My wife and I traveled to San Diego, California last week to attend a wedding. The day after we arrived, we went to Petco Park and watched the San Diego Padres play the Seattle Mariners battle to a 1-0 hometown victory. After settling in at our La Jollia hotel, we Ubered our way to Humphreys by the Bay situated outdoors. in the heart of a resort and restaurant development. Despite the resort and restaurant packages, and overall reasonable ticket prices, the concert was nowhere close to sold out. Fortunately for us, for $59.00 (plus the Ticketmaster charges), we sat 3rd row center in the narrow plastic chairs that did not fold making it difficult to pass. Mr. Anderson opened the concert with the classic “Owner of a Lonely Heart” and proceeded to mix songs from his brand new album “1,000 Hands” with older solo works and the Yes catalog. Jon looked and sounded great with a capable band that played well but lacked the stage presence provided by some of Anderson’s other touring bands. The venue had the vibe that you were somehow at some private event with full service bar and cozy atmosphere.. Jon Anderson is still the ultimate showman and the music still holds up; and as all true artists do, he is still creating new and innovative sonic art. Jon seemed to be particularly attentive to a beautiful blonde seated at the end of the first row who I believe turned out to be his wife. She sang along to the new tunes and was seen briefly dancing with Anderson on the side of the stage near the end of the show during an instrumental break. My wife, who was never a big Yes fan, loved the concert and we happily exited with the encore “Roundabout” reverberating in our heads.

Makes Me Happy

Rock on !

GQ

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony was held at Barclays Center where somewhat unbelievably, bands from the 1980’s are now getting their due. As usual for this made for HBO special event, the speeches go on for way too long, while the musical performances leave you wanting more. My wife and I missed Stevie Nicks open the festivities with guest appearance by Don Henley. Stevie’s set got good reviews but I don’t mind having missed it as Don Henley usually comes off as being a miserable rich guy and the last time I saw Nicks solo at Nassau Coliseum we walked out as she rambled so much between songs that the increasingly angry audience yelled for her to shut up and sing.

Roxy Music, The Cure and The Zombies played nice sets. Bryan Ferry was as dapper as ever, Robert Smith looked like the love child of Edward Scissorhands and Susan Boyle and gave an uncomfortable speech before rocking out with the band and The Zombies played legendary hits from their 50+ year career.

Radiohead, inducted by David Byrne, did not play (too cool?) nor did Janet Jackson who showed up and gave a speech that no one around us paid attention to. What is the point of inducting Janet Jackson, who arguably is not deserving of a Rock Hall Induction, particularly if she is going to decline to perform?

Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails gave the best speech of the night while inducting The Cure but the live event itself is tough to sit through (is the E Street Band dome accepting their recognition?)

We missed all of Def Lepperd also and the “All the Young dudes finale but I will catch the edited show down the line on HBO.

Get well soon Mick Jagger.

Rock on!

GQ

For the second time in weeks, The Wall concert rescheduled for last night Friday, 2/8/19 was postponed. I had won a pair of tickets from WBAB radio who was kind enough to call me again regarding the postponement. When I asked the young lady on the phone what was going on, she said that due to the government shutdown the band was unable to obtain the necessary visas to enter the country. Trump’s shutdown caused The Wall to not enter the country; quite ironic.

Here’s hoping that the band makes it through customs for the new date on March 8 or by way of the Mexican border if necessary.

Comfortably Numb

Rock on!

GQ

Yours truly made a rock and roll road trip to Winnipeg, Canada to catch two concerts with Neil Young and Crazy Horse. The shows were originally placed on sale and advertised as “solo” performances as part of Mr. Young’s theatre stops but then to a Crazy Horse gig. Neil gave us the best of both worlds by doing solo acoustic sets before bringing his “friends” onstage. The beauty of these short bursts of touring is that the setlists vary from show to show. The Burton Cummings Theatre and Centennial Concert Hall were the two completely different venues in Winnipeg for the return of Crazy Horse. The Burton Cummings Theatre was first and the old structure seemed appropriate for the opening night of Neil Young’s return home. It felt like a reunion with old friends as Billy Talbot and Ralph Molina handled the bass and drums. Frank Sampedro is still missing in action since the injury he sustained a few years back causing Young and Crazy to cut short a tour that would have brought them to the Capital Theatre in Westchester at the time. Nils Lofgren stepped in for dates in California last year, and with his long history with Neil Young including the “After the Goldrush” album, and Bruce Springsteen recovering from a long solo stint on Broadway, multi-instrumentalist Nils Lofgren was the perfect person to help piece the Horse back together again. As luck would have it very early this morning I ran into Mr. Lofgren at the Winnipeg airport where we were both separately having breakfast. I told Nils he really rocked that “Like a Hurricane” organ; Nils said it was a lot of fun and that he nearly knocked Billy over a couple of times. It was a great three day adventure on the frigid streets of Winnipeg. As Nils, a real gentleman and seemingly nice guy, said to me, hopefully there is more to come.

Last night’s show at the Centennial Concert Hall is playing on the Neil Young Archives website now!

Don’t Spook the Horse

Rock on

GQ

Neil Young is live-streaming tonight’s solo acoustic show in Minneapolis tonight on the Neil Young Archives website. This show alone is worth the $19.99 yearly subscription. On Sunday I am off to Winnipeg to see Neil Young and Crazy Horse for two nights with Nils Lofgren stepping in for Frank Sampedro again. Neil may perform an acoustic set also as the show’s were initially advertised as “solo”.

I believe NYA will also livestream the Crazy Horse concert at the Burton Cummings Theatre on Sunday night. Look for me on the aisle in the fourth row (I’ll be the tall, good looking guy with the frozen Irish mug).

Ambulance Blues

Rock on!

GQ

Warren Haynes and Gov’t Mule played the not quite sold out Beacon Theatre on a very rainy New Year’s Eve in New York City. Mr. Haynes was just recently in town for the Steve Earle benefit concert and he seems to make the rounds in the New York area frequently; the man is always working and we thank him for that. Gov’t Mule was in top form with three sets of music, balloons and lots of cover tunes including “Casey Jones” at midnight and my favorite Bob Seger song “Beautiful Loser”. Warren Haynes can play anything, everything and with anyone and his guitar virtuosity was on full display as we barreled through to another year of rock and roll in 2019. This show was a great way to end 2018 and propel us forward. Coincidently, the Chinese just landed a space craft on the Dark Side of the Mule; go figure.

The End of the Line

Rock on!

GQ

Rest in Peace

Pegi Young was an incredible musical talent in her own right and the guiding force of The Bridge School in California.

The “Harvest Moon” video is currently being shown on the Neil Young Archives.

GQ

When I saw the great blues man Johnny Winter perform at My Father’s Place in Roslyn, he stepped on stage with long white hair and aided by a cane. If memory serves me regarding this particular Central Park concert we may have hung out on the rocks and listened to the show from beyond the fences. For anyone who attended these shows as regularly as my friends and I did after discovering this magical venue, the party on the rocks overlooking the Wollman Rink is where we got our education, our initiation into the world and culture of rock and roll.

Johnny B. Goode

Rock on!

GQ

My buddy Sandy asked me for my “top  ten” albums and I dismissed it at first. So many lists have been compiled through the decades and so much great music created that narrowing any greatest hits list to ten is near impossible but I’m about to try.

First some ground rules- single albums only and no live albums. Frampton Comes Alive, One More from the Road, Live From Fillmore East, The River, Physical Graffiti, Yessongs, Sandinista, The Last Waltz, Derek and the Dominos. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, and Exile From Main Street will have to wait.

Second- no greatest hits collections- too many and too easy. Some of my favorite artists have numerous classic songs but not the one great all time studio album.

Third- only one album per artist- it would be tough to narrow down my top ten Neil Young albums so giving Neil and the rest only one slot apiece seems to be the only way to go.

The Top Ten albums of all time (today) in no particular order (maybe) are the following:

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The Beatles-

Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

Sgt. Pepper is easily the greatest Beatles albums of all time and one of the most important in the history of rock and roll.

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Rolling Stones- Sticky Fingers

I still remember having this and “Goats Head Soup” (which I had to special order from a local record store) on eight track tape.

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Neil Young- Tonight’s the Night

“Rust Never Sleeps”

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Lou Reed- The Blue Mask

“New York” and the great Velvet Underground catalog notwithstanding , “The Blue Mask” found Lou at yet another peak of his creative powers and this album captured my attention for a long, long period of time.

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Guns N Roses- Appetite for Destruction

What! No Led Zeppelin ? My favorite Led Zep album is the double disc “Physical Graffiti”.

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Pink Floyd- Wish You Were Here

Before “The Wall” and after “Animals” Pink Floyd captivated my neighborhood with “Wish You Were Here” which also took album packaging to whole new mysterious level.

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Bruce Springsteen- Born to Run

My favorite Bruce Springsteen album is “The River” but “Thunder Road” may be the greatest rock and roll song of all time, and the album was the game changer for Springsteen, so Born to Run makes the list.

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Jethro Tull- Aqualung

Some may quarrel with this choice but when I was a high school freshman, my favorite band was Jethro Tull and my buddy Bobby’s older sister in high school put her headphones on me to check out the title song making quite a sonic impression.

The first album I bought on my own was “Warchild” and I was tempted to go with “Thick as a Brick” or “Songs from the Wood” as one of my top ten selections but the album “Aqualung” has been a classic rock staple for so long it seems to have been overlooked of late as one of the great albums in the history of rock and roll.

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Aerosmith- Rocks

“Toys In the Attic” is great hard rock album but this one is just a notch better in my estimation.

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David Bowie- Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)

I love all of the different phases of David Bowie’s career but this Brian Eno collaboration edges out “Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars” for me.

Feel free to discuss amongst yourselves.

Rock on!

GQ