… a taste for progressive leftfield electronic music? Does it get better then that? Today’s edition of Pullin’ ‘Tubes features The Bad Plus‘s live take on Aphex Twin‘s IDM classic,
For once in my life, I didn’t get exactly what I wanted at a concert and still walked out elated. In lieu of my desired throwback to nonstop ’70s funk from start to finish, Stevie Wonder instead turned in one of those legendary, well-rounded shows we’ll be talking about for decades. Saturday was mastery incarnate.
Photos by JanesAddiction
Take away the awe-inspiring Tony Bennett sit-in on For Once In My Life. Strip out Prince’s cool-as-fuck raunchy rhythm guitar cameo during Superstition. Stevie’s return to Madison Square Garden as a headliner for the first time in 11 years needed no celebrity frills — along with an eight-piece, three-singer band, Wonder played a monster two-and-a-half hour set filled with every possible hit.
The show was a bit more mellow, somber and emotional than I’d have preferred, but one thing is certain: That motherfucker can still play and sing as well as any time in his musical history. Close your eyes during Golden Lady or Too High and you’d think it’s 1974 and he’s touring behind Innervisions. His voice is still as powerful as ever, his personality as sharp as ever, his music downright timeless.
Sure I thought the show started out slow and that his backup band was the type you’d see at a reception celebrating a boy from the Goldstein or Schwartz clans becoming a man, but 150 straight minutes of Stevie fucking Wonder begets a huge smile from this jerk on his way out of the venue. Also, I now know that “God is Good” (as seen here during Saturday’s Master Blaster), and you can’t put a price on that. In lieu of continuing with one of them there proper reviews, I thought I’d turn to some non-pertinent news and notes for youse:
1. Every time the house lights go down and a band takes the stage, I generally hope the show begins with a balls-out rocker, a top-drawer opener eager to fuck me right in the ear. Stevie on this night didn’t disappoint, treating the crowd to a solemn speech that started with a moment of silence for 9/11 and an emotional anecdote about the loss of his mother. In a word, rager. Fucking rager.
2. I keed, I keed. It was moving. But said speech did contain a moment of “Oh na she di’int” hilarity. Stevie mentioned the date “May 31, 2006” and received a loud, female “WOOO!” that reverberated throughout the self-proclaimed world’s most famous arena, a scream similar to the one produced when an artist says he just came from “Cleveland” and an Ohioan perks up. Only Stevie immediately followed that noise with the words “That was the day I lost my mother,” which drew an audible “Ooooh” from the capacity crowd at this girl’s faux pas.
3. I rarely catch political acts of any kind, and whenever an artist makes a political statement or preaches (to the choir or otherwise), I generally take that moment to take a bat hit and tune out. Stevie took the opportunity in the third song of the night, Visions, to belt out a sermon, highlighted by the repeated phrases “I can’t believe it” and “That’s unacceptable.” He touched on hate and war and the obvious things that are unacceptable, though he lost me when he said something like “Everyone should have the right… pause … to insurance.” To car insurance? Life insurance? Workman’s comp? His mouth just moved faster than his brain on that one, methinks. And that’s unacceptable. Read on for more nonsense…
Dan’s sitting on a wicked Herbie Hancock trio show, but as we await that in the next edition of Stormy Mondays, we continue with our incessant nostalgia… This week’s feast
Apparently you can go home again — the Neville Brothers will return to the traditional closing spot at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival they held for more than a decade. Strangely, this marks the first time Aaron, Art, Charles and Cyril Neville will perform in their hometown since Hurricane Katrina.
That news may be a few days old, but we thought it interesting due to the non-relationship between the city and the Brothers since Katrina. And Cyril’s made comments about the lack of a viable music scene at times when everyone else wants to fellate the fallen city. “People thought there was a music scene in New Orleans – there wasn’t,” Cyril told the Chicago Sun-Times. “You worked two times a year: Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest. The only musicians I knew who made a living playing music in New Orleans were Kermit Ruffins and Pete Fountain. Everyone else had a day job or had to go on tour.” Now for some non-NOLA news:
Finally, Bob Lefsetz makes some great points about the high ticket prices for the upcoming Winwood/Clapton shows at MSG that went on sale this morning…
Master collaborator James Lavelle has arisen again as UNKLE, releasing UNKLE’s third album, War Stories, after a four-year hiatus since Never, Never, Land. Unsurprisingly, given that UNKLE is the work of a multi-person collaborative effort, War Stories is a mixed bag of quality tracks and songs that will be gone from your recollection as soon as they end.
Rose Hill Drive’s performance set reached a frenzied conclusion, before a dwindling crowd. The threesome enganged in more free-form improvisation than their previous visit to this same venue back in May of this year: recall the instrumental conflagrations of Cream in their heyday, if you would, and relish the self-renewing aspect of great rock and roll.
Foo Fighters were joined onstage by Kaki King Sunday night as the band wrapped up their UK tour at the 02 Arena in London. The American guitarist made a surprise appearance with
Minneapolis four-piece Tapes ‘N Tapes have completed work on their new record, which is due out next spring from XL Recordings. The sessions, with The Flaming Lips and Sleater-Kinney producer
