Cloaca Melodia

Byham Theater, Pittsburgh, PA....     sorry, I haven't yet written about this show... add your own comments if you were also there!    my ticket from the show

Consol Energy Center, Pittsburgh, PA.....     sorry, I haven't yet written about this show... add your own comments if you were also there!    

Schenley Plaza, Pittsburgh, PA   Part of WYEP's Final Fridays series. post continues.... sorry, I haven't yet written about this show... add your own comments if you were also there!

Club Cafe, Pittsburgh, PA I was so excited to see this show. It was good to Sweet again, but I was very glad to finally see Tommy Keene live. post continues.... I had been a fan of Keene's since my college radio days. The Washington, DC, native put out a few independent EPs which got some attention from my (and many) college radio outlet(s) and the music press. His Byrds-esque jangle-pop sound was emerging as a popular force in the music underground (especially from bands emerging from below the Mason-Dixon line). I almost didn't get to see him, since when the show was announced I already had unbreakable plans to see Natalie Merchant the same night. The Natalie show ended up getting cancelled, however. Here's a couple of videos (not by me) of Sweet's performance.

Schenley Plaza, Pittsburgh, PA   The WYEP Summer Music Festival. Great show. Threat of a thunderstorm delayed Valerie June set for a long time. There were rumors that Sidney Crosby was there at the show to see Sam Roberts.       Sam Roberts Band setlist: Shapeshifters Angola Fixed to Ruin Let It In Human Heat Never Enough The Last Crusade Kid Icarus Partition Blues Metal Skin Where Have All the Good People Gone? Golden Hour Them Kids encore break We're All in This Together Brother Down 

Point State Park, Pittsburgh, PA ..... The final headline show for the 2014 Three Rivers Arts Festival. I had been a fan of the then 20 year-old British performer shortly after I caught a few songs from his 2012 UK debut album, even before it was released here in the States. At WYEP, we ended up playing "Lightning Bolt" some in November 2012. His record label released an EP to radio with a few of his songs, but not "Lightning Bolt." They were concentrating on promoting "Two Fingers" for his first single in the U.S., which is a great song but not the right one for here--"So I hold two fingers up to yesterday" doesn't hold the same weight in American English as it does in UK English. Sigh. They finally switched to promoting "Lightning Bolt" in late March 2013.  Either way, it was great seeing him live, performing on guitar with a bassist and drummer backing him up. The aforementioned song s sounded great, as did "Messed Up Kids,...

Point State Park, Pittsburgh, PA   post continues.... I wrote the next days that "The band sounds great, and a good time was had by all!" Setlist for the concert at the Three Rivers Arts Festival: 1. Behind the Wall of Sleep 2. Top of the Pops 3. Sorry 4. War for My Mind 5. Miles From Nowhere 6. Yesterday's Girl 7. Blues Before and After 8. Room Without a View 9. Drown in My Own Tears 10. Green Thoughts 11. House We Used to Live In/Sparks (The Who) 12. Please Please Me 13. It's Only Love 14. Blue Period 15. Especially For You 16. Time and Time Again 17. Blood and Roses 18. A Girl Like You (with snippets of Free's "All Right Now," Get Together by The Youngbloods, and The Who's "Behind Blue Eyes")  

Consol Energy Center, Pittsburgh, PA..... It was my first time seeing Joel, even though I'm not a hater like so many other people that I know have bafflingly turned out to be. I can't fathom why any Piano Man with a sense of melody get dismissed as fluff by so many "cool" music fans (Ben Folds gets a pass because he's never had a true hit). Maybe it's because I'm such a Beatles fan and appreciate Joel reaching for similar approaches to songwriting, but I've always been a fan. And seeing a concert like this reminds you how much of a human jukebox the man has been over his career. The fact that he released his last non-classical album more than 20 years prior to this concert and, therefore, had no new album to promote was also an interesting wrinkle to the setlist. In the places where an artist like McCartney or Springsteen or the Stones would be playing the new songs (and sending many attendees to visit their local concessionaires for overpriced cans of...