Reverb

The Jesus and Mary Chain

21 September 2012: House of Blues, Cleveland, Ohio

I approach the possibility of seeing alternative acts from the ’80s cautiously. I initially get excited about concert announcements, then often have to do a bit of research on the touring band to see how much of the lineup is original and how much is hired guns. With a band like the Jesus and Mary Chain, though, so long as Jim and William Reid are present, I suppose that’s all that matters.

Jeff and I have had some highs and lows in our retro-concert-going experiences over the years, but with the Jesus and Mary Chain we got exactly what we expected. I was a little nervous when lead singer Jim opened the show with an advanced apology for his sore throat. That’s a move that leads to one of two outcomes: Either the band rises above it and exceeds expectations, or the band uses it as an excuse to mail it in and shit on the fans. Overcoming my feeling of dread, the band delivered, but that’s not to say there wasn’t some of the expected clichéd sourness from the brothers.

Much like the Ryan Adams show I saw at the beginning of this year, there was an edginess to the proceedings that bordered on chaos. The Reid brothers have a reputation for being a bit cantankerous, and it bled through everything they did on stage. The boys bitched about amps and some “technical differences,” and lead singer Jim abused the mic stand so much that it fell apart at one point. But it all seemed to be part of the show, part of the image that has accompanied these tetchy brothers since the ’80s.

The setlist was pretty much everything you’d want from a JAMC show – in fact, the only song missing that both Jeff and I would have liked to have heard was “Her Way of Praying” off of Automatic. But the boys opened with “Snakedriver” and burned through “Head On”, “Blues from a Gun”, “Sidewalking”, “Some Candy Talking”, “Happy When It Rains”, and “Halfway to Crazy” among others before winding down with a seemingly abbreviated version of “Just Like Honey”. But their Wall of Sound reverb wailed on the main set closing “Reverence”. The three-song encore was respectable, but didn’t stand up to the cuts off of Automatic, which sounded surprisingly good live almost a quarter century later.

I don’t actually remember a lot about the first time I saw the Jesus and Mary Chain perform live. On August 22, 1992, I worked 24+ hours straight at the Disney Inn Resort (now called Shades of Green and owned by the US military) where I was an assistant front desk manager on disaster recovery duty as Hurricane Andrew blew through the state. The next day, on no sleep, my girlfriend and I went to the Orange County Fairgrounds to see the JAMC headline the second Lollapalozza tour alongside the Chili Peppers, Ministry, Ice Cube, Soundgarden, and Pearl Jam. Sleep depravation during the show and 20 years of life gone by have left me with only snippets of memories from that festival, so the opportunity to see the JAMC again was extremely appealing.

With the hindsight of the Jesus and Mary Chain’s guitar distortion-filled, neo-psychedelic, shoe-gazing influence on bands like Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, my appreciation for the feisty brothers’ work is deeper than it has ever been. And it was good to have an excuse to hang out with Jeff and cross another band off our list.

(All photos by Adam Besenyodi.)

Vintage Central Florida, Part 7

The last photo I recently uncovered from the series is the Olde Dixie Fried Chicken restaurant sign. From what I can tell, the restaurant is still around. And from street level, it appears the sign has been fully restored.

5925 South Orlando Avenue, Orlando, Florida

Vintage Central Florida, Part 6

It’s easy to see from a quick Google Maps search that the building that once housed Arnold Paint & Wallpaper still exists, but the sign is gone, the façade’s been painted, and the space looks empty. That’s too bad.

538 North Bumby Avenue, Orlando, Florida

Vintage Central Florida, Part 5

In our basement cleaning, I uncovered more of the vintage Orlando sign pictures I snapped back in 1998. The ones I originally blogged about two years ago (found here, here, here, and here) were the ones I had framed and on display at various times in our homes over the years. These few that I recently found are the cast-offs that didn’t click for me, but I figured they deserve an audience here.

First up is the Mills & Nebraska Lumber sign. Originally located at the corner of (you guessed it) Mills Avenue and Nebraska Street, from what I can tell on Google Maps, it looks like the whole place has been razed, but here’s a picture of the sign from 13 years ago.

1602 North Mills Avenue, Orlando, Florida

Last Tour to Endor: The Original Star Tours Experience, Part 5

Finally, there was de-boarding with travel posters, themed signage, and, of course, the merchandise location.

I’ll miss the original Star Tours, but the official opening of Star Tours: The Adventures Continue is today. While I won't be there any time soon, I am excited to ride as many of the 54 possible experiences the new attraction offers as possible on my next visit!

Last Tour to Endor: The Original Star Tours Experience, Part 4

Inside the cabin of the Starspeeder 3000, there were more video reminders to stow loose items and prohibiting flash photography and smoking. Then there was Rex, the Paul Ruebens-voiced droid pilot of your journey. I snapped some blurry, in-motion, low-light level shots during the ride, including the last shot of the George Lucas look-alike who ducks under the control panel. The ride was a classic.

Last Tour to Endor: The Original Star Tours Experience, Part 3

Here are some shots of the original Star Tours pre-show video. It’s all about themeing and that means immersion into the attraction’s world. Although certainly showing its age, Star Tours did that, in part, by creating a pre-boarding video incorporating everything from Ewoks and Chewbacca to the pre-show announcer’s funky hairstyles. Enjoy!

Last Tour to Endor: The Original Star Tours Experience, Part 2

Today we have some shots of the queueing area at Star Tours in Orlando. It was pretty well-known for all the easter eggs and hidden Mickeys. Things like the letters and numbers on the conveyer baskets representing the initials and birthdates of the Imagineers who worked on the attraction, and the arrangement of droid parts to create the iconic three-circle Mickey Mouse head. I always loved the atmosphere they were able to convey with the use of light and animatronics...

Last Tour to Endor: The Original Star Tours Experience, Part 1

I’m excited to experience the new Star Tours attraction at Walt Disney World. I’ve been following StarTours2Live.com and their Twitter feed for a while now, and with the official reopening of Star Tours: The Adventures Continue scheduled for the end of this week, I thought it might be fun to share some of our pictures from the Last Tour to Endor at Disney’s Hollywood Studios (though it'll always be "MGM" to me). The event was a part of Star Wars Celebration V that took place in Orlando, Florida, last August. Along with some key attractions like The Great Movie Ride and Toy Story Midway Mania, there was a special Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular that was reworked and retitled “Raiders of the Lost Jedi Temple of Doom: A Fan Film of ‘Epic’ Proportions” with all kinds of guest stars depending on which of the three performances you attended, and, of course, Star Tours was up and running.

I figured we’d start off with a couple of shots of the promotional diorama at the Disney booth at CV, and some event signage at the Studios…

Piano Man-ish

Michael Cavanaugh in Concert: The Music of Billy Joel and More!, with the Akron Symphony Orchestra (Conducted by Christopher Wilkins)
12 February 2011: EJ Thomas Hall, Akron, Ohio

I almost saw Billy Joel in concert once. It was August 1994 and Central Florida was being brutalized by a nasty storm. My buddy John was working, so his then-girlfriend (someday-to-be wife) Jenn and I decided to head over to the Citrus Bowl and see about picking up some scalped tickets for the Billy Joel/Elton John show that night. We circled the stadium in my 1983 Honda Civic for what seemed like hours in sheets of rain. People showing up for this open air show already looked miserable and drowned. I don’t know that Jenn and I ever even ended up getting out of the car that night. We – wisely, I think – abandoned our quest.

I’m not a huge Billy Joel or Elton John fan, but I like both of these artists and still wouldn’t mind seeing either of them live at some point. Born in 1970 and raised a child of the ’80s, there is something familiar and comforting about their music.

I had never heard of Michael Cavanaugh prior to Tracy weaving her contest winning magic. Courtesy of 91.3 The Summit, she came up with a pair of tickets to see Cavanaugh at EJ Thomas Hall, and after some cursory digging about the show, we figured it sounded like a potentially good time.

We discovered Cavanaugh was handpicked by Joel to star in the Broadway production of Movin’ Out and has since continued to cash in on that ticket. I would never begrudge him that, but Tracy and I both came away from the show Saturday night a little disappointed in Cavanaugh probably because of the expectations that path to stardom and endorsement entail.

Cavanaugh is from Northeast Ohio, which is cool. My civic pride swells a bit more every time local people do well. But the link goes deeper than that. Cavanaugh’s first full time musician gig was at the Blazing Pianos bar in Orlando. If I’m reading his biography right, he worked there during the same time I was living there. That means there’s a pretty good chance I saw him perform once or twice back in the day, having spent a few nights in my twenties at the various piano bars around Orlando with friends.

Regardless of any cool connections, it’s hard to get past the execution of Cavanaugh’s symphony orchestra collaboration. It’s a case of the performer being crushed under the expectations set by the hype. Tracy and I anticipated more from Cavanaugh’s voice and stage presence based on what we’d read about him. I thought his saxophone player John Scarpulla had more charisma, and it was impossible not to watch his drummer (another Northeast Ohio native, and who played the drummer in Almost Famous) Johnny Fedevich play.

The selections were interesting, in that many times the band only seemed to play parts of songs and often resorted to medleys of Joel songs. The best Joel song of the night was, by far, “Goodnight Saigon”. Cavanaugh’s cover of Elton John’s cover of The Who’s “Pinball Wizard” was also interesting. When he covered Jerry Lee Lewis’ “Great Balls of Fire” and Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode”, Tracy and I both went into full ’80s pop culture overload and could only think of Dennis Quaid, Top Gun, and Back to the Future. Sad, I know.

The two orchestra only pieces from Joel’s 2001 classical album, Fantasies & Delusions – “Opus 2. Waltz #1 (‘Nunley’s Carosel’)” and “Opus 10. Air (‘Dublinesque’)” – were excellent. As was their work during the cover of Joel’s “Pressure”. As a bonus, it was cool to see our son’s drum instructor – second chair percussion with the orchestra – do his thing.

The night struck me as striving to fall somewhere between the artist/orchestra collaboration of Pink Martini and the Cleveland Orchestra we saw a year ago, and the Beatles cover band perfection of RAIN last month. But Cavanaugh never quite succeeded on either front. The Akron Symphony Orchestra deserves a lot of credit for their efforts, but Cavanaugh’s song selection didn’t lend itself well to interpretation. And Cavanaugh wasn’t a close enough approximation of Joel or Elton or any of the others he covered (vocally or from a stage presence perspective) to put him anywhere near the caliber of RAIN.

Regardless, though, I had a nice night out with my wife. And I almost saw Billy Joel in concert once.