.  (My lucky brother saw Pearl Jam open for the Red Hot Chili Peppers AND Smashing Pumpkins in New Orleans, in 1991.  Red Hots are another band I meant to see, and still never have)

Time passed, and then Pearl Jam released their 2nd album – Vs – and while a lovely effort, it was no perfect Ten.  More like a 6?  Probably a 7.  But time has been good to it.  It’s probably an 8 now.  But back then?  A 6.  I was so pissed it wasn’t Ten-2 that by the time their 3rd album dropped – Vitalogy (still a terrible name) – I was done – and for me – Pearl Jam was over.  And while I was done with Pearl Jam, Pearl Jam wasn’t done at all – they were just getting going – releasing 7 albums in my absence, and keeping on keeping on rocking in the free world

Eons passed, beards grew, and then I saw that they were coming to MSG this year, and was like, you know what – I’ve never heard ‘Even Flow’, ‘Jeremy’ or ‘Alive’ (my holy Pearl Jam trinity) played live – not a once, and how could I let this wrong continue to be wrong?  Boom – done – wrong to be righted.  And spank the lord I did, for in 3 hours time, my face melted (like the Nazi in Raiders) with endless and effortless and awesomebest rock n roll, and I couldn’t have asked for a better first Pearl Jam show (OK, I was a little/lot pissed when they played Ten in its entirety two shows before the one I would attend)  

Look at that setlist below!!!  They played THREE songs with ‘man’ in the title, IN A ROW!!  They played BOTH songs from the Singles soundtrack, BACK 2 BACK!!!  They did a cover of Cheap Trick’s ‘Surrender’, WITH 2 DUDES FROM CHEAP TRICK!!  They did a Police cover WITH STING – AND IT DIDN’T PUT ME TO SLEEP (cause Sting is boring).  And after studying setlist after setlist from their 2016 tour, I nailed it when I said they’d do a cover of the Who’s ‘Baba O’Riley’ (which I’ve always wanted to hear them play ever since they played it on MTV in 1992).  The two dudes who came with me to the show (one being Shreddy FCUKING Mercury!!!) each had one request each, and Pearl Jam played both (‘State of Love and Trust’ AND ‘Yellow Ledbetter’).  And they played my holy trinity of ‘Even Flow’, ‘Jeremy’ and ‘Alive’.  Think I enjoyed that?????  See video above!!!!!!!!!

Moral of the story – Pearl Jam never stopped rocking / I was an idiot for years / you CAN go back again / the mid 90s will never die / I will see Pearl Jam ANYTIME they come back to NY / Sting is still boring, but less so when Pearl Jam is his backing band

–

Setlist – Corduroy / Mind Your Manners / Once / Animal / Given to Fly / Surrender (Cheap Trick coverwith Rick Nielsen & Tom Petersson) [watch] / Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town / Nothingman / Leatherman / Better Man / Garden / Even Flow / Sirens / Deep / Jeremy / Leash / Do the Evolution

Encore - You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away (Beatles cover) / All or None / Pendulum / Present Tense / Breath / State of Love and Trust / Porch

Encore 2 - Last Kiss (Wayne Cochran cover) / Driven to Tears (Police cover with Sting) [watch] / Lightning Bolt / Sonic Reducer (Dead Boys cover) / Alive / Baba O’Riley (Who cover) / Yellow Ledbetter / The Star-Spangled Banner (John Stafford Smith cover)