State Theater, New Brunswick, NJ.... Before Tori's show (the second time I was seeing her live), my then-wife Christine and I were meeting my WHTG colleague Matt Pinfield, Atlantic Records' Tod Elmore, and a few others for dinner at a restaurant next to the State Theater. The hot topic at dinner was discussion about whether O.J. Simpson might be guilty of murdering Nicole Brown Simpson, which had taken place the previous Sunday. Someone at the dinner table mentioned they had heard on the radio earlier that O.J. was missing. Speculation was interrupted when Matt realized he had to head over to the theater to introduce Tori on stage. Tori and I, after the show Christine and I strolled over to the theater and saw the show, with Tori performing alone with her Bosendorfer on one side of the stage and a harpsichord facing the other direction. It was perhaps the best Tori show I've seen. After the show, we went and spoke with Tori's tour manager and went backstage to meet Tori...
South Side Works, Pittsburgh, PA.... New American Music Union festival The festival was two days long, featuring a lot more bands than listed above, but due to childcare these four were the only ones I was able to see. Of them Gnarls Barkley and Spoon were terrific. The Raconteurs and Bob Dylan not so much. Gnarls Barkley was already on stage when Betsy and I arrived, running through their great cover of Violent Femmes' "Gone Daddy Gone." Danger Mouse and Cee-Lo were wearing tan jackets over a white uniform (Cee-Lo quickly removed his, due to the summer heat) and their band all had maroon-looking vests over their dress whites (the drummer gussied up his uniform with a bowtie). Other highlights were "Run," a set-closing "Smiley Faces," and even their ballad (which I'm not as into on record) "Who's Gonna Save My Soul." Naturally, "Crazy" was great to hear live, but I was a little surprised that the crowd didn't go, well, c...
PNC Park, Pittsburgh, PA.... A notorious show! My alt-rock radio station in NJ, WHTG, used to play Me First & The Gimee Gimees on our punk and hardcore show, and their shtick was doing punk covers of well-know songs that were often tongue-in-cheek. When I heard that the Pittsburgh Pirates had booked the band to play after three games on 8/24, 8/25, and 8/26, I was very surprised. I had a hard time believing the Pirates had booked the band, and I found it odd that the band would be into such a gig. (Apparently, it was the money. Also, Me First singer Spike Slawson is originally from Pittsburgh, but I don't know how that fit into the booking, if at all.) It did not go well. When the band started playing songs that the crowd knew but were performing these songs in a style that the crowd didn't care for, the boo-birds started coming fast and furious. (The Pirates must have thought they were booking a standard cover band.) Suffice to say the other two performances were ca...
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