Allegheny Landing Park, Pittsburgh, PA.... The WYEP Summer Music Festival In Brief: The only old song Shocked played was "Anchorage"--everything else was new. But unlike many performers who are heavy on their latest material, she was so dynamic that no one seemed to mind. Erin McKeown sat in on guitar for about 4 songs. There were some technical troubles during Penn's set, but he still played well. "Long Way Down" was interrupted halfway through ("I'd like to soldier on," Penn explained when he stopped the number, "But it's hard to sing if I can't hear the guitar"), but I'm so glad he played it. He closed with "Walter Reed," one of my favorites of the new record.
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,...
PNC Park, Pittsburgh, PA.... Green Day's The Saviors Tour, in which they played all of Dookie and the American Idiot albums in sequence. (Probably not the best choice, as it severely constrained the setlist order and was not ideal for a stadium concert.) Rancid was probably my pick for the best all-around performance of the day, although the Linda Lindas were a lot of fun. Green Day had some great song performances but their set was a little bloated and lacking the loopy spontaneity I remember from seeing them in 1998 . Smashing Pumpkins was OK, but just like when I saw them in 2000 , I was left with a "good, but" vibe. I liked some of it. But when Corgan inexplicably brought out professional wrestlers from his wrestling promotion company-- well, big sigh. One of the most remarkable moments of the concert didn't involve a live performance. Immediately prior to Green Day taking the stage, they play Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" over the sound system and...
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