My Morning Jacket @ Radio City Music Hall

My Morning Jacket played Radio City Music Hall. And the Radio City Music Hall played My Morning Jacket. The lighting on stage was almost entirely backlit all night, which at times created darkened figures on stage with a glowing aura about them, or at other times produced gigantic shadows rocking out all over the walls, or at other times rendered the band completely invisible. Whichever effect was caused, the result was always befitting, as it showcased them as the gods of rock that they have become. It was sacred ground according to lead Jacket Jim James and they were doing their best to give it their blessing. In a true Earth meets Sky moment James ascended into the 1st mezzanine via the stairway connecting the box seats along the wall to jam amongst his disciples. After the truly satisfying encore "set," the crowd emptied into the enormous and gaudy lobby with an absolute buzz of energy rarely felt at concerts these days. I would say that the show really wasn't all that much different than most any MMJ show, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. The venue and circumstance of the show seemed to take precedent over what was actually played, for both the band and the audience.

Bad Plus @ Rochester International Jazz Fest

If I don't see these guys at least once a year I have an empty feeling, like my year was missing something. It's been over a year since I last saw them at the MFA in Boston, so it was about that time. Luckily they were coming to town for the much heralded Rochester International Jazz Fest. As this was my first RIJF experience I wasn't quite sure how it worked and had read somewhere that the Club Pass (which gets you into all the venues) wasn't the way to go. That and the fact that I wouldn't be around for any of the 2nd weekend lead me to my decision to skip the Club Pass. Next year though I will definitely go that route. Without it, there's really not too many options. So I was left to pretty much see the Bad Plus and not much else.

The Bad Plus will make you laugh, whether from their onstage demeanor, the dryly humorous banter, or because the music is just so damn good you can do nothing in reaction but laugh. The Bad Plus also keeps you guessing. They never seem to be touring for their last album, always pushing through to the next, even if it is still a year off. So it is always fresh, no matter how many times you see them. So for their next album they dropped a pretty damn big surprise on us... a singer! I have long wondered what they'd be like with a guest, like a guitar or horn of some sort. Never have I considered what they'd do with a vocalist. I'm still not sure how I feel about it. Her name was Wendy Lewis and this was her first ever performance with her on stage. Well second, I was seeing the late set. Her voice wasn't too powerful (ie not commanding all the attention) and mixed well with the band.

So they came out, played a few originals, Let Your Garden Grow, Empire Strikes Backwards, 1980 World Champion, and Knows the Difference. A decent cross section of their stuff. Not my favorites, but oh well. Then enter Lewis. Let the onslaught of covers begin. Started off with Nirvana's Lithium. Then Radio Cure by Wilco(with backing vocals by Reid Anderson!), Long Distance Runaround by Yes (AYFKM?), something I didn't know next, pretty slow jazzy number, and finished with Feeling Yourself Disintegrate by the Flaming Lips. They played one more with her, encoring with Heart's Barracuda.

Their interesting choices of covers get them a lot of press, but as I have said before, their originals are what makes this band great. I like a choice cover sprinkled into the set here and there, but this was a bit of overkill. Still, very fun and interesting to hear their takes on all these. With the vocals their interpretations were a bit more straightforward and it left Iverson to play parts other than covering the melodies as he usual does. They were filming it for WXXI's Onstage show so I look forward to seeing this again. From reports I have heard/seen, they apparently played even more covers in the early set, including U2's New Year's Day, Comfortably Numb, Blue Velvet, and the Bee-Gees' How Deep Is Your Love...this may have been the question mark I had in the late set come to think of it, I just don't know my Bee Gee's too well. Well, they've stated again and again that the covers they choose are not in any way ironic or silly, they seriously like everything they chose to cover... Anyway, I wonder if their next album is a straight cover album? That would be unfortunate if so, but hey, they can do what they want as far as I'm concerned.

Took a few small bites of sets by the Buddhahood (more fun the more you see em), Saturday Fish Fry, Downchild Blues Band, and the late night jam at the State Street Grille, which were all pretty standard fare for the short while I caught them. Looking forward to next year already.

Keep up with the rest of the fest over at the Jazz@Rochester blog, where in addition to great coverage itself, will also link you to many others covering the fest.

moe. ROCkin in the City

Every so often, which is not that often at all, I am presented an opportunity to see some moe., whether it be as an opener, at a festival, or as was the case last night, a free post-work show in downtown Rochester. I guess I burned out on them very early on, I saw them in abundance my freshman year and then it just fell off a cliff and I didn't see them again for sometime. But, everytime I see them, they seem to play all of the old tunes I know of theirs, and last night was no exception. They played half of their first first album, the cassette album Fatboy I got at my first show back in 93, and a couple more off their first CD, Headseed. They sprinkled in one nice JJ Cale cover of Cajun Moon, with opener and Assembly of Dust frontman Reid Genauer on guitar and vox. Seeing as though I am clearly not the person to be providing in-depth analysis for a moe. show, I will just say the second set closing Sensory Deprivation Bank>Recreational Chemistry (mostly just the Chemistry part) which together must have clocked in longer than the entire first set (which was a measly 35-40m), was worth the price of admission... or should I say, I woulda paid some money for that shit. Garvey and Schnier have taken the dual guitar jamming crown away from the Allmans. Now I like the Allmans more than moe., and as individuals Trucks and Haynes slay these guys, but as a two-headed guitar machine, these guys rule. At one point in the first set they traded off the lead guitar role and if you weren't paying attention you would have had no idea, it was completely seamless. But the real highlights were during the aforementioned Chemistry, which featured some very nice AHEM (excuse me) chemistry... This tune had it all, a trance-inducing next level jamming middle section, an explosive guitar shredding finish, some masterful bass leads by Derhak (where was he the rest of the night though?), and what fiery rock show would be complete without some serious smoke on the stage...yep, it had it all. I'll be happy to hear it again when it gets up on the archive, assuming it does.
See you again in a few years moe.!

Krauss/Plant @ CMAC

Had a bit of a different live experience this Saturday night at the slightly updated and annoyingly named Constellation Brands Melvin Sands Performing Arts Center, formerly Finger Lakes Performing Arts Center, aka CMAC. Don't have a clue what CMAC is actually short for but they had a Dinosaur BBQ stand smoking meats on site, so I wasn't complaining. Anyway, aside from hearing the seemingly odd combo of Alison Krauss and Robert Plant on stage, the real reason the experience was different for me was because I dragged my not quite 2-year-old daughter along for the ride. And I'll tell you, it sure beat going alone, she was a great show-going companion. She even had her father's penchant for being up front as she dragged us and our lawn ticket all the way down to the pit without one question from an usher. We went straight back out though.

There was a completely unannounced opener which was particularly annoying for me on this night trying to entertain my daughter for an extra hour or so. She was not into the opener and nor was I. Pretty bland stuff, but she had a nice voice. Sharon Little was her name and she just released her first album a couple of weeks ago. "Go buy it" so says she.

Not much to say about the Krauss Plant combo that hasn't been said many times before. I have yet to hear the album so none of those songs were familiar. For the most part the only songs I recognized were the Zep tunes and even those weren't easily identifiable. The Black Dog was completely redone americana style and slowed down to an almost standstill. It struck me about midway through the set, why is Robert Plant here? Really, between the folksy roots type music they were playing and the redone Black Dog, he was hardly recognizable or identifiable as himself, his classic and distinct voice getting no workout whatsoever. I seriously thought to myself, he could not be here and this show would be about the same, he's adding nothing. As much as I liked the Black Dog "cover" it wasted his talents as none of his memorable vocalizations for that song came through, and since his voice is his instrument, and the way he sings that song originally is the voice of his instrument (his voice duh!) it just struck me as a little wrong. Still great though.

But the lack of Plant all changed in the 2nd half where he strapped on his working boots and kicked some Americana ass. Before I forget, I also need to mention that the rest of this band were no slouches. You've got Stuart Duncan playing various strings, and Buddy Miller wailing on guitar, and of course T Bone Burnett who put the whole thing together, as was mentioned many times during the night. I think the only thing that could have possibly made the band better was if Allison had brought on Jerry Douglas from her band. That would have sweetened an already oozingly sweet pot.

Anyway, back to the Robert Plant thing. Finally, soon after a short T Bone Burnett 2 song interlude, all of a sudden I remembered it was Robert Fucking Plant on stage. First on a Townes Van Zandt song called "Nothing" which was one of the highlights for me. Fantastic. "Battle for Evermore" was a more straightforward cover with great mandolin intro work, and some fantastic Plant action as well. Might also want to mention that Alison Krauss was equally fantastic. Her voice simply soars. But I knew that already and have experienced it first hand. No surprise. She was also bedecked in a flowing gown that glowed with the stage lighting behind her. Angelic.

I wish I had some more specifics and insights, but I was a bit preoccupied. We left before the encore, not sure if they brought out any big surprised there, but we left quite satisfied. I definitely need to pick up this album now, not that I hadn't already wanted it before.