Thighs Wide Shut

Gorillaz
Barclays Center
October 13

If I had a pocket full of endless money, I would just keep throwing it at Damon Albarn and force him to keep coming up with new music, in whatever form he chooses, and then tour it, and I’d be there every fcuking time.  I basically have.  OK, so I was late to the Blur express, but ever since I brought Damon into my ears, my modern life has been as far from rubbish as possible!

I’ve seen him solo once (with two brothers Graham)

Got to see him as The Good, The Bad & The Queen (what a dumb name for such an awesome side project)

I’ve seen Blur 4 times (the Hyde Park show being the mostest!)

And now I’ve see 6 Gorillaz shows (like a child, you can’t pick a favorite, so I won’t – they are all a BLESSING TO SEE AND HEAR!!)

This means I’ve seen Damon Albarn in some form play a concert 12 times, which means I’ve seen him perform in concert more than any other human on earth (besides my mom singing Bob Marley songs).  This means I love Damon Albarn above all others.  And I would say that is accurate.  No matter how much I LIVE for the Beatles and their living members, I’m all for Damon or bust.

Damon is THE best.  He always brings it.  I’m glad he’s found a way to be successful in America.  Guess most Yanks aren’t into cockney word play.  Their loss.  But really my loss.  If Blur were big over here, they would play here all the time, instead of barely selling out MSG.  Whatevs.  Come here with them, without them, with De La Soul, with Gay La Bowl, whoever.  If you played with a pack of wild dogs, it would be amazing, and I would be there, for you and for me!

Damon, I am in awe of you.  Some people love and worship Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen.  That’s great!  Let those people bow that way, and I’ll bow towards something much more wow, and now now – you Damon Albarn.  Bless your fcuking heart mate!

Setlist – M1 A1 / Tranz / Last Living Souls / Rhinestone Eyes / Saturnz Barz / Tomorrow Comes Today / Every Planet We Reach Is Dead / 19-2000 / Humility / Superfast Jellyfish (with De La Soul) / On Melancholy Hill / El Mañana / Fire Flies / Strobelite (with Peven Everett) / Interlude: Elevator Going Up / Andromeda / Hollywood (with Jamie Principle) / Dirty Harry (with Bootie Brown) / Feel Good Inc (with De La Soul) / Souk Eye / Plastic Beach

Encore – Lake Zurich / Latin Simone / Kids With Guns / Stylo (with Mos Def and Peven Everett) / Clint Eastwood / Don’t Get Lost in Heaven / Demon Days

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bo5lOfMg9mn/

Depeche Mode
Barclays Center
June 6

REACH OUT AND TOUCH BUTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But what the fudge – you haven’t played ‘Just Can’t Get Enough’ since 2014, and ‘People Are People’ in concert since June 18, 1988???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????  Depeche – what the mode??????????????

Still, you could have played boring songs about microwaved tunafish and it would have ROCKED THE FCUKING CASHBAR LIKE YOU DID ALL NIGHT AT BARCLAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Me?  I couldn’t get enough!!

Setlist – Going Backwards / It’s No Good / Barrel of a Gun / A Pain That I’m Used To / Useless / Precious / World in My Eyes / Cover Me / The Things You Said / Home / In Your Room / Where’s the Revolution / Everything Counts / Stripped / Enjoy the Silence / Never Let Me Down Again

Encore - I Want You Now / Walking in My Shoes / A Question of Time / Personal Jesus

(yep, that’s me singing at the end :)

Lorde
Barclays Center
April 4

Praise be Lorde.  Praise be we who bask in her brilliance.  Two albums deep, with the latest somehow surpassing her supreme debut.  My second-ish time seeing her, and she easily topped the previous outing.  How do you do it Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O’Connor?  You’re wise beyond your ears.  All the pop princesses of your age are so whatevs.net, but not you.  You seem like you are forever.  You seem like you could even front Nirvana (oh wait, YOU DID!! AND I WAS THERE TO WITNESS SUCH AWESOMENESS!).  How do you let things come out of the woodwork, and make them work so well?  May you only get green lights in life, and have no red ones to stop you

Setlist – Sober / Homemade Dynamite / Tennis Court / Magnets (Disclosure cover) / Buzzcut Season / 400 Lux / Ribs / The Louvre / Hard Feelings / Yellow Flicker Beat / Writer in the Dark / New York > Hard Feelings (St. Vincent cover with Jack Antonoff) / Liability (with Jack Antonoff) / Sober II (Melodrama) / Supercut / Royals / Perfect Places / Green Light

Encore - Loveless / Precious Metals / Team

https://www.instagram.com/p/BhLEAlChP00/?taken-by=thighmaster

Roger Waters
Us + Them Tour
Barclays Center
September 11th

Not sure of Roger Waters’ stance on Jews, but I know he doesn’t like walls.  In fact, he wants them torn down.  Like the ones in Israel.  I can see his point.  Other Jews cannot.  So some Jews don’t like Roger Waters whatsoever

https://www.instagram.com/p/BY60TX1jPpn/?taken-by=thighmaster

I am not one of those Jews.  I hope that’s OK with the rest of you Jews.  If not, it’s your loss, cause dude, Roger Waters is the fcuking BEST!!

This was my 5th time seeing the rotten ole bastard.  First two times he did Dark Side in full, then the next two me saw him Wall build and destroy!  Where did he go from there, as in two nights ago?  The best of both + a new album (which is totally NOT awful!)  

Who knows if this will be his last tour or not.  You have to assume it’s the last time, and so you juss go and see him, again and again, and I will continue to do so.  So should JEW!

And dude, LOVE the bobbed hair babes!

but seriously Roger… look, I love your faux David Gilmour – David Gilmwitz, but can’t you and David bury the BS and juss reunite???  You don’t need the money, but there would be plenty.  Do it for us, or do it cause you hate Trump more than all of us (Jews and non-Jews and Jews who hate you) combined 

First Set – Speak to Me / Breathe / One of These Days / Time / Breathe (Reprise) / The Great Gig in the Sky / Welcome to the Machine / When We Were Young / Déjà Vu / The Last Refugee / Picture That / Wish You Were Here /The Happiest Days of Our Lives / Another Brick in the Wall Part 2 / Another Brick in the Wall Part 3

Second Set  –  Dogs / Pigs (Three Different Ones) / Money / Us and Them / Smell the Roses / Brain Damage / Eclipse

Encore – Vera /Bring the Boys Back Home / Comfortably Numb

https://www.instagram.com/p/BY7QBo7jWi-/?taken-by=thighmaster

32nd Annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony
Barclays Center
April 7th

There have been 32 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremonies, and I’ve sadly only attended three of them.  For a long time, they weren’t open to the public, and were held in either Cleveland or the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel only for industry people  

As soon as they did open them to the public, and in my neck of the woods – starting with the 2014 show – I HAD to be there.  Somehow the demand wasn’t as high with the 2016 show (guess Cheap Trick as a headliner didn’t do the trick), and I somehow snagged a pair of tickets for a paltry $26.06!!!

For the 2017 show, I knew that that would not be the case, with Pearl Jam and Journey getting in, who both have strong fan bases that would just have to be there.  I had to be there too, no matter what.  I’d go even if the inductees were the now eligible Spin Doctors, EMF, Letters To Cleo, Color Me Badd, and Right Said Fred!!  (come to think of it – I’d actually love to see a concert of all those bands together!!!)

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E.L.O.

Last year’s show led off with a David Bowie tribute, and so of course an obvious Chuck Berry one was due this year, and of course, the obvious choice to kick things off was E.L.O. and their outer-spaced out version of his ‘Roll Over Beethoven’, and of course, that is what happened, and of course it rocked.  I know it would, having been lucky enough to see Mr Jeff Lynne and his orchestra do that song + ‘Evil Woman’ and ‘Mr Blue Sky’ this past September, like he totally rocked them again this night  

E.L.O. is a well deserved entry into the Hall, although I strongly feel that Lynne’s other project – The Traveling Wilburys – deserve a place there too.  Mainly cause I want him to reunite with Dylan and Petty (and maybe get George Harrison’s son Dhani, who inducted E.L.O., plus someone else to stand in for Roy Orbison) and play the songs they NEVER toured, EVER

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Joan Baez

I know Joan Baez, but if you asked me to name her 5 most famous songs, I’d probably not even get to 2.  Yikes, but I know she’s important, and while not the most rockiniest choice for the Hall, a vital one nonetheless.  And with today’s politically charged climate (although seriously, what day and age’s climate is NOT politically charged), Joan brought a taste of injustice and protest from times past to the present, playing ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot’ + brought out Mary Chapin Carpenter and The Indigo Girls to strum ‘Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)’ and ‘The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down’.  I’m all for her making a statement, but I would have preferred a little more rockin – like her cover of ‘House of The Rising Sun’ (if you can call that ‘rockin’)

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Yes

One of THE best things about the Rock Hall inductions is the once in a lifetime reunions AND collaborations, and the band Yes, gave both of those an emphatic YES!!!  The band has had many many many formations in its history, and currently tour the world in two different factions, but on this night, they didn’t come from a place of ‘no’, and all came together to say ‘yes’ to Yes!!!  And superfan Geddy Lee (and Rush bandmater Alex Lifeson) as the inductor, not only had high praise for the group, but filled in admirably for the departed Chris Squire on ‘Roundabout’.  The long song only allowed for a second tune, the 80s staple ‘Owner of a Lonely Heart’

https://www.instagram.com/p/BSnF4W0jQfi/

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Tupac

You’d think that a posthumous induction would not be all that great, but you’d be DEAD wrong.  Poor wording, but totally true.  The Kurt-less Nirvava performance was one of the most bestest things I have ever witnessed, musically.  When Linda Ronstadt (who is not dead) missed her induction 3 years ago, the performance put on in her honor was udderly fantastic.  Same was true for Tupac’s big night.  I missed the Snoop Dog speech while taking an extended wizz, and didn’t really know all the songs in the medley, but what a medley it was…

Ambitionz az a Ridah / I Get Around / I Ain’t Mad at Cha / Dear Mama / Changes (see below) / 2 of Amerikaz Most Wanted / Gangsta Party / Hail Mary / Keep Ya Head Up

all with the help of Alicia Keys, YG, TI, Treach from Naughty By Nature, and of course the Snoop man himself!

No hologram needed – as 2Pac’s music brought him back to life!

https://www.instagram.com/p/BSnJNQIjcOY/

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Journey

The night’s most memorable moment was the one that didn’t happen.  Steve Perry joined his former bandmates on stage for a heartfelt reunion that didn’t continue into the post-speech performances, leaving everyone VERY happy to see him, but VERY sad that we didn’t really get to hear him (sing)

Steve Perry can do whatever Steve Perry wants to do.  If he wants to accept an award and not play with Journey ever again, that’s his choice, but in choosing to not perform (perhaps for the last time and chance ever to do so… but never say ever), he denied the audience, the fans, and humanity the opportunity to witness perhaps THE music moment of the decade  

It may be time to stop believing in a Steve Perry reunion, but with current frontman Arnel Pineda perfectly imitating his chops, there’s plenty to lick and believe in here.  Pineda & co rocked the arena and our world with ‘Separate Ways (Worlds Apart), ‘Lights’ and ‘Don’t Stop Believin’

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Pharrell Williams then inducted Nile Rodgers with the Award For Musical Excellence, but sadly Daft Punk did not show up to make us all ‘Get Lucky’

this was followed to a nice, but not anything super special Lenny Kravitz tribute to Prince, featuring ‘When Doves Cry’ and ‘The Cross’.  Prince should never not be memorialized and honored, but I feel a little Prince-tributed out.  Maybe they could have done a nice Leonard Cohen tribute, and have all the 1284384288424842 people who have covered ‘Hallelujah’ play it all together as one

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Pearl Jam

Save the best for last, and Pearl Jam did, bringing up the rear for this show.  While Neil Young called in sick, David Letterman came out of hiding and brought well needed non-musician humor and heart (and beard) to the proceedings 

Another lovely moment was the appearance and reunion with their original drummer Dave Krusen, who sit in with the band for ‘Alive’, for the first time since he departed the group in 1991(!!!!!)!  Personally, I would have let the group play Ten in its entirety, but they chose to sprinkle in other works, like ‘Given to Fly’ and ‘Better Man’  

The only other moment that would have been super epic, was the show’s all-star jam closing number ‘Rockin’ in the Free World’.  The jam WAS super epic, but without Neil Young, it was a little less super-y epic-er than it could have been.  But who cares!!!  When George Harrison’s son is jamming with Geddy Lee, Eddie Vedder, Jonathan Cain and Neal Schon of Journey, and Trevor Rabin of Yes, you’ll take that over not taking that.  TAKE THAT!!  I will, thanks!  

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Keep these shows a coming and a rocking Rock Hall, and especially to Brooklyn! and with more capes!!!!