December 6, 2006

Welcome to the seventh edition of Grousing The Aisles — once again, it’s hump day. Last week I focused solely on Jerry Garcia, so we have two weeks worth of new torrents to catch up on. This week we’ll hit Tea Leaf Green, Billy Joel, My Morning Jacket, Phish, The Radiators, and The Rolling Stones.

Billy Joel 03/15/78 Munich, Germany PRO-SHOT Video(DVD)

Billy Joel was one of my favorite artists growing up. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that every summer I went off to sleepaway camp with a bunch of Jews from Long Island. Joel’s greatest hits album was required listening, and by the time I was in high school I couldn’t listen to Only The Good Die Young without vomiting. Years have passed and I once again have gained an appreciation for the piano man. Not only did he create some of the greatest songs of the late ’70s and early ’80s, he also put together a kick ass band that made his live shows incredible.

In early 1978 Joel had been on the road pretty much nonstop for four years. The band taped this performance for Germany’s Musikladen TV show, and the performance is amazing. The torrent above is for a newly remastered DVD copy of that performance, but nearly all of the songs can be found on YouTube as well…

I didn’t take to Wilco right away the way some of my friends did. For me, I had to discover their greatness on my own terms or it was never

There’s nothing quite like watching a good idea become a cool reality.

About three weeks ago I attended and sang at a Diabetes Research Benefit Concert put on by my good friend, The Otrane. Otrane put together a band for the occasion, fittingly called Pancreas, and they put on an incredible show for the assembled crowd. Otrane called on his friends to sit in on songs he always hoped they would play. One of our friends was Jennifer Hartswick, who has recently been singing with the always in-flux band of Trey Anastasio.

Otrane thought no song can better show off Jen’s incredible range and vibrato than Sweet Child O’ Mine, so they decided to take’r out for a spin. That night, Jen and Pancreas pulled off an amazing version of the Guns N’ Roses classic.

Fast forward two weeks to this Saturday: Jen and her husband Wade, two of my favorite people in the world, entered my apartment for a little pre-game hang before the second night of Umphrey’s McGee‘s run at the Nokia Theater. Wade, Jen, Otrane, and our crew of rabid Umphreaks gathered, when someone asked Jen if she would be singing that night with the band. Jen told us that on the subway ride over she had been thinking about asking to sing Sweet Child O’ Mine instead of whatever they had previously agreed on. Otrane’s face lit up like a Christmas tree and the assembled troops agreed this was an amazing idea.

The first concert of the two-night run was just an average Umphrey’s show, which had its moments — hey, a mediocre Umphrey’s show is still on par with the best other bands of the genre have to offer. But we still entered the venue on that second night with high hopes, and we didn’t even have confirmation on what Jen would be playing with them — our crew has a firm “We don’t know want to know what’s going to be played” policy.

The band took the stage for night two and it became clear right away that this was going to be the keeper, this was going to be a serious show…