CONCERT REVIEW: Ringo Starr and his All-Starr Band - 9/8/18 at BMO Harris Pavilion

If there’s an opportunity to see a living Beatle, and the price is right, you have to take it. My wife and I were lucky enough to get heavily discounted tickets (from $72 to $20 -- thanks Summerfest flash sale!) to see Ringo Starr and his All-Starr Band at the BMO Harris Pavilion last night. The show was practically sold out, and it wasn’t hard to see why.

Ringo brought his innate Ringoness to the stage, strutting out before opener “Matchbox” in exaggerated motions while flashing the peace sign. His goofy charm came out in the way he told corny jokes that mostly weren’t jokes and how he profusely thanked the crowd and told us how much he loved us. Also, there was a random “Hare Krishna” shout-out during solo hit “It Don’t Come Easy.” He was more cheesy Vegas lounge singer than benevolent bandleader.

You may be thinking that Ringo doesn’t have enough Beatles and solo hits to fill a show, and you would be correct. That is where the All-Starr band comes in. The two-hour show was set up like this: Ringo sang a few of his songs, some out front and some behind the drum kit. Then the guys in the band took turns playing songs that their former (or still current) bands made famous. This time around the comprised of Steve Lukather (guitar) from Toto, Colin Hay (guitar) from Men at Work, Gregg Rollie (keyboards) from Santana, and Graham Gouldman (bass) from 10cc. Filling out the band -- these guys didn’t get songs of their own -- was Gregg Bissonette (drums) and Warren Ham (sax, flute, percussion).

Clearly these guys have been playing together for a while as they sounded very tight no matter whose songs they were playing. I thought Steve Lukather’s guitar playing was a little flashy for the Beatles songs, but he absolutely slayed on Santana’s “Black Magic Woman” and Toto’s “Africa.” With the exception of some extended outros and solos, the songs pretty much sounded exactly as you would expect them to.

Ringo’s voice did not sound weathered or thinned at all, which was impressive considering he is 78 years old. All of the well-known hits were there: “Yellow Submarine,” “Act Naturally,” “It Don’t Come Easy,” “Photograph,” and set-closer “With A Little Help From My Friends.” There really wasn’t a clunker in the set save for 2012’s “Anthem,” a song Ringo wrote as an anthem for, what else, peace and love.

Though it could not possibly have the same emotional impact that a Paul McCartney show would have, it was still pretty cool to see Ringo Starr perform his hits live. The All-Starr Band’s contributions to the act rounded out the evening nicely. For two hours, it was all good times, good tunes, and good vibes. There’s really not much more you could ask for on a Saturday night.

Set list:

Matchbox

It Don’t Come Easy

What Goes On

Dreadlock Holiday (10cc)

Evil Ways (Santana)

Rosanna (Toto)

Down Under (Men At Work)

Boys

Don’t Pass Me By

Yellow Submarine

I’m Not In Love (10cc)

Black Magic Woman (Santana)

You’re Sixteen

Anthem

Overkill (Men At Work)

Africa (Toto)

Oy Como Va (Santana)

I Wanna Be Your Man

The Things We Do For Love (10cc)

Who Can It Be Now? (Men At Work)

Hold The Line (Toto)

Photograph

Act Naturally

With A Little Help From My Friends

Give Peace A Chance (chorus only)

CONCERT REVIEW: "Weird Al" Yankovic at the Pabst Theater, 4/10/18

EMO PHILLIPS

I was not familiar with opener Emo Philips’ work beyond his appearance in UHF, but after seeing him open for “Weird Al” Yankovic I might have to explore his comedic stylings. Certainly his vocal affectation can be a little off-putting, but if you can get beyond it there is some good stuff there.

His style reminds me at least a little bit of Steven Wright or Mitch Hedberg, only Phillips’ jokes take darker twists. An example: “I got in trouble on a date recently: I didn’t open the car door… instead I just swam for the surface.”

If relationships were his greatest muse, cornball puns (as if there are any other kind) were his other. One such groaner went. “This is my impression of the stratosphere: “So thisguy comes up to me... “ (Say it out loud if it doesn’t make sense to you.)

Emo ended the half hour set by saying he had known “Weird Al” Yankovic since the 80s and had always wanted to tour with him. Al replied that it would happen, but only if Donald Trump was elected president. Emo’s deadpan response: “I’m sorry.”

“WEIRD AL” YANKOVIC

This stage lighting is about as fancy as it got. 

“Usually when I write songs, I inhabit a character,” quipped “Weird Al” Yankovic before a packed Pabst Theater on Tuesday night, “...but this song is 100 percent autobiographical.” The song in question was the stunning tour de force of “Albuquerque,” a fan favorite deep cut off of 1999 LP Running With Scissors. This little (admittedly facetious) tibdit was emblematic of the tour as a whole:  Yankovic and his excellent band ditched the costume changes, video screens, and hit parodies for stools, a minimalist stage setup, and set mostly comprised of rarely performed deep cuts and style parodies.

Reflecting upon last night’s set and reading other reviews (and also attending the show with a lifelong hardcore “Weird Al” fan) made me realize that there are levels to “Weird Al” fandom. All Yankovic fans are dorks to some degree or another -- he doesn’t go by “Cool” or “Awesome” for a reason -- but some take it further than others. They are the ones that know all the words to all the songs, the more obscure the better. Then there are folks like me who like Al just fine, but never really got into the back catalogue beyond the hits. This show was definitely for the former, but I enjoyed myself nonetheless.

As much as I might be a middle of the road fan, I’m not unlike my fellow dorks in that I’ve always wanted a “Weird Al” show that was more like a real concert instead of a choreographed musical. In doing it this way, the show revealed Al as a person in addition to his stage persona. Al and the band got to do the songs they wanted to do, and they looked like they were having a blast doing it.

The aforementioned “Albuquerque” was easily the set highlight for me. Sure, the version here was turbo-charged compared to the studio version -- Yankovic’s vocals were rushed, and some of the humor comes from the pacing and pauses -- but still, it was awesome in all of its manic, stream-of-consciousness hilarity.

Another highlight was the Doors pastiche “Craigslist,” from the little-loved Alpocalypse LP. It’s not that the song is terribly funny -- though the coffee shop bit always gets me -- but rather the performance of it. Yankovic does a pretty inspired Jim Morrison impression with this tune, and the band plays up the moodiness of it all pretty well.

The crowd was otherwise treated to a career-spanning set full of deep cuts, some fan favorites (“The Night Santa Went Crazy (Extra Gory Version)”), some -- even “Weird Al” acknowledged (“Airline Amy”) -- not so much. Though there was some hooting and hollering (and random song requesting) between numbers, the people in attendance mostly hung on Yankovic’s every word. With that in mind, one could read the crowd as being either subdued or reverent depending on your perspective, but I don’t think that really matters. Many laughs were had, and Yankovic and band were showered with applause after every song.

The set ended with a medley of parody hits (“Eat It,” “Smells Like Nirvana,” “Amish Paradise,” etc.), which was presented not as a polka but as MTV Unplugged-style classic rock. It was a nice nod to his most casual fans but also a nice little surprise for his most hardcore ones.

The two-song encore consisted of a straight-up cover of Tom Petty’s “Breakdown.” In an alternate universe, the theater would have erupted into a Pack Up The Plantation style singalong, but it was not to be. “Yoda,” however, did have the biggest singalong of the night. It was fitting that the show was closed out with a well-known parody, because let’s face it: no one got into “Weird Al” because they heard “Stuck in a Closet with Vanna White” or “The Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota.” At the same time, those songs are the reason Yankovic has the enduring fandom that he does. The proof was on the faces and in the voices of everyone that left the Pabst Theater.  

An Obituary for My Cat, and Musings on Mortality

We rescued Isis (a.k.a. Big Black) from the Wisconsin Humane Society in March of 2007. Immediately she came up to me looking for pettings and chin scritches. When I wasn’t touching her, she did figure eights between and around my legs. My girlfriend -- now wife -- and I were completely smitten with this cat. We brought her home that day -- our second major “as a couple” thing we did in a month. (The first was moving out together.) We were instructed to introduce Big Black to the apartment one room at a time if at all possible, which we complied with as best we could. But despite our best efforts, when it came time to go to bed, Big Black busted out of the ramshackle wall we built and made her way into our bedroom. She jumped on the bed and laid down right between us, looking for cuddles and pettings.

Years passed. Big Black got even bigger before developing a thyroid problem, which caused her to lose a lot of weight. Her eyes started discharging a goopy yellow liquid. Both ailments required her to be on medication for the rest of her life. In addition to these things, her advanced age simply slowed her down; she struggled to get up at times and had trouble making the jump on to our bed. Her paw pads became worn and crusty; the black fur that defined her turned grey in spots. The seven-year-old we took home was now an old lady that required more care.

Despite all of this, Big Black was still essentially herself. She still loved her treats. She still came up by you looking for pettings and chin scritches. If you hit the spot just right, she’d kick one of her hind legs out in delight. But the decline came quickly; she started peeing everywhere; her cries in the night (and sometimes the day) became louder and more anguished. In her last days, she stopped eating her beloved wet food and was so frail she could barely stand. I knew it was nearing the end when I tried to feed her treats and she just looked at them and flopped down, leaving them uneaten.

We had to put her down yesterday. She was 18 years old.

****

It hasn’t been twenty-four hours yet since she passed, and I cannot stop replaying her last hours in my mind. My wife spent hours with her in the bathroom, crying and comforting her as best she could. I came home from work to see a cat barely alive with a cry so soft it broke my heart.

We took her to the hospital to be put to sleep. The time alone with her in the room was excruciating. My wife kept trying to wash her face off to not much avail. I gave her some pettings and a last chin scritch. We both kept saying how sorry we were. Was it for her or for us?

They took her away to put the IV in. I swear, despite knowing that Big Black was pretty out of it already, that she looked me in the eye with abject fear.

Finally, doctor came in to administer the fatal injection. He explained that it would probably be over quickly, and it was. My wife yelped “I’m so sorry!” as we both fought back tears. It was intense. The doctor left, and we were alone again. My wife picked her up in the blanket and hugged her one last time. I kissed her softly on the head, and tried to close her eyes but failed. We decided to leave the blanket we brought her in, not wanting to disturb the body. We left with a plaster casting of her paw prints to remember her by. Only an hour had passed, but I felt like I had aged years by the time I got in the car. Our ride home was mostly silent.

****

The iPhone's camera sucked in 2010, but that is Big Black being cute at the sprightly age of 10.

These words I’m writing are more for me than they are for you. All I can think about is how and why I’m grieving and what it all means.

I know why Isis’ death made us so sad. The 11 years of love we gave her and the companionship she gave us wasn’t for nothing. There was a genuine relationship there, and the loss of her has created a void that won’t be easily, if at all, filled. But it isn’t just about love or companionship. Because whether it’s a pet or a person that is (physically) gone forever, that loss reminds me of my own mortality.

The existential crisis of mortality is paralyzing. I cannot think about it for more than a few minutes without breaking down. Signs of Isis no longer being here are still in the apartment: the two litter boxes in the bathroom; the last cans of wet food we bought her; no longer having to worry about pee puddles in the morning, or being woken up in the middle of the night by cries for food. I look around this shitty apartment and it makes me sad; I look at my parents and my wife’s parents and the way they’re all slowing down now, looking a bit more weathered than before and it makes me sadder still. I look my 6-week-old son in the eyes knowing that one day he might be where I was 24 hours ago, trying to comfort me the best I can before the drugs kick in and I’ve left my body and consciousness behind, and now I’m fucking bawling.

This death thing isn’t going over too well.

****

My wife had a good thought on the whole thing. She said, “It’s better that she went with us rather than without us.” For us, confronting Isis’ death was probably a good thing. It probably also at least gave us peace of mind that her last minutes were spent with people that love her. The pain of her passing and guilt over letting her hang on maybe too long won’t be leaving any time soon. But that’s what it means to be human. (Felines are lucky in this regard.)

They didn't really like each other, but I could occasionally capture them together.

The treats I tried to give to Isis on her last day alive are still scattered in the kitchen. Every time I look at them I know I’m choosing pain over closure. I know I can physically remove these remnants of Isis, but I can never mentally wash them away. Isis the Cat is gone, but Isis the Memory is not and never will be. I’m sure this thought won’t make it any easier when future pets or people go, but it’s worth a shot, isn’t it?

Isis, doing what cats do.

Just about 17 years old in this picture, but will always be my baby kitty cat to me. 

Everclear: A Concert Review

I’d been hemming and hawing inside my head whether or not I wanted to go see 90’s alt-rock favorites Everclear on Saturday night. Normally going or not going to a concert isn’t a huge decision, but Everclear’s music meant a lot to me in my teenage years. Unfortunately Art Alexakis hasn’t made any interesting music since about 2002. Furthering my anxiety was the fact that last time I saw Everclear (2008 or so) Art and his band of hired guns weren’t very good; his voice sounded shot and the performance was lackluster.

But I ended up going anyways.

Considering my nostalgic reasons for being there, my vantage point was apt: behind a tree and slightly off-center; the band a slight blur in the distance. Both band and (this) fan have lost a step over the years; “Heroin Girl” was played more at the speed on the White Trash Hell EP and “Amphetamine” chugged along at a gallop instead of a sprint. Alexakis’ voice was fine if not powerful; my own singing along was quiet and unsure.

None of those things really mattered, though. The set was almost exclusively hits, mostly from So Much for the Afterglow. The many kids in attendance enjoyed the pogo-jumping parts from “Everything to Everyone,” the parents (and other adults) jammed and danced to classics like “Father of Mine” and “I Will Buy You A New Life.” (The fact that Everclear managed to marry happy, upbeat rock music with sad, autobiographical lyrics should tell you everything you need to know about why I like them.)

Clearly Alexakis and his band didn’t give a damn about being in a Spinal Tap-like situation, playing essentially a free show at a zoo. They were jumping around and singing closely on the same mic, obviously enjoying each other’s company while feeding off the crowd.

I really didn’t go into the show expecting a whole lot. But what I saw in Art Alexakis was a man still very much in love with performing and someone who still believes in the healing power of rock ‘n’ roll. Maybe it wasn’t just like being sixteen all over again. But on a buggy summer night, some 20-year-old tunes that can still hit you right in the feels (as the kids say these days) did just fine.

Set List:

So Much for the Afterglow

Everything to Everyone

Father of Mine

Heroin Girl (Art introduced this song by noting the family-friendly nature of this show)

Heartspark Dollarsign

White Men In Black Suits

Amphetamine

Wonderful

Song From An American Movie, Pt. 1

Brown Eyed Girl (Art Solo)

Dueling guitar solos

AM Radio (featuring Led Zeppelin’s “Black Dog” intro)

Volvo-Driving Soccer Mom

Local God

I Will Buy You A New Life

Encore:

Fire Maple Song

Classic Rock Riff Medley (Living After Midnight (Judas Priest) / Another One Bites the Dust (Queen) / Rock You Like A Hurricane (The Scorpions) / Rock n Roll (Led Zeppelin)

Santa Monica

Roger Waters: A concert review

On Saturday night, to a nearly full house, Roger Waters proved to be the rare arena rock act that can be everything to everyone. Baby Boomers, Gen-Xers, Millennials, and the kids that the millennials will eventually get to complain about all gathered to hear one of classic rock’s great catalogues. I suspect no one went home unhappy.

If you are the sort that takes pleasure in the pure aural experience that Pink Floyd’s music provided once upon a time, this was the concert for you. Waters and his crack backing band -- and the sound system they played through -- sounded excellent. The rumbling opening bass line to “One of These Days” sounded particularly menacing. The acoustic guitar that starts off “Wish You Were Here” was pristine. The wordless backing vocals from “The Great Gig in the Sky”, courtesy of the ladies of indie-pop band Lucius, were absolutely gorgeous. Though Roger Waters ceded much of the lead vocals to his guitarist (who just so happened to sound just like Waters and David Gilmour), his weathered voice fit the music and gave it gravitas.

For the more visually oriented / stoned out your gourds of us, the second set in particular scratched that itch. Video panels dropped down from the ceiling to just above the people on the floor, dividing the crowd in half. The screens first displayed the power station from the cover of Animals, complete with smokestacks sprouting from the top, and a tiny inflatable pig floating off in the distance. Later in the set, the screens stretched and retracted, practically pulsating to the beat of the song, while colorful patterns along with overlaid live images of the band playing were displayed.

The second set was capped off with a laser-show interpretation of the Dark Side of the Moon cover during “Brain Damage/Eclipse.”

The colored prism shot out seconds later. People on LSD probably freaked out. 

Perhaps you’ve heard that Roger Waters is an outspoken opponent of conservative politics, Donald Trump in particular. He delivered most of this unsubtle political commentary during the 11-minute epic “Pigs (Three Different Ones).” Images shown on the aforementioned video panels included, but were not limited to: Trump vomiting; Trump as Hitler; Trump as KKK member; and the ever-popular meme of Vladimir Putin holding up Donnie Two Scoops like a doll. Near the end of the song, an image of Trump smirking and looking off in the distance and holding a huge dildo appeared; when his likeness turned to face the crowd, the dildo shrank.

The Trump-bashing during “Money” was less biting, but no less amusing.

The famous inflatable pig, this time featuring an image of Donald Trump with eyes crossed out with dollar signs.

Of course, for all the overblown media coverage surrounding this part of the set, it did only account for 20 minutes or so of the 2-hour performance.

Roger Waters’ lyrics are responsible for starting (and continuing) my -- and probably many attendees’ -- Floyd phase. They may not be complicated or even poetic, but they hit where they’re supposed to hit. When he sang “You run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it’s sinking / Racing around to come up behind you again / The sun is the same in a relative way but you’re older / Shorter of breath and one day closer to death,” I got chills, the same as one hundred times before. (“Time” is my favorite Pink Floyd song by a mile; its theme of the helplessness and utter inevitability of mortality is something I can’t help but get hung up on.)

All of these experiences were wrapped up in the songs of classic-era (Dark Side through The Wall) Pink Floyd. Minus the new material from so-so new album Is This The Life We Really Want?, it was hit after hit. Show-closing “Comfortably Numb” featured a communal singalong, which is somewhat ironic considering that the song is just as much about as the distance between performer and audience as it is about drugs. But it was just as awe-inspiring as most of the 20-plus songs before it.

In the end, tour namesake and Dark Side deep cut (if there is such a thing) “Us and Them” summed up the live Roger Waters experience nicely. Images of Black Lives Matter protesters, refugees, and the like were juxtaposed against pictures of riot police, soldiers with guns, and drone strikes. The message was pretty clear: we’re divided as fuck, perhaps further away from each other than we’ve ever been, and that’s not a good thing. But for one night -- for just two hours -- it didn’t actually seem like Us v. Them. There was only an Us, and it was excellent.

Car Seat Headrest, Ludacris, and Me: A Summerfest Review

Once the forecast cleared up early Sunday evening, I decided to embrace my inner outer creeper and plunge alone into the madness that is a weekend night at Summerfest to catch a couple of acts that I like but don’t love. This is how that went.

Up first was indie rock band Car Seat Headrest at the Johnson Controls Stage.

You know a band is small-time -- and that is almost certainly on purpose -- when they are on stage 15 minutes before showtime doing their own sound check. This is not a knock on them, merely an observation.

After a short introduction by Dori Zori from 88.9 the band took the stage to some pretentious, Bon Iver-esque vocal samplings before launching into “Vincent” from their current album Teens of Denial. Immediately apparent was the fact that the band set out to put the “rock” in indie rock. The faders were definitely pushed up to 11. Unfortunately this meant that the feedback-drenched guitars and thumping drums drowned out singer/guitarist/brains behind the band Will Toledo’s mumbly vocal delivery. He simply doesn’t have the pipes to cut through the crap.

Approximately half an hour into the set they played what was one of my favorite songs from last year, “Destroyed By Hippie Powers,” and it was excellent. Even though I think the crowd was enjoying the show overall, it also seemed like the arms-crossed, hipper-than-thou indie kids there didn’t give the song the moshpit freakout the song calls for. It is what I came to hear, though, so after it was done I bailed to see…

....Ludacris.

You know the song “Too Many People” by Paul McCartney? It was like that. By the time I made it to the Miller Oasis stage, the crowd wasn’t so much a crowd but a college kegger writ large: (nearly) everyone young, dumb, full of come. Blunts were everywhere, and so were teenagers grinding on each other to the jams.

Luda, to his credit, obliged the party scene by pumping out hit after hit.

My criticism of most modern rap shows applies here: he didn’t perform entire songs. Verses from “Money Maker” (with admittedly one of his all-time best lines: “Let me give you some swimming lessons on the penis / Backstroke, breaststroke, stroke of a genius”) blurred into “What’s Your Fantasy” which then eventually collided into “Rollout (My Business)”

Of course, nobody fucking cared.

Despite a total lack of personal space, everyone seemed to have a good time. My personal highlight was indicative of the rest of the set in that “Move Bitch” was awesome until Ludacris stopped after two verses and promptly dove into “Stand Up.” (I get it, Mystikal wasn’t in the building to do his verse, but still, it was disappointing to hear his best song cut short.)

Ultimately I’m guessing my opinion of both artists’ performances is in the minority. Car Seat Headrest is perfectly capable of rocking your socks off, if you don’t mind squalling feedback and garbled vocals. Ludacris is a legitimately fantastic rapper that has a string of unassailable party jams to his name - if only he’d perform them in whole. But I’m sure the amount of “amazing” and “unbelieveable” descriptions on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram will far outnumber the objections from old grumps like me.

Concert Review: Sir-Mix-A-Lot at Summerfest

Two songs into his first-ever (!) Milwaukee show, Sir-Mix-A-Lot proclaimed (paraphrasing) “Ain’t nobody come out to these shows to hear some abstract-ass new song no one’s ever heard of. They want some old school!” The man certainly knows his audience.

That audience, as was probably expected was predominantly white and predominantly young, though all generations and races were represented. All the recent handwringing and thinkpieces in the music press about the misappropriation of black culture meant nothing here, because these people came to dance and Mix came to supply jams to dance to. The whole thing was essentially a 70-minute party.

It should be noted that Mix-A-Lot can flat-out rap. He had hype men, but they mostly stayed in the background to let Mix shine. Opener “Buckin’ My Horse” and a fiery rendition of “Testarossa” displayed his verbal skills. Also worth nothing was his storytelling skills. He said how he saw some lady on MTV -- who he claimed looked just like him, goatee and all -- who said he was the epitome of a one-hit-wonder. Mix -- yes, we are on a first name basis -- then got on Twitter to reply by taking a picture of his middle finger and then his taint. (Please don’t look that up on Google) But his nephew (also a member of his on-stage entourage) reminded him of his other hits, and they kicked into “Posse on Broadway”

It’s true that Sir Mix-A-Lot never reached the ubiquitous heights of “Baby Got Back,” but the set proved that he has songs that at the very least you’ve heard of. “My Hooptie” was well-received, if the stench of weed was any indication. “Swass,” which was apparently the basis for The Pussycat Dolls’ “Don’t Cha,” was present, as was “Beepers,” “Buttermilk Biscuits,” “Jump On It” (which got the second-best reaction of the night, complete with copious references to Milwaukee, 414, Brewers, and Bucks), and, yes, his masterwork -- or magnum opus, if you insist -- “Put ‘Em On The Glass.”

The only real misstep was a bizarre (to me, anyway) interlude where they played Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and chanted over it. The crowd kept dancing like nothing had changed, which was sort of cool actually. I had just the right amount of beer in me to think a mosh pit was a good idea, but that never came to pass.

Mix kept the energy high throughout, and the crowd ate up every second of it. There was much booty-shaking, particularly by lovely young women. One had a permanent grin on her face while dancing with her man -- a pure unadulterated joy that my unshakeable melancholy won’t permit me to experience. There were dudes dancing too -- a pasty shirtless guy by himself, an old guy with a pony tail also by himself. Me, who in lieu of sweet moves swayed to the rhythms and tried my best to sing the lyrics.

The set ended as one would expect, with ladies invited on stage for an extended version of “Baby Got Back.” Mix-A-Lot high-fived people and thanked the crowd for coming out, and claimed he would be back. For an hour-plus of jamming out to classic tunes and forgetting about the daily grind, I would definitely go see him again.