ERIC CLAPTON New York City - October 7, 2018 Concert Review with videos

I had always kind of felt I missed the boat on seeing Eric Clapton in concert. Sure he comes to NYC just about every year for a pair of shows at Madison Square Garden, but when I've look at the setlists I see too many blues covers and too few of his hits.  I dig Slowhand, but not a disciple who worships everything he does.

But when tickets went on sale for his pair of shows this year, I decided it was time to see the guitar legend some call God and picked up tickets for the second show on Sunday, October 7, 2018.

Our seats were in the very last row of section 226 but we had a nice clear shot of the stage and caught the very end of Jimmie Vaughan's set as we took our seats.  I was amazed how much of the audience were already seated.  Vaughan, and Gary Clark Jr. who would come on after him, both played to an almost fully seated enthusiastic sold out crowd.  

Clapton came out a little after nine and played a 14 song set lasting over 90 minutes.

The set started with a trio of blues covers starting with J.J. Cale's "Somebody's Knocking" followed by "Key to the Highway", then Willie Dixon's "I'm Your Hoochie Coochie Man."  

The immediate thing I noticed and was pleased with was how great Clapton's voice sounded - solid and strong.  The blues set was fine and each song followed a pattern of a few verses, then a piano break, then an organ break and then guitar before closing out the song. Clapton's top notch band includes guitarist Doyle Bramhall II and I have to say I was surprised how many of the leads he played throughout the night, but Clapton was always given a spot to shine during every tune.

The crowd response was strong during this opening trio but the first huge cheers of the night came during the next song, his hit cover of the Wailers' "I Shot The Sheriff."  Here's the video I shot of it below.

Next up Clapton took a seat and treated everyone to an acoustic set starting with "Driftin' Blues", probably the biggest "beer run" moment of the night.  Clapton then started up his cover of "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out" which at first had the crowd cheering loudly and clapping along as it appeared many thought this was his acoustic cover of "Layla" as the intro sounded similar, the clap-a-long stopped as the lyrics kicked in.

"Layla" would actually be next and when the crowd realized that's what it actually was this time, the clapping and then singing along was back getting one of the biggest responses of the night.  I've never been a huge fan of this unplugged reworking, but it was nice to hear a song I knew.  "Tears in Heaven" was next and he delivered a solid version that folks loved, just not one of my personal favorites.

At this point the show was more than half over and it was enjoyable; a subdued toe tapper and honestly more or less what I expected.

The acoustic instruments were then put away and the show finally kicked into that higher gear I was hoping for but didn't really expect when the band kicked into the one Cream cover of the night with "White Room."  Here's my video below.

"Wonderful Tonight" followed and it sounded great.  I was actually surprised by the crowd reaction in that it was fine, but for such a big radio hit, not has loud as I would have thought.

The crowd response I was expecting came next as soon as Clapton kicked into the opening riff of "Crossroads."  It was a great rendition with Clapton tearing it up.  The band then stuck with the Robert Johnson catalog with a long cover of "Little Queen of Spades" giving every band member a space to shine.

The main set ended with an amazing powerful rockin' version of "Cocaine" which had most of the crowd on their feet.

Clapton and band came back joined by openers Jimmie Vaughan and Gary Clark Jr. for an encore of Joe Cocker's "High Time We Went", giving Paul Carrack the lead vocal duties.

Overall I would say this show exceeded my expectations.  A few of the performances, especially "Cocaine," I feel were as good as I could ever have hoped to have seen.  Clapton looked great, sounded great and at times showed he could still rip out a solo like few others.

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Iron Maiden - Madison Square Garden, NYC - March 30, 2016

There's something special about Iron Maiden pre-show festivities when they play Madison Sqaure Garden in New York City and this past Wednesday, March 30, 2016 was no different.



Including myself, we had five of our crew coming down, catching the 3:54 out of Poughkeepsie and arriving at Grand Central Station a little before six.  The train was packed by the time it rolled in and it appeared at least half the passengers who got off were headed over to the Garden.  We decided to walk because the weather was perfect.



We usually hit up the Blarney Rock, but thought about checking out Stout right next door as there was going to be a big crew of the M3 gang there, but it was overly packed and the Rock still had a little breathing room at that point and only a two person deep wait at the bar.  I shall have to wait a few more weeks to drink merrily with my M3 friends down in Maryland.



The jukebox was playing non stop Maiden and as the drinks flowed the sing a longs grew louder. Here's a little "Flight of Icarus" for your listening non-pleasure:

I think there's so few Metal bands left that are big enough to play the Garden (Hell who's left?  Sabbath just did their last two there...other than Maiden, probably just Metallica who hasn't played there since 2009), that when one comes to town, everyone wants to celebrate.  



You share stories of past shows, talk about hopes for that night's set list and raise your pints and sing some more in unison.  Here's a little "Run To The Hills" to make your eardrums bleed (I promise this is the last one...but yes I have a few more).  I apologize as deciding if I want to keep the camera vertical or horizontal during the length of the recording evidently becomes a major challenge after a few Guinness.

We decided to head in about 8:15 so we had time to hit the merchandise booth and to our dismay, all the shirts made specifically for this particular show were already sold out.  I heard it featured the Statue of Liberty (and of course Eddie) and was super cool.  Oh well, next time perhaps perhaps one less drink/song at the bar.



Maiden came on at about 8:45 or 8:50 and honestly I've seen at least a dozen write-ups of the show already so I'll be brief and just share my photos and video I took of "Iron Maiden" which ended the main set.  



For my tastes it was a little too much new album when so many classics were left off the set, but I knew this going in and honestly that's pretty typical for Maiden when they are promoting a new album - they like to play the new stuff like any band does.  



The classics we did get were great and some cool deep cuts that hadn't been played in decades like "Children of the Damned" and "Powerslave" were excellent additions on this tour.



The stage show was killer.  Multiple different Eddie appearances.  The musicianship was amazing.  Bruce's voice was fantastic.  



The set was basically just about 2 hours and was made up of these songs:

If Eternity Should Fail
Speed of Light
Children of the Damned
Tears of a Clown
The Red and the Black
The Trooper
Powerslave
Death or Glory
The Book of Souls
Hallowed Be Thy Name
Fear of the Dark
Iron Maiden (Video Below)

Encore:
Number of the Beast
Blood Brothers
Wasted Years

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Jack White / Run The Jewels (with Zack de la Rocha) - Madison Square Garden NYC January 30, 2015

Not a whole lot to say about this show.  If you're a fan of Jack White, you probably listened to it live via the Sirius XM broadcast or found it online after the fact.  If that's the case, I was wondering if those listening live at home were wondering what the hell Jack was talking about when he was thanking his special guests including Zack de la Rocha since he never joined White on stage.

Jack had Run The Jewels open the show and since it was announced that the live broadcast would start at 9pm, everyone knew exactly what time they could hit up the local bars without missing anything.  Well they missed something pretty cool.

Run The Jewels came on right at 8:00pm and I would guess about 10% of the sold out crowd saw their set.  I'll be honest, we almost missed it too.  The plan was definitely to have another hour worth of drinks in one of the local establishments, but we couldn't find that right mix of crowd and music/jukebox so we headed in a few minutes before eight.

I didn't know much about Run The Jewels other than the recent announcement that they would be releasing a remixed version of their album made with cat meow's.  I checked out two songs on youtube one of which had the intriguing title of "Close Your Eyes (And Count To Fuck)"

Well eight songs and about a half hour into their set, they broke that one out.  I was doing the nice buzz head bob when they announced Zach de la Rocha of Rage Against the Machine who came out about midway in the song.

First of all Zack looked and sounded great and it just makes you wonder why isn't he doing something on a regular basis.  I first saw Rage Against The Machine at Lollapalooza in the summer of '93, but the blow away factor happened on December 1 of that year when they did a tour with Cypress Hill co-headlining (and Funkdoobiest and the amazing Seven Year Bitch opening).  The show was so great all around that we drove to CT a few days later to catch it again.

Other than that, I last saw Zack live with Rage at Woodstock '99 where they were really good, but they were following Limp Bizkit who had just about started a riot and I always felt they held back a bit knowing they could have more or less blown the place up if they wanted to.

I wasn't able to catch any of the few reunion shows since and hard to say if we'll ever have another chance, but Zack needs to be out there.  Those few in attendance at MSG a week and a half ago would definitely "Testify" to that. (yeah sorry...I tried, but I had to go there).

So anyway...that was really cool.  Run The Jewels also had two different guest guitarists join them, but I couldn't catch their names and in reviewing the photos I didn't recognize them.  If anyone knows who they were, let me know and if you want I'll post some more pics.

So there you go...as for Jack White's set, I'll put the set list below if you haven't seen it yet, but I'd say go check it out and give it a listen for yourself, it's easy to find online.  It was a great show and I've posted a few photos below as well (click any of them to super size).  The first time I saw Jack was with Meg in 2002 at the Birch Hill Nite Club in NJ on the White Stripes' White Blood Cells tour...he was fantastic then and has been every time I've seen him since. On this current tour he has an incredible five piece backing band (Lillie Mae Rische on violin/fiddle and vocals, Dominic John Davis on bass, Fats Kaplin on a plethora of instruments, Dean Fertita on keyboards and Daru Jones on piano) that easily keep up with the made up as he went along setlist with numerous audibles to the band as the show went on.  

The highlight of the show for me was the end of the main set (an amazing "Ball and Biscuit") then opening the encore set with special guest Q-Tip of A Tribe Called Quest guesting on "The Black Bat Licorice" into a cover of "Excursions" the opening track off A Tribe Called Quest's classic 1991 album "The Low End Theory".

While those there for the opening were all wishing for a Jack/Zack collaboration, this was quite the consolation prize.

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Setlist:

Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground

High Ball Stepper

Lazaretto

Hotel Yorba

Temporary Ground

Cannon

Broken Boy Soldier

Cannon (reprise)

Love Interruption

We're Going To Be Friends

Three Women

Black Math (intro into)

Top Yourself

Ball and Biscuit

Encore:

The Black Bat Licorice (with Q-Tip of A Tribe Called Quest)

Excursions (A Tribe Called Quest cover)

Sixteen Saltines

Astro

Steady, As She Goes

Would You Fight For My Love?

Just One Drink

Blunderbuss

Seven Nation Army

Motley Crue - Madison Square Garden, NYC - October 28, 2014 Live Concert Review and Photos

If you'd like to see the review and photos of Alice Cooper's opening set for this show, click here.  Otherwise when we last left off, the last chords of "School's Out" faded and the lights in Madison Square Garden went up and we had about a 30 minute wait for Motley Crue...but let's back up slightly...

So as we headed into the Garden I looked up and took this shot announcing tonight's show was sold out.  I would say it was close, but it didn't appear completely sold out, two of our crew actually picked up tickets late the night before, but hell close enough for rock n roll.

Motley Crue were my first favorite band.  I got into them just as "Shout at The Devil" was released and just as I had become a teenager.  It was the glory days of MTV and you could catch "Looks That Kill" or "Too Young To Fall In Love" (still one of my favorite videos ever...the kung fu...or dare I call it kung crue...scenes in the vid are awesome) on a regular basis.  I bought every issue of Hit Parader, Circus, Faces, Metal Edge, etc etc and Crue remained a favorite throughout my teenage years.

To this day I still feel "Shout At The Devil" is one of those rare perfect albums without a bad cut and is easily in my opinion Crue's best album ever.  A close second would be their debut "Too Fast For Love."

Then they put us to the test with "Theatre of Pain."  I actually was watching "That Metal Show" this weekend and they had Vince on and asked him his least favorite Crue album and I was surprised to hear him say it was a tie between "Generation Swine" and "Theatre of Pain."  He actually said it was an album of filler tunes except for "Home Sweet Home" and "Smokin In The Boys Room."  I couldn't believe Vince felt the same way I have for all these years (although I do dig "Louder Than Hell" which is a holdover from their "Too Fast For Love" Days...but man do I hate "Bad Boy Boogie").  But anyway, I'm not going to go through my whole history with the Crue discography, I just wanted to lay the groundwork for my feelings going into this show.

If this wasn't announced as the final tour, I would not have gone.  The reason for this is I've seen Motley Crue tons of times over the years and their setlist has become so stagnant, but as I stated above, there was a time I thought nothing was better than the Crue and after the Theatre of Pain debacle, the albums were pretty good.  For me they never reached those heights of Shout, but there were definitely songs on each one as good.  So I was going on pretty much figuring I knew what I was going to hear.  Knew I would hear some of my favorite tunes.  Knew I'd hear some tunes that I never wanted to hear again, but most of all HOPED I'd hear some stuff they haven't played in years and hoped I'd see the ultimate Crue stage show.

So let's get back to 9:00pm at the Garden as the lights come up on Alice Cooper.  Well, sitting there right in front of us is the Cruecifly roller coaster drum track going out from the stage into the middle of the arena.  The Crue passed through this area in the summer doing a lot of sheds, but most of those could not handle his drum set up, so it was one of the reasons we waited until the fall shows to see the band.  Also, it's Madison Square Garden in New York City, this was surely the place to see them.

So at right about 9:30, the PA cranks up "So Long, Farewell" from the "Sound of Music" as the lights go down.  I will say it made me chuckle and as the song ended the band came out with "Saints of Los Angeles" from their 2008 album of the same name.  I guess if Crue have a modern classic, this is it.  I dig it and it's fit thematically for the show.

The band looks and sounds good.  Vince, who is infamous for often times having the audience sing more of the lyrics than he does, is excellent on this night.  Sure there's plenty of sing a longs but it doesn't come off lazy.  Nikki and Tommy are balls of energy and Mick keeps to his side of the stage looking down at his guitar and gives us all those classic riffs we want to hear.

While everyone automatically jumps to their feet when the band hit the stage, the next song, "Wild Side," is the first were everyone goes nuts (yep me too...love this one).

"Wild Side" goes right into another hard rocker with "Primal Scream" which is a big audience singalong leading into one of Crue's biggest MTV/Radio hits "Same Ol' Situation (S.O.S)."  Not one of my favorites, but of course I know we're gonna hear it and what I like is they did not play it back to back with "Don't Go Away Mad (Just Go Away)" as it seems they have for the last decade.  That's always a 10 minute block I never look forward to.  So far I have to say the setlist and pace of this show are well thought out and looking at the setlist from the start of the tour, I do see the band is tweaking it as they go along.  If this tour is going to go for two years as has been announced, I wonder what the setlist will look like a year from now because unfortunately I do feel it has major issues that come later, but right now "Same" just ended and what's next?

A trio of classics from the first two albums starting with "Looks That Kill."  This led into "On With The Show" followed by the title track of their debut album which that came of off.  Okay super minor complaint time.  This is more wish list time.  I love the "Too Fast" album, but man I would have loved to have heard maybe "Take Me To The Top" or "Piece of Your Action" even more.  I hope if the band comes back through the area in a year, they trade out for some of these tracks, but again, it was a cool surprise to hear "On With the Show" live. 

So far the show is pretty killer.  We're about a third of the way in and I'm digging it and next up comes their cover of "Smokin' In The Boys Room".  I have to say I never really dug this, but it's a toe tapper and they morphed it into a cover of Gary Glitter's "Rock and Roll Part 2" which was great and had the whole audience shouting along.  Nice!  

Now we hit the rough patch. 

Dear Motley Crue - drop "Without You" from the set.  This was a show killer!  The crowd was hyped up to this point.  I was second level at about the three o'clock position and everyone was standing up until this point.  Everyone either sat down or went on a beer/bathroom run for "Without You." The boys tried to bring the energy right back up, but should have played a classic and instead played "Mutherfucker of the Year" off of "Saints of Los Angeles."  This just doesn't have the ability to grab an arena full of folks and there is not enough familiarity with the track on this tour which is probably bringing out many more casual Motley Crue fans who have not heard anything the band has done since the early 90's.  Then things got worse.

Instead of building on the rock of "Mutherfucker", Nikki came out and told everyone to sit down for story time.  He wasn't joking, he made everyone sit down while he spent about 8 minutes telling the oral history of Motley Crue.  Nikki needs an editor or needs to break this story time up throughout the show.  He lost the audience after 3 or 4 minutes even though the story was actually entertaining, it just comes at the least energetic point in the set and goes way too long.  By the time he finished the story, there is a full 20 minute lull in the show that starts so strong.  

Also during his story, he at points individually introduces each member of the band and when he does, a spotlight shoots into the darkness and that member is lit up and waves to the crowd.  When Vince is announced, I don't know if he missed his cue or what but he just kinda turned like he was being bothered and turned back and walked off stage.  It was odd and at no other time during the show did there seem to be any attitude like this, but it really stood out during this story time.

So does the show ever recover?  Well as Nikki finishes the band's story in which he talks about the bands mixed influences of glam and punk, the band launches into their version of the Sex Pistols' "Anarchy in the U.K."  This was not the song to bring the whole audience back into the fold.   I love punk and the Sex Pistols and have never really been a fan of this version of the song and it appeared most of the audience felt the same way.  I dig the fact that they want to do a cover of one of their influences in this spot, maybe this part of the set just needs to be moved to flow better.

At this point it was almost an emergency, so thankfully there was a doctor in the house to fix things - "Dr. Feelgood" (see what I did there...oh how I love me a bad pun.)  Now THAT got everyone back up on their feet and led into the highlight of the show...

An abbreviated recorded version of "In The Beginning..." led into "Shout At The Devil" which had probably the most pyro I've ever seen at any show including Nikki's flame thrower bass!  Kick ass!!  We are back on track boys!!  Then "Don't Go Away Mad (Just Go Away)" hit.  Okay, I'm not a fan, but this kept most of the crowd singing and dancing along.

We're about two thirds of the way through the show and it was finally time to see the Cruecifly in action.  About eight or nine minutes of Tommy SLOWLY spinning and riding out above the audience while playing basic tracks to a mix of rock/rap/EDM.  It's so weird how this looked so much cooler on youtube.  A lot of the complaints I heard were the fact that it's not a drum solo at all and Tommy is a great drummer and this shows none of his skills.  I was just kind of bored...it's so slow.  It's weird that in theory it's seems like it should be the coolest thing ever, and it didn't suck, it was just kinda whatever.

Then Tommy gets back to the stage and it immediately goes into Mick Mars' heavy dark guitar solo.  These solos should be broken up.  It becomes 15 minutes where again you're looking for one of those classic Crue tunes to either headbang, air guitar or sing along to.

Mick's solo goes into the riff from "Live Wire" and all is good again in the Garden!  It gets better when this is followed up with another classic track from "Shout" in the way of "Too Young To Fall In Love"

We know the show has to be approaching the end at this point so you can pretty much figure out the songs coming next and we get "Girls, Girls, Girls" and the set ends with "Kickstart My Heart"

The boys gathered together and the crowd stood and cheered.  The lights went down and after a few minutes we see them being walked along the side of the crowd to a small stage in the middle of the floor.  Tommy starts playing those keys to "Home Sweet Home" as the mini stage rises on a hydraulic lift towards the ceiling.  The arena is dark except for the few lights on the mini stage and everyone sings along.  It's the right way to end the show.

.  

So overall, the show was good, but it definitely has pacing issues at those two points.  It start strong and ends strong, but a band like Motley Crue, with their history and catalog, should not have any lulls on their final tour.  I hope they continue to tweak the set over the next year and I hope they pass through this area again so maybe I'll have one more time to see them and be blown away.

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