Posts by Luke Sacks

One of the the things I miss most about Phish is summer tour. In addition to the music, summer tour always provided an opportunity to see parts of the country I never would have if not for the concerts. Just take a few days off from work, hop in the car and the hit the road. Next thing you know you are in the middle of nowhere with 15,000 other fans at 4 pm on a Wednesday drinking a Sierra Nevada.

For this week’s B List, I put together a quick list of four cities that I never would have stepped foot in if not for Phish Summer Tour. Let’s take a look…

George, WA
July 16, 17, 1998
July 12, 13, 2003

One of the most beautiful sights I ever witnessed on Phish tour was this incredible venue situated just above the Columbia River in Central Washington. Chances are if you’re in George, you’re there for a concert cause there ain’t a whole lot going on otherwise. The venue offers breathtaking views of the Columbia River, as well as the surrounding areas. Both sets of shows I saw at the Gorge were great, including being front row in front of Page for the 7-16-98 show, but the venue itself was the true star. On-site camping, soft grass, and plenty of fan vendors (who aren’t harrassed by security) made this one of the most desirable venues in the country. If you were willing to make the trek to the Gorge, you were not disappointed.

READ ON for more of Luke’s list of out the way locales…

There are nights that change your life that you are conscious of as they are happening. Some you realize the next day or a few days later. Looking back, April 18, 1994 was a night that my life changed forever and it took me 14 years to realize just how important it was. It’s the day I walked out of my dorm room down South College Avenue and into the Bob Carpenter Center on the campus of the University of Delaware for my first Phish show.

Some dude, fittingly named Jimmy, that lived on my floor literally walked down the hall handing out tickets to anyone that wanted one and in a giant pack, we were off. At that point, I knew as much about Phish as your average Northeast Corridor college student in 1994 – the drummer wore a dress and played a vacuum, they were sort of like the Grateful Dead but I wasn’t sure how and they had a catchy song called Bouncing Around the Room. But the legend of their concerts had already begun to spread and I knew if nothing else, it was a great chance to get wasted with a lot of other people.

It turned out to be a fuck of a lot more than that.

On paper, my first show boasted your typical 1994 setlist. There were some oddities – a Mike’s Song with no Weekapaug Groove, a dedication of Ya Mar by Trey to his now wife Sue. But the music was mindblowing to a guy who had never heard it before. The tone that Trey squeezed out of that guitar, the jazzy way Page would insert himself into the mix, Gordon thumping away in his bright green jumpsuit, and that guy in the dress behind the kit holding it together with precision and power. And the overall combination of humor and seriously that always underlined Phish’s approach to performing. I can still close my eyes and see my view of the stage that night. I recall standing there during 2001 with the lights going and the music rocking and thinking I was seeing something special. I remember the bizarreness of My Friend My Friend and the rocking cover of Good Times Bad Times. I remember almost everything about that night.

READ ON for more of Luke’s thoughts on the return of the Phish…

Don’t you just love it when you spend the morning hunkered down over your computer trying to score concert tickets only to find out a few hours later that a second or third date was added?

Concert tickets are damn expensive these days and scoring good seats not only means shelling out a few hundred bucks, but also putting in the time and effort to secure the tickets. The days of lining up outside a venue or visiting the local ticketmaster outlet are long gone. These days it’s all internet. So when 9:55 am rolls around, the refreshing begins and the nonsensical passwords are typed in at a furious pace.

My question is this – how does adding additional dates work? Are these dates booked all along and promoters just wait till one night has sold out to announce the second? Are the second nights just on some kind of a “hold” until the first night has sold out? Probably some kind of combination of that and more.

READ ON for more of Luke’s editorial on adding dates…

When Phish fans get together and talk about a potential reunion, every detail is open for debate and analysis. What should they open and close with? Will Trey bring back the Pepe Le Pew t-shirt? How pudgy will Fishman be?

[Photo via Phish.com]

When it comes to the venue, clearly “Brad Sands’ Wedding” is not a common choice. But the four members certainly owed it to their longtime man-behind-the-scenes to reunite for a few jams on his special day.

For those of us that were left off the guest lists, here’s a list of five venues (and one bonus) Phish should hit on its inevitable Reunion Tour…

1. Madison Square Garden, New York, NY

The world’s most famous arena has seen it all. From the Rangers winning the Stanley Cup after an eternity of heartbreak to legendary boxing matches when boxing mattered to the Knicks actually being a decent team that you could root for without feeling dirty. But as someone who grew up in the NYC area and has been to the Garden countless times for major events, I can tell you that there was no feeling like walking around and into that place on the night of a Phish show. The random slow-build of cheers that seemed to start hours before lights out could be heard up and down 7th and 8th Avenue.

READ ON for more venues where we’d like to see post-Breakup Phish…

Legendary rocker Neil Young announced this week that Wilco will be one of the opening acts for his upcoming North American tour. On paper, this sounds like a truly wonderful night of music with two acts that, at times, seem very similar.

There are several common threads between Wilco and Young, including Tweedy and Company performing at Young’s Farm Aid fundraiser back in 2005. In an interview around that time promoting the event, Tweedy listed Young’s Live Rust as his top live album ever. Tweedy also covered Young’s Too Far Gone at several of his first solo shows and included a Roll Another Number lyrical reference in Passenger Side, a Wilco classic and fan favorite.

With Wilco and Young in the same building for seven North American dates, performing on the same stage, the mind has to wander to possible collaborations.

Here are a few suggestions:

Young’s Powderfinger with Nels Cline

Cline, who often employs that fractured-chord sound that Young and Crazy Horse perfected, has gone from newcomer to Conquering Lord in Wilco World. His shredding guitar and frenetic fingerwork has become as vital to Wilco’s sound as Tweedy’s raspy voice, calculated lyrics and witty banter. Cline would simply demolish Powderfinger, one of the great Neil Young classics, that includes several solos that Cline could infuse with his unique sound.

READ ON for more Wilco/Neil Young sit-in recommendations from Luke…

If a Wilco concert were a storm, Jeff Tweedy would be the rain – the key ingredient that defines the makeup of the event. Without rain, there isn’t much of a storm. But thunder and lightning, in this case drummer Glenn Kotche and guitar wiz Nels Cline respectively, make the storm a hell of a lot more exciting.

On a gorgeous night in Brooklyn on Wednesday, a Wilco monsoon blew through McCarren Park Pool with the band on top of its game and clicking on all cylinders.

Tweedy, in a jovial mood from the outset, led his troops through 27 songs, a longer set than most of the shows on this tour. Weaving in the Total Pros horn section throughout the night, Wilco tore through mostly upbeat numbers, forsaking the lion’s share of their slower ballads for the night, until they ran into the venue’s 10 pm curfew. READ ON for much more on last night’s Wilco show…

Yesterday Scotty gave us the first part of his three part Newport review, but Luke Sacks also attended Saturday’s festivities and offers his opinion:

The Newport Folk Festival holds a special place in the history of rock and roll and conjures up some great imagery. After all, Bob Dylan plugged in and changed the course of music forever at the festival back in 1965. Dylan was almost booed off the stage during his performance that year but since then, the music landscape, and that of the festival, which has been around since 1959, have both changed drastically.

[Photo by Drew Granchelli]

This year’s festival was heavy on the rock but light on the folk as far as the bigger acts went. Aside from some rock musicians playing solo acoustic sets of their electric songs, there weren’t many folk elements to be found in the music. There was plenty of mellow acts – She and Him, Richie Havens, Son Volt and the Cowboy Junkies to name a few – but no big folk name. READ ON for more…

New concert venues are popping up around the country like strippers that have slept with A-Rod. Some of these new venues will be great and some will, of course, suck.

So what makes a good venue? Obviously it’s hard to compare an 15,000 seat amphitheater to a 1,000-person club. But there are certain elements that are crucial to fan happiness no matter what the size of the venue.

Here is a quick list of suggestions to keep the average concert-goer happy:

1. Have the best sound possible

Seems kind of obvious…but Terminal 5 – I am looking at you. While some musicians are fun to look at and light shows are wonderful, we are there for the sound. So when it comes to setting up the venue, the sound should be the top priority. Whatever it takes, get the sound right. Don’t roof the floor section with a giant balcony that will muddy the sound. Don’t line the walls with substances that will cause echoes or reverb. Don’t just stack the speakers wherever there is room. If you don’t get the sound right, you’ve blown it before you’ve sold the first ticket. Also don’t blow our doors off. The show should be loud…but not so loud that my ears are stinging for 12 hours afterwards. Find that nice zone where it’s plenty loud but not painful to the ear. The 9:30 Club in Washington DC has this concept down perfectly.

READ ON to find out what else Luke looks for in a new venue…

After attacking the crappy music played at stadiums and arenas last week, I figured this would be a good time to talk about some music that brings joy instead of cringes. So as you crank up the BBQ and break out the Roman Candles for the Fourth of July, here are five albums that are bound to make you smile:

1. Juno Soundtrack

I defy anyone to listen to the Moldy Peaches’ Anyone Else But You (which is also covered by the stars of the movie – Michael Cera and Ellen Page) or Barry Louis Polisar’s All I Want is You and not feel good. Throw in classic rock gems such as Velvet Underground’s I’m Sticking With You, the Kinks rocking Well Respected Man and Mott the Hoople’s cover of All the Young Dudes and you’re bound to be smiling. Good movie taboot. READ ON for more of Luke’s list of smile-inducing albums…

The squeak of the sneakers at a basketball game…the calls of “peanuts” or “ice cold beer here” at a baseball game…the clack of the puck on the tape…

The sounds you used to hear throughout the course of a sporting event were the common noises from the field and the occasional organ ditty. If a team really wanted to go out on a limb, maybe they’d pipe in the beat of We Will Rock You once in a while.

These days, it’s more like a bad iPod playlist serving as the background music to our sporting events.

Most stadiums and arenas, which are now closer to shopping malls than sports venues, rely heavily on blasting (usually crappy) music and crowd cues to generate “energy.” READ ON for more of Luke’s editorial on music at the ballpark…

There are so many Wilco videos of various quality at YouTube that it’s hard to sort through the schwag to find the glorious gems. We’ve asked our resident Wilco expert Luke Sacks to share his favorite Wilco vids with the rest of the class.

5. Remember the Mountain Bed with Andrew Bird – 2/18/08

Andrew Bird joins the band on stage at the Riv and infuses a class Mermaid Avenue song with some elegant violin.

4. California Stars

From the now defunct Sessions on W. 54th and featuring the old old old Wilco lineup with Jay Bennett and Ken Coomer. Bennett, as much as he looks like Drexel from True Romance, deserves at least one mention on this list. Bennett may have been an asshole but he was a key part of Wilco for a long time. He twangs it up a bit on this version.

READ ON for three more killer Wilco videos available at YouTube…

Dear Kevin:

Hope this letter finds you well and deeply buried under stacks of CDs trying to find the best choice for the next Live Phish release.

With all due respect to Trey’s upcoming June release, I wanted to take a few moments and suggest a few gems for the next Live Phish installment. Trey’s releases are fine but as far as generating excitement and that “I can’t wait to hear THAT” feeling, they are…meh at best. You don’t exactly hear things like, “Man, I simply must have crispy copies of that raging Mud City.”

Through the years, Live Phish has put some truly magical archival shows out for our enjoyment, including 12-29-97, the incredible Island Run in 1998, the 1996 mayhem in Vegas and the back-to-back winter 1994 shows from Olympia and Salem. We thank you profusely for those.

READ ON to see Luke’s five suggestions for future Live Phish releases…

Springtime means several things: the return of flip flops and sundresses, baseball season in full swing, margaritas, outside seating at restaurants, playing hookey from work and busting out music that always sounds better with the sun shining.

Just like whiskey tastes better in the winter, certain artists just feel more like “spring.” Here are some favorite springtime artists and some recommendations for that sun-drenched day playlist:

The Allman Brothers Band – The Allman Brothers Band and springtime always seem to go great together. Back when there was an actual spring in April, the Allman’s Beacon run was an annual celebration. Unfortunately this year, April in New York City has consisted of about 3 spring-like days total and the Allmans had to cancel their Beacon dates due to Greg Allman’s illness.

1. Blue Sky – Live at Jones Beach 1990
2. Jessica – Live in Gainesville 1982
3. Dreams – Live at the Syria Mosque 1970
4. Ain’t Wastin’ Time No More – Live in Macon 1973
5. Little Martha – Performed by Leo Kottke

READ ON for four more artists with a certain spring in their step…

I’m only 34 years old but there are certain occasions where I feel very old. Last month, my wife and I went ice skating in Central Park. As the young whipper-snappers zipped around the ice and bounced back from falling with a smile and a shake (all as I lay there holding my throbbing knee and aching back), I felt old. When I can’t stay up till midnight on a Friday night, I feel old. And when I look at the Billboard music chart, I really feel old.

This week’s Top 5 songs are:

1. Leona Lewis – Bleeding Love
2. Lil Wayne Featuring Static Major – Lollipop
3. Jordin Sparks Duet with Chris Brown – No Air
4. Usher Featuring Young Jeezy – Love In This Club
5. Mariah Carey – Touch My Body

I have to confess – I haven’t heard any of those songs once. And other than Mariah Carey; I couldn’t pick any of the artists out of a lineup. I don’t watch American Idol. I gave up on MTV 10 years ago and I never listen to the radio. So I guess it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that the top songs in the country are foreign to me.

Read on to find out who topped the charts 20 years ago…

Two weeks ago, we took a look at some Classic Rock albums that don’t get enough love. This week, we’ll take a peak at five of the best Live Classic Rock albums. A few disclaimers before we get started: Only official, live releases are included. Nothing more than a double album was considered. In other words, no box sets. Now that you know the rules, grab your lighter and muzzle the chants for Freebird for our Classic Rock Encore:

5. Neil Young – Live Rust

You get the best of both Neils on this collection pulled from a San Francisco performance in late 1978. Young’s calming voice and mellow mind is showcased in the opening tracks, including Sugar Mountain, I am a Child, Comes a Time and After the Gold Rush. Then his fractured-chord, straight ahead rock and roll takes over. When You Dance I Can Really Love kicks off the party as Young slowly builds to a trifecta of powerhouses – Powderfinger, Cortez the Killer and Cinnamon Girl.

Prior to the classic The Needle and the Damage Done, you can clearly hear a serious storm move in. Stagehands worry about guitars and Young leads the crowd in a chant of “No Rain!” I recall hearing a legend about that chant serving as inspiration to Blind Melon’s bumble bee friendly single of the same name. True or not, this album is certainly inspiring enough to make it believable.
Read on for more of Luke’s list…

If you are compiling a list of the top five greatest classic rock albums of all time, chances are you’d end up with these five albums in some order: The Who’s Quadrophenia, Led Zeppelin IV, The Rolling Stones Exile on Main Street, Pink Floyd’s DSOTM and the Beatles’ Revolver. If those aren’t your top five choices, they have to at least be in your top 10. If they aren’t, find a time machine and warp yourself back to when Scott Muni was still the voice of WNEW.

All of the albums mentioned above are superbly crafted works of art that represent the cream of the crop of the classic rock genre. But just a small notch below that thick cream at the top of the list, idles the second tier of classic rock studio album respect – a group that deserves more than just an occasional spin on some Sirius station that boasts Boston, Kansas and Bon Jovi among its “classic rock” artists.

Without taking anything away from the top dogs, and leaving live albums out of the mix, here are five classic rock albums that don’t get the credit they deserve:

1. Rush: Moving Pictures

Most people have a “love it or hate it” relationship with Rush largely because of Geddy Lee’s high-pitched voice. But this album is pure rock and roll. The album opens with the thick drumming of Tom Sawyer, probably Rush’s best known song. The most underrated song about a car ever follows and provides a nice lead-in to the instrumental assault, and Neil Peart concert explosion, known as YYZ (named after the airport code in Toronto). Limelight, with Alex Lifeson’s springy guitar lick, and the dark and down Witch Hunt are also great classic rock songs.

Read on for four more underrated classic rock albums…

Saying there are an abundance of music festivals these days is like saying Britney Spears kind of lost it for a while there…it’s a major understatement.

It seems like every day there is a new festival with a new name and a new promoter in a different part of the world. The annual staples – Bonnaroo, Austin City Limits, New Orleans’ JazzFest, Lollapalooza – are being challenged by newer festivals with slick names that can draw big name acts to sites near major cities making travel in and out easier than ever. Nothing ruins a festival experience faster than poor organization in terms of getting fans in and out.

It used to be one or two musical festivals a year would dot the landscape of the concert scene. But this year, it’s looked more like an urban jungle with festivals popping up everywhere. This isn’t a bad thing as more festivals means more chances for fans to see more music they probably wouldn’t pay to see on its own. At a festival, you can check out multiple bands throughout any given day and skip the bands you don’t want to see. Read on for more…

No matter how much success a musician has found or how many sold out shows that person has played over the years, he or she should never forget what got them to the top of the mountain: the fans. The hard-working, 9 am – 5 pm fans who pay good money to attend shows, buy merchandise and, at least before the digital revolution, buy albums.

On Saturday night, my wife and I trekked up to the United Palace Theater in New York City to see Van Morrison, an icon and legend in the music world. The man has put out enough albums to fill a CD rack and has played the best venues around the world for the last 30 years. He knows what he is and the fans know too. He’s a musical genius. A guy with a voice so smooth and silky, it can hypnotize you. He’s funky and jazzy and has one of the most distinct voices in all of music. He is almost mystical. But he’s also clueless.

Fans, including my wife and I, shelled out anywhere from $80 to $350 for tickets and fees to see Morrison perform for a mere 92 minutes on Saturday night. The set was mind-blowing. A fusion of jazz, funk and rock with just enough lullaby to melt you into your seat, Morrison crafted a setlist of mostly newer material and selections from his forth-coming album filled with life and eclectic punch. It was a wonderful set of music. But it wasn’t enough. With a ticket time of 7:30 SHARP (The word SHARP actually appeared on the ticket), Morrison was off the stage and probably on his way to a nice steak dinner before most New York City concerts even get started. It was 9:02 pm and he was already giving a half-hearted bow to the crowd. Read on to find out why Luke thinks Van isn’t the Man…

There is a reason almost every band on the planet breaks out a cover song now and then. Realistically, no band forms and instantly has original music. So it must perfect the works of others to see if it might come together as a unit. Or at least make some good noise.

And beyond that, good covers are just fun.

For Phish, the masters of musical mimicry, cover songs were part of the fabric of the band from the very start. From well-know takes that appeared in the regular rotation, such as Zeppelin’s Good Times Bad Times, Stevie Wonder’s Boogie on Reggae Woman and Edgar Winter Group’s Frankenstein, to rare treats like Robert Palmer’s Sneaking Sally Through the Alley, the Velvet Underground’s Cool it Down and The Mighty Diamond’s Have Mercy, covers were taken seriously and seriously enjoyed by the band and its fans.

But with so many songs and so many covers in the repertoire, and the somewhat sudden end of the band’s run as kings of the Jamband world, several one-timers were left dangling and deserving of another try.

Read on for five Phish one-timers that should have seen the light of day again…and someday, maybe they will.

Mastering the Ticketmaster.com process is not something that comes easy. It takes cunning, honing, dry runs and live-action experience. It takes patience and dedication. But for years, the effort and constant refreshing was worth it when you pulled up tickets for the show.

When Phish was touring towards the end of its career, I was at my ticketmaster zenith. I masterfully maneuvered tickets for the reunion show at MSG, the subsequent shows at Hampton and scored pavilion seats left and right. On-sale dates, re-releases, it didn’t matter. I was on it. I never got shut out. As long as you put in the effort, you were rewarded.

But in the recent past, something has happened that has made getting tickets more of a crapshoot then ever before. I don’t know exactly what it was, but I have a hunch it has something to do with the 12 presales and various “auctions” that now accompany Ticketmaster on-sales.

On Monday, I slipped back into “Ticketmaster Master” mode to grab two tickets for my wife and I to check out Robert Plant and Alison Krauss at the WaMu Theater at Madison Square Garden, a venue that claims on its website to have, “a flexible seating capacity ranging from 3,300 to 7,000.” When I pulled up the Event Page a few minutes early to do a little scouting – like a good Ticketmaster.com veteran does – I noticed no fewer than three presales had already taken place. One for some fan club and two more for Amex card holders. Oh, and something called the “Hot Seat Package” that apparently starts at $304.50. But hey – it does include a merchandise gift and a special laminate. That’s gotta be worth the extra $200, right? Just ask the people who signed up for the Police fan club what their “special gift” was and if it was worth the extra cost. Read on for more of Luke’s rant…