Converted

Mike Doughty Band
17 June 2006: House of Blues, Cleveland, Ohio

The enthusiastic crowd that turned out for the Mike Doughty Band performance didn’t seem to need any converting, but I did. Although not previously a fan of Doughty’s solo recorded work, the band’s performance at the 2006 CMJ Rock Hall Music Fest seems to have done the trick for me. I was surprised and impressed with almost every tune, and the laid-back and playful attitude of the band carried off the stage and up to the rafters.

Some of the technical difficulties that plagued Kevin Devine’s opening act lingered when Doughty took the stage shortly after 9:30, but they were easily overcome by the performance itself. Opening with a rocking version of “Busting Up a Starbucks” and charging through nearly 20 songs in an hour and a half, Doughty and his band delivered a bluesy, jazzy, organic rock show.

Doughty’s drummer Pete McNeal is fond of the phrase “dialed in,” as in yelling “The band is dialed in tonight!” On this night, McNeal was dialed in to his drum solo following a killer one-two punch of “Madeline and Nine” and “American Car” off of Doughty’s then-most recent effort, Haughty Music. But between the two songs, McNeal held up an extra set of pants he had up on the riser for the crowd to see, and he and Doughty had an amusing exchange about McNeal being “dialed in to the pants tonight” as well. Although the good-natured approach of the band is elemental to the group, ultimately it is secondary to the music. This is obvious when watching Scrap Livingston’s upright bass playing -- especially on songs like the expressive “Madeline and Nine”, where Livingston’s love of the music is on full display.

Most of the full band’s set carried a strong bass line, sparse but heavy drums, and “the brave youngster” John Kirby’s Space Invaders-like keyboard work. But while elements of Doughty’s previous band were audible here, his own four-guitar effort was always at the forefront, providing a distinctly different sound from his seven years of work with Soul Coughing. This was especially apparent during the three-song solo mini-set in the middle of the show, where Doughty took center stage for exceptional renditions of “Shunned + Falsified” and “The Only Answer” from 2000’s Skittish. He followed these with the only song I really knew before the show, “I Hear the Bells”, which appears on the Veronica Mars soundtrack (and that I previously referred to as “tripe”). Doughty’s beat poetry approach to lyrics take on added weight in a live setting, accompanied by his steel guitar and the crowd singing along.

The rest of the band returned for the strongest collection of songs of the night, including the “Tremendous Brunettes”/”Unsingable Name”/”Looking at the World from the Bottom of a Well” trifecta. “Unsingable Name” would have been the highlight of the show, but Doughty and the band pulled out a little bit of the unexpected: He threw a snippet of “It’s Raining Men” into the mix to keep a promise made to the crowd during an earlier request, then went into the first few lines of Guns N’ Roses’ “Paradise City”. But all of this was topped by an absolutely rocking version of Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler”! Doughty covered this song for his 2005 iTunes-only EP of the same name, but like the rest of Doughty’s work, the studio version has nothing on the live take. As I stood there during the entirely appropriate main set closer, amid the frenzied exuberance of the crowd spilling over the balcony, it dawned on me that nobody sits around and thinks, “Man, why hasn’t anyone covered ‘The Gambler’?” But, damned if hearing this version doesn’t make you think, “Why hasn’t anyone done this before?!”

The show could have ended there and I would have been perfectly happy, but the band came back for a two-song encore of Soul Coughing’s “St. Louise is Listening” (which Doughty also served up in solo form on The Gambler EP) and Doughty’s sweet, redeeming “Your Misfortune”. As a bonus, the encore included the night’s “Scrap Fact” – where Livingston came to center stage and opined a single-lined nugget of wisdom: “Yellow is the alleged color of insanity.”

Many of the songs throughout the set had multiple hard breaks – places where the music could stretch and breathe – and the crowd anticipation and excitement would build during each successive start-stop moment. I got caught up in that shared exhilaration. The band’s ability and Doughty’s personality came across brilliantly in the live setting, overcoming my reservations about the studio material, which often comes off a little too adult contemporary and safe, and let me enjoy the music and the evening as much as the already-converted in the crowd.

(An edited version of this piece was previously published by PopMatters.)

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.)

Alive and Kicking

Billy Idol
02 August 2006: House of Blues, Cleveland, Ohio

Billy Idol is a living blueprint for VH1’s Behind the Music – culturally significant past (the Bromley Contingent), failed but influential first band (Generation X), solo superstardom, excesses that nearly killed him (motorcycle accident, drug overdose), clever comeback (The Wedding Singer bit-part), well-received new album (Devil’s Playground), and a sense of humor about his canon and place in history. Taking the stage with the partner in his most successful endeavors, guitarist Steve Stevens, Idol gyrated, teased, joked, and delivered the kind of show you hope for from an icon.

Idol has a funny habit of covering other artists’ songs, so it wasn’t surprising that the two hour set covered nearly every aspect of his career, and a few others’ as well. He has recorded tunes by the Doors, Simple Minds, and Mungo Jerry, and on this night he added a new one to the repertoire. If I told you he covered Van Halen’s “Jump”, what would your reaction be? Mine was much like the crowd around me: Nervous laughter at the opening keyboards, uneasy confusion that he was really going to do the song, and ultimately buying into it.

The run-through of Mungo Jerry’s “In the Summertime” was breezy and appropriate, much like the version found on keyboardist Derek Sherinian’s solo album, Blood of the Snake (with Idol on vocals and Slash on guitar). But the Doors’ “L.A. Woman” carried with it a drawn-out psychedelic freak-out jam in the middle, while Idol tossed logo-ed cloth Frisbees into the crowd, and those bizarre additions – my only complaints on the night – repeated themselves throughout the concert.

Along with an extended guitar solo centerpiece, there were far too many extended guitar solo jams added to various numbers. While Stevens is an undeniably exceptional guitarist, I would have preferred a more limited number of in-song solos and rather had the criminally absent “Cradle of Love” – and even Cyberpunk’s “Shock to the System” – in their place. The other complaint is really more of an oddity: Idol spent a large part of the night tossing sundry “stuff” into the crowd... things like autographed drum sticks and scraps of paper and the aforementioned cloth Frisbees (also available for sale in the lobby). He actually gave out an entire case of bottled water – one by one – over the course of a single song!

When he wasn’t throwing things into the crowd to the point of distraction, Idol had the peculiar habit of spending guitar solos at the back corner of the drum riser playing a single cymbal with intense concentration. Peccadilloes aside, the show and showmanship were fantastic. The classics were delivered with professionalism and a freshness that belied the age of both the songs and the performers. For a man who has notoriously abused his body, the former William Broad looks incredible. And there was plenty of opportunity to see it, as Idol stripped off his t-shirt after just two songs. It was the first of three wardrobe changes and chest-baring over the course of the night. Seeing him on stage – ripped abs, pumping fist, gyrating pelvis, signature sneer – it was hard to get your head around the fact that the man was just shy of 51.

After Idol turned to his musical soul mate and told him, “Steve, show ‘em what a hit song sounds like,” the crowd reaction to Stevens’ shredding opening guitar of “White Wedding, Pt. 1” packed storm surge intensity. Classics like “To Be a Lover”, “Rebel Yell” (introduced as “the new American anthem!”), “Hot in the City”, and the barely-contained raw energy of the Generation X nugget “Ready Steady Go” played equally well to the crowd. There was a strong rockabilly bent on much of the night courtesy of the song selection, and a bit of Spanish flair thanks to Stevens’ rendition of “Eyes without a Face” and his solo. But the evening never felt forced or like you were watching a “has been.” The show was fresh, fun, and (yes) vital.

Tommy James and the Shondells’ set closing “Mony Mony” helped solidify the genuine sense of fun and appreciation of the band. It’s a song that still plays well live, especially when you’re surrounded by 1,200 other people also screaming “Hey! Get laid! Get fucked!” at the top of their lungs in pure juvenile glee. All five band members strapped on guitars (drummer Brian Tichy handed off the sticks for duration of the song), and ended the show throwing up a wall of sound at the very lip of the stage. When the pulsating guitars were replaced by the crowd’s approval, and the rest of the band had made their way off stage, Idol stood alone, grinning from ear to ear, and sang a few a capella bars of “we’ll meet again some sunny day,” letting out a bit of a laugh as he made his way backstage.

(An edited version of this piece was previously published by PopMatters.)

Forest for the Trees

Neon Trees
27 May 2011: House of Blues, Cleveland, Ohio

Tracy emailed me while I was on the road last week about the Neon Trees show at the House of Blues. She usually goes to her "new alternative" shows with her friend Betsy, but Betsy was unavailable and the tickets were only $8, so I offered to go with her. I figured after being out of town for a few days I couldn't beat that price for an evening out with my wife and the chance to hear some new music.

The last few shows we've been to at the House of Blues have been general admission, including the balcony seating. I don't know if that is their policy across the board now, but it's great. We arrived after eight, and the first opening act, Eastern Conference Champions, were already playing. The trio finished out their short set with all three of them drumming like mad when vocalist/keyboardist Josh Ostrander and bassist Melissa Dougherty joined Greg Lyons on his kit for an all-drum finale.

After a short break, the second of the three bands I'd never previously heard took the stage – The Limousines. Just by virtue of being two guys and a synthesizer, they immediately endeared themselves to me. Although they live somewhere between '80s synthpop giants like Erasure and Pet Shop Boys, and new millennia electronica superstars Daft Punk, they are worthy of that mantle by merging it all and spitting it back out as indietronica.

Live, there is a healthy dose of '90s Prodigy energy in the mix as well. While songwriter and vocalist Eric Victorino treads expected but not unwelcome frontman territory, it’s great to see multi-instrumentalist Giovanni Giusti break the stoic Vince Clark/Chris Lowe mold and rock out on stage among his computers and keyboards and iPads and drums! The duo push pop music to its logical next step with catchy-as-hell, incisive tracks like the “Internet Killed the Video Star” and “Very Busy People” singles. Hip-swayingly ironic without being fake, “Internet” announces “The kids are disco dancing; they’re tired of rock and roll. Don’t bother telling them that drum machine ain’t got no soul.” “Very Busy People” is a blissfully self-aware Millennium Generation anthem about ending up “numb from playing video games,” empty pizza boxes, and Donnie Darko. Other highlights of the set were “Dancing at Her Funeral”, “Flaskaboozendancingshoes” (perhaps my favorite of the night), and “Wildfires,” all off their 2010 debut Get Sharp.

Discovering the Limousines made the entire night worthwhile, and inevitably meant I was going to be let down by Neon Trees no matter what they did to try and win me over. While I appreciate Neon Trees’ message and understand why my wife digs them, they just weren’t my cuppa. But it was easy to sit back and enjoy the clearly devoted fanbase’s enthusiasm, including my wife’s need to dance.

One of the nice things about shows at the House of Blues is that more often than not the bands will be out in the lobby after their sets and after the show to meet fans and hang out. It was great to meet Eric and Giovanni from the Limousines and talk with them a little bit about their influences and thank them for a great show. Neon Trees were also out after the show, and Tracy wanted to meet them, so we waited in line for the opportunity to have them sign her ticket. There was a moment while Tracy was meeting the band that really struck me – it seemed to embody the coolness of the Neon Trees’ lead singer, Tyler Glenn. I was just hanging back behind Tracy while she was meeting the band. Not being a fan of the music or having any idea who the members of the band were, I simply didn’t have anything to say to them. But Tyler noticed me and, probably assuming I was a star-struck fan who didn’t know how to break the ice, reached out his hand to shake mine, thanked me for coming and hoped I’d had a good time. Although a bit of mistaken identity, I thought that was a really cool thing for him to do. And if I actually was that tongue-tied fan he assumed I was, his simple gesture would have made my night. Instead, he earned my respect.

On the whole, it was $16 well-spent… I discovered three new bands, one of which really got me excited. I got to chat with the various bands, hang out with my wife, and revel in her enjoyment. I call that a good night.

Whatever Happened to My Rock ‘n’ Roll

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
31 March 2010: House of Blues, Cleveland, Ohio

I have wanted to see Black Rebel Motorcycle Club since discovering them when their original self-released album was redistributed by Virgin in 2001. At one point, I was supposed to cover one of their shows for PopMatters, but something came up (I honestly don’t remember if it was the band cancelling the show or something that kept me from attending) and that didn’t materialize. In the years since, stars have never properly aligned. Until now.

The evening started out with an early dinner in Akron. We told the waiter we were headed to a show when we asked for the check. He asked us which one, and when we told him B.R.M.C., he said he saw them the night before in Columbus and that it was an awesome show! Tracy and I sort of laughed on the drive up to Cleveland about the odds of having a server who saw the same band the night before in another town – a server we probably had a good 15 years on, no less.

Between the packed East 4th Street district, a home Cavs game, and the B.R.M.C. show, Downtown Cleveland was hopping for a Wednesday night. Traffic – both foot and car – was heavy, but the atmosphere was fueled by the gorgeous spring weather.

Because it was a general admission show, we wanted to get there early enough to snag some seats at the House of Blues, and we were among the first into the hall. We headed to the upstairs balcony to see what was available, and asked one of the security guards if the barstools lining the back of the balcony seating were reserved or not. (Typically, the lower level is GA standing room only with some open barstool seating, the balcony itself is reserved seating, and behind the balcony is barstools and more GA standing room only. We have attended shows where those barstools are held for guests of the band and press – and have taken advantage of those seats during my PopMatters days when covering shows.) The security guy told us all the seats were open, and we did a double-take and reconfirmed with him that he meant not just the barstools, but the entire balcony. Armed with that revelation, we promptly took up residence in the front row, stage right overstuffed and comfy balcony seats for the remainder of the night.

So we totally scored on the tickets (which were buy one, get one), and on the seats… all that was left now was to be entertained.

Opener Alberta Cross made their way through a half-hour or so set looking a bit like a poor man’s Lynard Skynard. The English five-piece’s up-tempo songs (the one-two set-closers in particular) were an enjoyable enough diversion as the theater filled up.

Around a quarter after nine, Peter Hayes, Robert Levon Been, and Leah Shapiro walked on stage and began a blistering two-hour set that defied both conventional concert theatrics and staged chatty banter in favor of a straight-ahead rock and roll show. And that’s really the best way to describe the trio: They ooze rock and roll, embodying everything cool and brooding and dangerous and old school about rock, looking and sounding like some kind of twisted garage mash-up of Johnny Cash and The Jesus and Mary Chain.

Founding members Hayes and Been share vocal duties throughout their catalog, adding a layer of complexity to the compositions and increasing the wall of sound size of their output. Hayes’ guitar and harmonica work is a loud, full Americana style while he channels The Man in Black. And Been’s rangy bass playing veers between neo-psychedelic and shoegaze; he’s got the brooding rock star look down pat with his leather jacket and Ian McCulloch hair. Combined with Shapiro’s metronome drumming, they are a muscular trio.

Debut album cuts like “Love Burns”, “Red Eyes and Tears”, “Spread Your Love”, and “Whatever Happened to My Rock ‘n’ Roll (Punk Song)” stood out in the set alongside newer selections from Beat the Devil’s Tattoo, with the title track and “Bad Blood” among those highlights.

B.R.M.C. are cool. Plain and simple. Impeccable pedigrees notwithstanding – Hayes was a member of The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Been is the son of The Call’s Michael Been, and Shapiro was the touring drummer for The Ravonettes – the trio come out and rock hard, exhausting the audience. They reminded me of The Black Keys in that way.

I have waited nearly ten years to witness B.R.M.C.’s feedback-drenched wall of fuzz garage rock sound in person. Watching them on stage, I kept thinking that this was exactly the kind of band I would have loved when I was nineteen or twenty. The sound, the image, the show. B.R.M.C. are the complete package. And their show reignited that rush of youth and music and the power to be moved. Like with The Black Keys, Tracy and I will now make a point to see them every time they come through town.

(All photos by Tracy Besenyodi.)

This Is Goth Spinal Tap

The Sisters of Mercy
13 November 2008: House of Blues, Cleveland, Ohio

My concert-going experiences with Jeff generally tend to be somewhat hit-or-miss. Until now, one of my worst concert episodes was the night Jeff, his wife, and I went to see Bob Mould at the Grog Shop a few years ago. Kristin Hersh, former lead singer of Throwing Muses, opened for him, and she was horrible. Not only was her acoustic set hard to listen to, her facial expressions and complete lack of rapport with the crowd was painful to watch. Her performance was followed by a nearly interminable wait between acts. When Mould finally took the stage, he ended up playing "Wishing Well" and "See a Little Light" just a few songs into the set, and so we left. On the other hand, seeing Erasure last year was one of the most fun shows I have ever witnessed, and that was with Jeff, his wife, and my wife. Like I said, hit-or-miss. Fast-forward to Thursday night, and the opportunity to cross The Sisters of Mercy off the "'80s Alternative Bands from Our Youth We've Never Seen Live" list.

I knew something was up when we walked into the lobby of the House of Blues and there was more staff manning the doors, box office, security, merchandise table, and ticket scanners than customers waiting to get in. A glace at the merch table for curiosity's sake revealed $20 knit hats, $30 t-shirts, and $45 hoodies. Really? I mean, this is a group that hasn't put out an album of all new material in nearly 20 years.

So we head inside the concert hall, and again we know something is wrong. Hypernova, the opening act, is on-stage, but the house is far from full. Hell, the house is far from half-full. We decide to head to the lower level first to see what's going on in General Admission and listen to Hypernova a bit. This Iranian quartet sounded great. Jeff turned to me after the first song completed and said, "Man, that could be a hit once upon a time." They have a great sound, and their lead singer's baritone falls somewhere between Peter Murphy and Julian Cope. Good stuff.

After some beer, we headed to the balcony and our seats. The upstairs was a ghost town and things were not boding well for us. We take our seats and wait for Andrew Eldritch, the singular force behind the band for 28 years, and whatever group of musicians he's cobbled together under the Sisters of Mercy banner for this go-round. When I saw the roadies testing the fog machines on stage, combined with the crowd turnout, I realized this concert had Spinal Tap potential. No sooner had I shared this thought with Jeff and the fog machines began pumping in earnest, and the show began.

There was some guy with a Mohawk and sunglasses playing guitar in the haze on one side, and another guitarist opposite him on stage. Then out came Eldritch. It was totally disconcerting to see this former black-haired Goth shaved bald on top, but that was the least of our concerns after a few moments. You see, his vocals were buried in the mix. You couldn't hear him at all! So you had to wait for the Mohawk-bedecked guitarist to come in out of sync on the chorus to figure out what song they were playing. We did eventually recognize "Detonation Boulevard", "Flood I", "Dominion/Mother Russia", and "This Corrosion". Of course, "This Corrosion", an epic song that clocks in at nearly 11 minutes on the Floodland album, couldn't have been longer than three or four minutes live. And played near the mid-point of the set. Wouldn't you expect this to be stretched to a 15 minute sing-along rocker to bring the house down in an encore?! Apparently that would be far too predictable for Mr. Eldritch, and instead he went with the radio edit.

At one point, Jeff wandered downstairs to see if the audio was any better there (it wasn't), and saw the set list taped up next to the soundboard. There were a lot of songs on that list, but "More" wasn't one of them. The Sisters of Mercy song that sat atop the Billboard Magazine Modern Rock Tracks chart for five weeks in 1990. And they didn't even consider playing it. Seriously.

By the time Jeff returned upstairs to our seats, the house lights had come up. Now, the show was not over, in fact they'd only been playing for about a half-hour at this point. But the fog being spewed from the stage was so thick that there were times you couldn't see the performers at all, and that smoke was billowing out into the crowd to the point where it was hard to see much of anything. Shortly after that, the smoke detector strobe light alarms began pulsating throughout the concert hall, and continued for the rest of the show.

At this point, Jeff and I had had enough and gave up on the concert mid-set. We knew from the set list we'd seen that we were walking out on "Lucretia My Reflection", "Flood II", "Vision Thing" and others, but it just wasn't worth it at that point. On the way out, I saw Raam, the lead singer of Hypernova, manning the merchandise table in the lobby. So I went over and shook his hand and told him how much I enjoyed their set and wished them well. Nice guy. Good music. That was all I was looking for. Instead I ended up with another inauspicious entry in Adam & Jeff's '80s Alternative Rewind Adventure.

We ended up down the block at Cadillac Ranch for more beer and watched the fourth quarter of the Cavs win over Dallas. The bar was hopping. There were probably more people in that establishment than there were down the street for the Sisters of Mercy show even before the post-game revelers started pouring into the bar in droves. Nice way to end the night, but man, can I get my money back, Mr. Eldritch?