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...
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...
Nowhere City, Syracuse, NY I had always remembered this as being the the first real rock concert I ever attended (not counting things like seeing the Vienna Boys Choir in 4th grade). However, I have ticket stubs from both this show as well as a U2 concert in April of '85 . So I guess the U2 show was my first. post continues.... Either way, this concert was at a juice bar. New York State was raising its drinking age from 19 to 21 years effective December 1st, so some establishments (well, this one at least) jettisoned the alcohol entirely to preserve its patronage by college students. This one turned into a "juice bar"--just like a regular bar, except you could order overpriced orange juice instead of overpriced beers. I didn't care either way; I would have gone if the show was in a castor oil bar with a two drink minimum. I had really dug O.M.D.'s 1984 album Junk Culture , and their latest ( Crush ) was growing on me as well. I was very curious to see how their sy...
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