Grousing The Aisles: Old Time Rock ‘n’ Roll

Neil Young 10/30/2007 DAUD [FLAC, MP3 Pt. 1 Pt. 2]:

Neil Young brought his critically acclaimed fall tour to the brand-spanking-new Nokia Theatre in LA last week, where he played a heady mix of rarities, classics and new songs from Chrome Dreams II. Young split his show into two distinct halves, each showing a completely different side of his music. The first half of the show featured Neil switching from acoustic guitar to piano to banjo without any accompaniment. Young’s voice sounds fantastic during the underplayed gems Sad Movies, Star of Bethlehem and Love Art Blues. Old Man and After The Gold Rush, the two songs that got the biggest round of applause from the audience, have both aged gracefully thanks to their timeless lyrics and Young’s brilliant delivery.

The second half of the show featured Neil on electric guitar backed by a band that includes multi-instrumentalist Ben Keith, drummer Ralph Molina and bassist Rick Rosas. Winterlong and The Loner stood out alongside Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere as the highlights of his electric set. Young’s band rocked the classics with a fiery passion that wasn’t seen on his last few tours, with Ben Keith showing off his impressive skills throughout the electric segment. Neil knows how to please a crowd and sent everyone home happy with the awesome pairing of Cinnamon Girl and Tonight’s The Night. There aren’t many shows worthy of a $200 ticket price, but this may be one of them.

Van Halen 11/03/2007 DAUD [FLAC, MP3]:

Photo via Twisted Sisto

Who would have guessed Van Halen’s reunion tour would be such a major success? We all knew the tour would do well financially, but it blows me away that these guys have garned such favorable reviews from tough critics like Kot and DeRogatis. I’ve stayed away from listening to the shows, but they’ve been on the road for over a month now, so I figured I’d check out a recent show. Last night I found a great-sounding recording of Saturday night’s show from East Rutherford, and I was pretty fucking impressed at what I heard.

After 25 years of being estranged Eddie Van Halen and David Lee Roth seem to have finally put their issues behind them. They both gave inspired performances showing that they have indeed risen to this occasion. Eddie’s sizzling guitar work seemed to get better as the night moved along. Check out his ridiculous guitar solo after Panama for an example of why this guy should be at the top of any list of guitar shredders. Not to be outdone, David Lee Roth also gave an inspired performance hitting most of the extremely difficult to reach high notes that are signatures of Van Halen’s early sound. Roth’s voice especially sounded great on Everybody Wants Some and Runnin’ With The Devil.

My biggest problem with this tour was the exclusion of bass player Michael Anthony, but Wolfgang Van Halen showed some major talent throughout the night. The 16-year-old did a nice job of leading the band back and forth from Romeo’s Delight into a cover of The Who’s Magic Bus without missing a beat. Van Halen plays the same setlist night after night, which has helped the band become pretty damn tight. Even Jump sounded much better than it did at the start of the tour. We recently reported that the band has extended the tour into 2008, so be sure to check them out when they come to your neck of the woods.

Here are five other torrents that caught our eye this week:

  • Brett Dennen @ High Sierra 07/06/2007 [FLAC]
  • Ratdog w/ Mike Gordon @ Burlington Memorial Auditorium 11/02/2007 [FLAC]
  • Bob Dylan and The Band @ Boston Garden 01/14/1974 [FLAC]
  • Jeff Beck and Carlos Santana @ Nagano 6/1/1986 [DVD]
  • Dire Straits: First Album Demos [FLAC]

Let us know what you’ve been listening to this week by with a comment…

Related Content

11 Responses

  1. i caught a neal show in hershey in ’98 (i think) w/ crazy horse. he came out so wasted, (w/ a half-emptied bottle of bourbon in hand) and he kicked a huge burning candle near into the front row…5 or 6 people had to leave due to burns. following t-storms, neal returned half sober to start/finish a terrible night of music. it appears he’s gotten better over the years and I’m siked to hear a review/live show from this tour.

    very much looking forward to the dylan/band, beck/santana, dire straits flacs…

    agreed Gamst, i also feel like GTA should be a premium service. Very nice.

  2. I downloaded one of last month’s Bridge School Benefit concerts, Saturday, Oct. 27 to be precise. I won’t say it was the best Bridge show I’ve been to, it still was a great evening. The taper hooked us up with all the performances (Regina Spektor, Tegan & Sara, My Morning Jacket, John Mayer, Tom Waits & The Kronos Quartet, Neil Young & Jerry Lee Lewis), minus Metallica’s show-closing set since they’re selling it on their site with all proceeds going to the Bridge School. Check it out, hope you all dig it.

    eli

    http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details.php?id=169059

  3. Good to see Bruce gettin some more love around here, well done! The tour debuts have been rolling out nearly every show so far.

  4. For some reason, at home it was slow and would just stop downloading the BS and NY shows. I was (finally) able to download the Bruce show at work…shhhh…don’t tell anyone. It was still really slow, though.

  5. Did something happen with “The Girls in Their Summer Clothes”? It doesn’t show up for some reason.

    Regardless, thanks for posting these! It’s a good way to get ready for when I see both Bruce and Neil when they come to Boston in the next month.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recent Posts

New to Glide

Keep up-to-date with Glide

Twitter