Posts by Ross Warner

The last time this reviewer covered Bruce Springsteen was when he finished his seven fall stops in the Metropolitan area in 2009 with a complete performance of The River. You easily sense from the review at the time that a big part of what made the night so special was the understanding that this was […]

Dark Star Orchestra has “recreated” many Grateful Dead shows throughout its career.  However, it is extremely rare for them to announce (and the audience to know) the concert they are covering beforehand.  Last Friday, they played a replica of the Dead’s final show at the Fillmore East on 4/29/71 to a sold-out Irving Plaza. 

After three (mostly) triumphant shows in Oakland in September, Furthur began its mini-tour of the Northeast in Manhattan last week.  With a New Year’s show and February swing already scheduled, Bobby and Phil have given guitar responsibilities to former DSO frontman John Kadelick for the foreseeable future.  Wednesday, the second of the two shows began with a nice “Stranger,” that was more upbeat than the half-speed version that was unveiled in Oakland.

It’s been a little over a week since Bruce Springsteen returned to the NY Metropolitan area.  After closing down Giants Stadium with two performances each of Born To Run and Born In The U.S.A apiece (but sadly only one of Darkness Of The Edge Of Town), the two Garden shows looked to be even more special.  Earlier that week, it was announced that on the first night, he would play The Wild, The Innocent And The E Street Shuffle and on the second, the entire 20-song double album, The River.  Neither of these had ever been performed in their entirety and the second show looked to be an especially ambitious project, even for The Boss.  Then again, Bruce wouldn’t have tried if he knew he wasn’t up to it.

Expectations ran understandably high for the last-ever concert at Giants Stadium.  After all, the show was added after the third had been billed (and subsequently sold-out) as the “final show.”  We already knew that we would be hearing “Born In The USA” in its entirety once again and that Bruce would play “Wrecking Ball” once again at some point in the set.

The third night of Bruce Springsteen &  The E Street Band’s farewell stand at Giants Stadium had a markedly different tone than the first two.  This was mainly due to the fact that its centerpiece was the first-ever performance of the 1984 album Born In The USA, start to finish.  Even before the “album suite,” the show had a stadium-sized sing-a-long feel.

With the prior Monday’s announcement that Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band would play 1975’s Born To Run in its entirety, you’d think that the element of surprise might be lacking from the opening show of Springsteen’s Giant Stadium farewell run.  But true to form, Bruce reached into his bag of tricks for a brand new song scripted specifically for the evening.

ZZ Top pulled into the Beacon last Friday for a hastily-scheduled one night stand at the Beacon.  When Steven Tyler fell off the stage, their gig opening for Aerosmith on the “summer shed circuit” was scrapped.  Instead, their tour finds them playing some venues, like the 9:30 club in Washington, which would ordinarily be too intimate for a band with their drawing power.  However, “that little ol’ band from Texas” had played the Beacon in ’05 and ’07 and their raunchy brand of border blues has always been a great fit for the venue.

Gov’t Mule ended their summer tour, the last before their By A Thread album is released in the fall, with a monster show at Atlantic City’s Showboat Casino.  

After two "acoustic" shows which you already read about on Hidden Track, Gov't Mule played the first of their annual year-end shows at New York City’s Hammerstein Ballroom on December 30th.  Of course, this was a new venue for Gov’t Mule with the Beacon Theatre being recently renovated, however Warren Haynes immediately made the room his own by opening with “Blind Man In The Dark.”

On July 31, Bruce Springsteen closed out his three-night stand at his "homefield," Giants Stadium, under even more special circumstances than usual.  An overturned tanker truck (sounding like a Springsteen song in itself) wreaked havoc on concert traffic.  Not surprisingly, the Boss compensated for his fans' inconvenience as Springsteen's management put the word out that the show would be pushed back an hour to 9:30.

Rochester's Highland Bowl is a bucolic band shell nestled right outside the city.  It looked like the stage from Yellow Submarine and provided some of the best acoustics around.

Gov’t Mule began their annual New Year's run at the Beacon Theater on Friday December, 28th.  Opening with “Brighter Days,” one of their High & Mighty tunes that usually appears much later in the show, they immediately threw their fans an even bigger curveball with Robert Johnson's “32/20 Blues.”

On stage, Ron Wood and Keith Richards often appear inseparable.  While Sir Mick and The Human Riff may be responsible for creating the bulk of the Stones' massive catalog of songs, Ronnie has served as Keith's guitar  foil while giving those tunes life in concert longer than either Brain Jones or Mick Taylor ever did.

But after seeing Van Halen in concert, without all the overdubs and with a "a little space" between the instruments, you are immediately struck by how great they are musically.  Eddie Van Halen is still a guitar-wielding behemoth. Beyond the quotes of "Magic Bus" and "Dazed And Confused," you could really hear a wide variety of influences in their sound, in  particular the blues and Latin elements.  Who knew that a self-described good-time party band had more to them.

's been almost two weeks since the Saturday Springsteen show in Philadelphia and it hasn't diminished in stature one bit.  As the Magic tour moves on, the setlists will most certainly become more diverse and the performances increasingly stronger.  But this was the first show of the tour when Bruce and the E Street Band turned things up a notch and occupied that space that only they can.

After reading my review of the Allman Brothers Band show we attended just a few weeks ago, my buddy DJ had just one complaint. "They're not going to stretch things out like they do at the Beacon. You just can't expect that." While the ABB may have showed such restraint in New Jersey last month, I am proud to report that Gov't Mule did no such thing as they kicked off their "Mighty High" tour at the Central Park Summerstage on September 6.

During his set opening for the Allmans last week, Bobby seemed to have adjusted to some of the limits imposed on him by age.

Much has changed for the Black Crowes since I last reviewed them for Glide during the first and last shows of their reunion run at Hammerstein Ballroom two years ago.  After reassembling their classic mid-90s lineup (by adding drummer Steve Gorman) during their subsequent homecoming stand in Atlanta, drugs and egos seemingly reared their ugly heads again.

Summers and Copeland claim publicly that they've struck that delicate balance between the acceptance of Sting as the undisputed creative force and providing him the freedom to utilize it, warts and all. That fragile equilibrium was in full display on the very same stage where they officially said goodbye. The results were electrifying enough to remind everyone in attendance why they were so big in the first place.