Benedum Center, Pittsburgh, PA..... With a Morrissey concert, one always wonders whether it will take place at all--given Morrissey's well-documented history of shows cancelled at the last minute. So it was concerning when several recent of his concerts had to be scrapped due to credible death threats on the former Smiths frontman. But, it turned out not to be a concern and the show went on as scheduled. Morrissey was in fine voice but I had some issues with the setlist. Towards the end of the main set, I thought it's got to be bangers all the way down, but I was disappointed. Some deeper cuts, but more problematically, midtempo songs that didn't get the energy up except for the hardest-core of Moz-heads. There were a lot of people heading to the exits early, and my daughter (first time seeing him live) said to me at one point, "The music for each song sounds good but once he starts singing, they all sound the same." The last time I saw Morrissey , while a showcas...
Fort Adams State Park, Newport, RI.... This show was part of George Wein's Folk Festival 50, which was a way for the co-creator of the Newport Folk Festival to stage the 50th anniversary of the storied event without using the original name due to a rights issue. For the milestone anniversary, Wein brought back some legends from past festivals like 90-year-old co-founder Pete Seeger, Ramblin' Jack Elliot, Arlo Guthrie, Judy Collins, and the delightful Joan Baez. Baez had performed at most of the festival's original run from 1959-1969 (she took part in 1959, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1967, and 1968; note that the festival didn't take place in '61 and '62) and then after it returned in the 1980s, she was there for another seven years prior to the 50th anniversary edition (she played the festival in 1985, 1987, 1990, 1992, 1995, 1997, and 1998). In fact, as of 2025, Baez has appeared at more years of the Newport Folk Festival than any other artist (with a total of 14 years ...
Chameleon Bar, New York, NY..... I had what was really my only booked performance in a music venue as a musician. It was at the Chameleon Bar in New York City, and I was part of Nova Pilbeam, the acoustic duo I had formed with my college friend Marnie Dubow. We had named our musical combo after a British actress who, as a teenager, had appeared in two Alfred Hitchcock films. Nova Pilbeam was a cute and spunky young woman who had a memorable supporting role in Hitchcock's 1934 classic They Man Who Knew Too Much and then starred in his Young and Innocent in 1937. Two years afterwards, Pilbeam married the great-grandson of Alfred, Lord Tennyson until he was killed in a plane crash during World War II. She retired from acting at age 29 During most of 1990, I had lived in Chelsea -- long before the neighborhood's gentrification, back when New York was a very dangerous place. In fact, that year that I lived in a windowless basement apartment about 75 feet away from the 8th Avenue s...
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