Shaken, Not Stirred

Pink Martini, with special guest singer Storm Large
10 May 2012: State Theatre at Playhouse Square, Cleveland, Ohio

With original lead singer China Forbes sidelined since last summer with vocal cord surgery and taking a year off from the band to recover, Tracy and I had some trepidation heading in to a Forbes-less Pink Martini show. We’ve seen the band perform four times at four different venues – the Cleveland Museum of Art, the House of Blues, Severance Hall, and the Palace Theatre – with Forbes, each time to a packed house. This time around, the State Theatre was embarrassingly empty, adding to our anxiety. Then Storm Large took the stage, and we quickly realized we had nothing to worry about. While Large’s voice isn’t as full as Forbes’, it’s every bit as powerful.

The little orchestra started the night off with “Amado Mio” for a couple of reasons: First, to get the audience acclimated to Forbes’ absence by force-feeding a Pink Martini classic through Large’s presence. And, second, to illustrate just how good a fit Large is with the band. Never trying to replace Forbes, she left her own mark on every last song she fronted.

We had never heard of Large prior to finding out she was appearing with the band. (She’s a Portland, Oregon local just like bandleader/pianist Thomas Lauderdale, and was on a music reality TV show.) Regardless, Large’s personality is big enough to own the stage with her unique style.

Typical for a Pink Martini show, although there was a setlist, it was more of a recommendation than any sort of set-in-stone directive, and the troupe was guided by Lauderdale’s wonderfully entertaining song intros and backstories. Adding to the looseness of their approach was the fact this was the band’s first show of the current tour.

The first half, separated by an intermission, featured “Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps” presented in its original Spanish incarnation of “Quizás, Quizás, Quizás”, “Donde Estas, Yolanda?”, “Song of the Black Lizard”, and “The Flying Squirrel”. There were plenty of side trips to get the audience comfortable with Large’s somewhat naughty sensibilities and a wonderfully playful rendition of Splendor in the Grass’ “And Then You’re Gone”/”But Now I’m Back” with Timothy Nishimoto. The initial set ended with the frisky “Tuca Tuca”, where Large invited a flamboyant fan in electric yellow pattered pants on stage to dance with her, and Nishimoto and Large dueting on “Get Happy/Happy Days Are Here Again”.

Returning for more after a wardrobe change during the break, the band kicked things off with Toledo-native guitarist Dan Faehnle’s “Ohayoo Ohio” composition before Large nailed Pink Martini standards like “Splendor in the Grass”, “Hang on Little Tomato”, and “Una Notte a Napoli”. The show closed with a two-song encore featuring the return of “Amado Mio” – this time in Russian! – and “Brasil”.

Other classics from the band’s repertoire were noticeably absent from the set, including “Sympathique” and “Hey Eugene”, but they weren’t necessarily missed or interpretations I wanted to hear. Those two songs in particular are so closely associated with Forbes that it was probably best to not try and shoehorn them into the show or Large’s style.

Trading Forbes’ reserved elegance for Large’s brassy personality worked beautifully in execution. She pulled off a great trick by filling in for the absent regular and staying true to the band, but putting her own mark on the proceedings. At the end of the day, I certainly look forward to seeing (and hearing) Forbes back out front, but I can’t help but hope that Pink Martini captures their temporary collaboration with Large in some way. They are just that good.

What I've Been Waiting For

I have never attended a midnight movie premiere before. It’s just not something that’s ever been on my radar. And, frankly, I was hard-pressed to think of a movie I’d want to see a midnight premiere of. It wasn’t until we were leaving the theater after watching Captain America: The First Avenger that I realized it, but Marvel’s The Avengers is that movie for me.

Seeing this movie at the midnight premiere and sharing it with my wife and kiddo is an experience I'll always appreciate. The atmosphere was unbeatable. We arrived at the theater around 8:30 and found our line. It wasn’t bad at all, and they ended up letting us into our theater right around 9pm. We were fortunate to not have to spend the next three hours on the floor, and instead were able to settle into our oversized XD theater seats where Jack read the movie prequel comics, Tracy read The Walking Dead, and I bounced between tweeting, meeting up with friends who were still waiting out in the hallway to get into their theater, and getting pwnd by the kiddo in many rounds of Zombie Dice on the iPad.

There were plenty of folks in costume, and our theater was completely packed by 10:30. When the house lights eventually dimmed, I couldn’t believe I was actually about to see an Avengers movie. And I was rewarded for my decades-long patience.

The crowd made this an event. Cheers for the first 3D trailer we got – Amazing Spider-Man – and for Prometheus. Cheers for the feature presentation’s main titles. Someone yelled, “Cleveland!” during the first on-screen scene shot here in the hometown and the place erupted.

I’m not a fan of Marvel’s Ultimate Universe, which birthed the reimagined Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, but I have completely bought into it over the course of the last five movies leading up to this. And I am a huge fan of Clark Gregg’s Agent Coulson. Brilliantly conceptualized, he is to the Marvel Movie Universe what Boba Fett could have been to the Star Wars Universe. Where Boba Fett was a background character whose cachet was based solely on the mystery of his presence then squandered with a pandering, sloppy origin and overexposure in the prequels, Coulson was grown organically to provide real weight to the character’s actions and importance to the story. Nothing wasted. Nothing easy.

That consistency carried over to Robert Downey, Jr.’s Tony Stark. By far the biggest star in this thing, writer-director Joss Whedon matched the tone of Jon Favreau’s first two solo Iron Man movies seamlessly. Similarly, Chris Evans was surprisingly believable as the man-out-of-time Captain America who ascends to the leadership role over the billionaire Stark and Asgardian God of Thunder by earning their respect. Thor’s entrance elicited cheers from the sold out crowd, and rightly so. It was a brilliant moment that Chris Hemsworth pulled off effortlessly.

As expected, Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow really shone under the contradictory hand of Whedon, known for not only his strong female characters, but also his penchant for framing his leading women’s posteriors in shots. I would have liked more screen time for Cobie Smulders’ Maria Hill, but it was great to have her on-hand in any capacity (and, again, more ass shots).

Mark Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner was much more thoughtful than Ed Norton’s previous run at the character (and I really enjoy the underrated Norton Incredible Hulk movie). Ruffalo pulls off the tortured scientist in every way. Hawkeye is one of my all-time favorite Avengers. (See my loving look at the character's history in issue #56 of BACK ISSUE magazine.) And the glimpse of him in Thor was great, but I have to say he’s not the standout for me in The Avengers. In fact, I’m hard-pressed to pick any one character as my favorite. This is truly a super-hero ensemble movie.

There was actually only one moment – a split-second gag – in the movie I didn’t care for. It was the only time while watching the film that I was jarringly aware I was viewing a "Joss Whedon film," and the moment was completely unnecessary and didn’t serve the story.

And there was one thing that took some getting used to: The rendering of the Green Goliath. I remember a lot of press about how you would be able to really see Ruffalo’s Banner in the Hulk onscreen. And you could, in the face and upper body, almost to a fault, but it has grown on me the more I think about the movie and the representation. And this was more than balanced by the personality infused into gamma-irradiated giant. Hulk truly shines in battle. Given what was revealed in the eight-issue Avengers Prelude: Fury’s Big Week comic book miniseries about the fate of Dr. Samuel Sterns (Mr. Blue) from the Norton movie, I really hope they pick up that thread and run with it in another solo Hulk movie.

Whedon nailed the character cameos, and Loki – Wow. Tom Hiddleston takes his performance to its scenery chewing limits, then dials it back just enough to keep you grounded. A wonderfully realized villain that builds progressively on the character we saw in Thor.

As far as the stingers go, Avengers comes packed with two of them. One at the beginning of the credits and one before the final fade out. Both are great in their own way. The first for its nod to fans of the comic books, and the second for the way it releases the tension of the previous two hours. Brilliant.

Marvel’s The Avengers is the movie 12-year-old me has waited 30 years for. This is the movie I would wait in line for. This is the movie I would sacrifice sleep to discover unspoiled on the largest screen in the area, in 3D, with my wife and 10-year-old son beside me. If I have ever been gobsmacked, it was during the two hours shortly after midnight on May 4 when I saw The Avengers for the first time. There were so many moments that made me cheer, or my jaw drop, or simply sit there with the biggest damn grin plastered across my face, it was a completely satisfying experience.

Iron Man Covers Project #9

Fine Time

New Order, with Public Image Ltd. and The Sugarcubes
05 July 1989: Blossom Music Center, Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio

My senior year of high school we had a foreign exchange student from Germany. I was pretty smitten with her, even asking her out a few times, but she shut me down quickly (and repeatedly). As the school year wore on, I met and fell hard for another girl who would set me on the path that helped shape me into the person I am today, leaving indelible fingerprints all over my creative outlets and musical tastes. Something was in the air our senior year, because my best friend John had also found love, falling harder than I’d ever seen him fall before – for our German exchange student, Julie.

Somewhere between Monsters of Rock and Lollapalooza, in the music festival no-man’s land that was the summer of 1989, New Order toured with Public Image Ltd. and the Sugarcubes. Firmly in my wheelhouse (both then and now, I have to admit), this was the must-attend show of the year. But by that summer before college, my girlfriend had moved on – figuratively and literally – dumping me and heading to San Francisco. So not only did I have to borrow the $15 from John in order to buy my ticket, I was third wheeling it to the show with him and Julie.

I only saw three shows at Blossom before moving to Florida in August of 1990. The New Order/PiL/Sugarcubes show was bookended by the Beach Boys with Roy Orbison and John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band (of Eddie and the Cruisers fame) in the summer of 1988, and Jimmy Buffett in the summer of 1990. Being relatively broke high school and college students during that era, it was exclusively lawn seating for me and my friends. I remember wandering the grounds and getting into all kinds of trouble during the Beach Boys show, and I remember very little about the Jimmy Buffett show (read into that what you will).

For the New Order concert, my memory puts John, Julie, and me right in the center of the lawn with a view straight into the pavilion and stage. I remember being pretty well anchored to our staked out plot of lawn for the duration of the show – even for the Sugarcubes’ set, despite never having been a huge fan of theirs.

The PiL performance was by far the most dynamic of the day. Johnny Lydon is nothing if not an entertainer. They were supporting 9, their most commercial album and one I thoroughly enjoy. The headliners were touring behind Technique, an album I have on vinyl, cassette, and CD. Publicly, New Order played to type by remaining completely impassive behind their instruments. Privately, the band was falling apart. This show took place about a month after Bernard Sumner announced to his bandmates that he no longer wanted to continue as New Order and was forming another band with Smiths’ guitarist Johnny Marr.

I’ve heard recordings of New Order’s set from this night, and the music itself was fairly solid, but lyrics were mangled or forgotten throughout the set (making one wonder if it was internal band strife or *ahem* recreational activities that resulted in the lyrical casualties). It was a visually sterile show, more impressive for getting to hear this music I love played at incredibly loud decibels than for any sort of stage presence by the performers.

More remarkable than anything else about the night, though, is the fact that virtually everyone from my future close college circle of friends and lovers attended that show, and then some. Some combination (or maybe all) of the people John and I would find our freshman year at Bowling Green just a few months later were there.

The alternative music culture of the late ’80s was an amplified version of the feeling I had of gaining entré into an exclusive club after wearing my first concert t-shirt (David Lee Roth) to school the day after the show. Musical tastes were visible in the costumes we wore day-in and day-out: dyed black hair, black eyeliner, thrift store chic. We might have found each other anyway, but because she was wearing a black PiL concert t-shirt I was prompted to strike up a conversation with Erin at college orientation a month or so after the show. I’m pretty sure Jeff was at that concert, and maybe Jen was, too.

Just as extraordinary, and like so many other shows in our shared history (David Bowie at the Richfield Coliseum springs immediately to mind), Tracy was in the house this same night. Although I wouldn’t meet her for another six-and-a-half years, while I was on the lawn, my future wife was in the mosh pit down front getting gobbed on by Johnny Lydon himself.

PiL is rumored to release a vinyl EP and full length album of new material this year, and a partial reunion of New Order has been teasing live shows overseas since late last year. The frenzy around the latter should only increase with their scheduled performance at the closing ceremonies of the 2012 London Olympics. I’m not sure if I’d go to see New Order or PiL, though, if they ended up touring the U.S. (I didn’t go out of my way to see a reconstituted PiL a couple of years ago when the closest they came to Northeast Ohio was a 2010 show in Pittsburgh.) I just have too much history mixed up in these groups, and it’s probably best if I just leave those memories unaltered.

Iron Man Covers Project #8

They Say It’s Like Religion

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band
17 April 2012: Quicken Loans Arena, Cleveland, Ohio

While never fanatical, I have always appreciated Bruce Springsteen’s music. Friends have steadfastly maintained that attending a Springsteen concert on a night when he’s playing with the E Street Band and they are all “on” is something akin to religion. After witnessing what took place in Cleveland on a Tuesday night, I’m of the mind that everyone should attend a Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band concert once in their life just to experience what rock and roll is about on a primal level.

The first tour for the E Street Band without saxophonist Clarence Clemons is noteworthy for the void left by The Big Man, but also for the way both the band and fans clearly have rallied around Jake Clemons who has stepped in to fill his late uncle’s very big shoes. With the house lights up, there was little fanfare – but absolutely no mistaking what was happening – when the recently dubbed “Little Big Man” stepped forward for his Cleveland sax solo debut during the set-opening “Badlands”.

Born to Run was always huge, and Born In the U.S.A. broke Springsteen on a megastar level while I was a teenager. Although I enjoy 2002’s The Rising and this year’s Wrecking Ball, with a catalog so rich and so deep I wasn’t expecting to know a lot of the songs heading into the show. That proved to be a fairly accurate prediction, but it didn’t keep me from both marveling at the faithful and finding myself caught up in the throng.

Nearly a third of the setlist was frontloaded with Wrecking Ball cuts, including the powerful one-two punch of “We Take Care of Our Own” and the title track. These selections stood out in the live setting, alongside “Shackled and Drawn” and “Jack of All Trades”, as powerful social commentary on the state of the Union.

The thing about Springsteen is that he mixes it up from show to show – a rarity in this day and age, often playing songs that are specifically tailored to the audience. For the Northeast Ohio crowd, he brought out 1995’s “Youngstown” off of The Ghost of Tom Joad that finished with a dizzying Nils Lofgren guitar solo. Written for the movie of the same name that was set in Cleveland, “Light of Day” made its tour debut as a show stopping, rollicking high point that mixed bits of “Land of 1,000 Dances” and “You Can’t Sit Down”.

As impressive as Lofgren’s spinning guitar work was, it paled next to Max Weinberg’s efforts behind the drum kit. Relentless with the backbeat, he is the musical backbone of the band. It’s staggering to put into perspective these men – Springsteen, Steven Van Zandt, Lofgren, Garry Tallent, Roy Bittan, and Weinberg – are all in their 60s and put on a clinic on how to deliver a relentless three-hour rock and roll show with no breaks and indomitable energy.

(Springsteen’s wife and E Street Band vocalist Patti Scialfa was absent this night, as she was “home making sure the kids stay outta the drug stash.”)

Springsteen moved freely from the main stage to an island stage behind the pit near the center of the arena floor, and it seemed something unpredictable happened each time he ventured out there. He plucked a young fan out of the crowd to sing along with him on The Rising’s “Waitin’ on a Sunny Day”, and then carried her to the main stage to rock out with the band. On another trip out during the Apollo medley, he chugged a couple of beers handed to him by random fans and returned to the main stage by crowd surfing through the pit.

Late set appearances by “Because the Night” and “The Rising” were welcome additions. Loosely considered the “main set closer” (there was no substantial break in the show to necessarily indicate where the show ended and an encore began), “Light of Day” segued into a small set to finish the night, containing mind-blowing versions of “Born to Run”, “Dancing in the Dark” – the night’s only appearance by a Born in the U.S.A. track – and “Tenth Avenue Freeze Out”.

As expected, the obligatory but no less sincere tribute to Clemons took place during the last song when Springsteen was at the mid-floor stage and sang the line about The Big Man joining the band. The acknowledgment of Clemons’ absence was clearly cathartic for the faithful, a proper good-bye.

Along with being a dominant presence in the E Street Band, Clemons’ talent has been featured on dozens of other artists’ work through the years, including playing sax on three tracks from the Michael Stanley Band’s 1980 album, Heartland. I was fortunate enough to interview Clemons in December 2006 for my presentation at the Pop Conference in April of the following year. My paper explored the impact an artist’s hometown civic image plays in their attempt at national stardom, focusing on the Michael Stanley Band and late 1970s Cleveland. There was one phrase that Clemons used over and over in our short 20 minute phone conversation when describing why Springsteen succeeded and why Michael Stanley didn’t: “You can’t out-Bruce Bruce!”

I now understand what Clemons meant.

(All photos by Adam Besenyodi.)

C2E2: The Sketches - Agent Coulson by Gabriel Hardman