Friday, July 14, 2006
Bill Burr -- 7/14/06
A regular on the Opie & Anthony show and seen on the Chappelle Show, Letterman, and HBO.
Saturday, July 01, 2006
Extreme reunion in Boston -- 6/30/06
I saw the old Boston band Extreme last night.
It was ok...JUST ok. They played for close to 2.5 hours and didn't finish until 11:30 but I was bored for about a total of an hour. For most of the show, literally every other song was something I didn't want to hear. I would have preferred more "fun" stuff from their first two albums rather than the slow-trudging filler material they had on their lesser popular later albums. And I don't think I was all alone with that feeling.
For example their song "Tragic Comic". I don't think many people wanted to hear that song 14 years ago -- which is around the time when a lot of us stopped buying their albums -- and last night it certainly appeared that the audience wasn't interested it in hearing it too much now because out of the whole crowd, I could count the number of people dancing/grooving/getting into it on my fingers. And quite a few people sat down during such songs. A stark contrast to songs like "Little Girls" from their first album, where everyone was up and dancing and singing along, but yet they only did this song as part of a medley of other stuff from that first album. HUGE mistake in my opinion. They should have done these older more beloved songs in their entirety and pulled the filler songs out of the setlist.
However this medley sort of salvaged the night because they did it towards the end so anyone who was feeling sleepy during those sit-down songs became wide awake and ready to rock.
For the encore, Paul Geary came out from behind the drums to tell us how as a kid he used to look at a poster that he had hanging on his wall, wishing and hoping that some day he'd be as sucessful as that band and that they were his "heroes" at which point Nuno ran up to the mic and said "they were MY heroes, too". This brought out three members of the orginal band Boston -- Brad Delp, Barry Goodreau, and Fran Sheehan. They played Boston's "Rock And Roll Band" and Led Zep's "Rock And Roll". I love Brad Delp -- one of the coolest guys I've ever met -- but he didn't sound so great for the first song; a little rusty and straining to hit those highs at first, but he pulled it out by the end and then he hit every high note in the Zep song, singing in an octave that Robert Plant can't get to anymore.
These songs were the only time that Nuno wasn't playing his ass off -- he relaxed a little to let Barry Goodreau show off. The rest of the night, Nuno kicked ass. He is a solid non-stop rhythm guitar player and a smokin' lead guitar player all at the same time. Not to mention that he is the only member of the band who still looks and acts like a rock star, but not in an egotitistcal way. I mean, he has long 1976-Joe-Perry-blond-patch hair and wears black and silver nail polish. The other guys, well, they look like they just came from their day-jobs and I wouldn't have recognized any of them if they walked past me on the street. I've seen pics of Pat with short hair before but I don't think I have even seen Paul completely clean-shaven...I did't even think it was him at first. And Gary...OMG...WTF happened to him?!?!?!?!?! He had more wrinkles than Mick Jagger and looked like someone gave him a black eye! Seriosuly! Like, maybe he walked into a mic...or maybe he got into a fist-fight with someone before the show...whatever it was, he looked REALLLLLLLLY bad!!
Mike Mangini came out and drummed for two songs. Gary and Pat and Nuno were trying to be funny by saying stuff like "Paul wants to take a break" and "Paul has to take a call from Sully" and "does anyone in the audience know how to play drums?". Kind of lame but when Mike did come out, I would say that he did a better job than Paul. He had more feeling and was more heavy and powerful. But, I can't drum for shit so who am I to talk.
Oh yeah, and Charlie Farren was the opener...wow...if someone offered me a million bucks if I could pick him out of a crowd, there is no way I would be able to...no longer the tall skinny guy I met way back in the day. His voice still sounds good however he was just doing the solo-acoustic thing which didn't seem to interest people too much. I would say there was no more than a few hundred people in the seating area for his set.
It filled up a lot more for Extreme but there were still lots of empty seats. In my row alone, I think there were 13 or 14 seats all together, but there was only seven of us in the entire row.
It was ok...JUST ok. They played for close to 2.5 hours and didn't finish until 11:30 but I was bored for about a total of an hour. For most of the show, literally every other song was something I didn't want to hear. I would have preferred more "fun" stuff from their first two albums rather than the slow-trudging filler material they had on their lesser popular later albums. And I don't think I was all alone with that feeling.
For example their song "Tragic Comic". I don't think many people wanted to hear that song 14 years ago -- which is around the time when a lot of us stopped buying their albums -- and last night it certainly appeared that the audience wasn't interested it in hearing it too much now because out of the whole crowd, I could count the number of people dancing/grooving/getting into it on my fingers. And quite a few people sat down during such songs. A stark contrast to songs like "Little Girls" from their first album, where everyone was up and dancing and singing along, but yet they only did this song as part of a medley of other stuff from that first album. HUGE mistake in my opinion. They should have done these older more beloved songs in their entirety and pulled the filler songs out of the setlist.
However this medley sort of salvaged the night because they did it towards the end so anyone who was feeling sleepy during those sit-down songs became wide awake and ready to rock.
For the encore, Paul Geary came out from behind the drums to tell us how as a kid he used to look at a poster that he had hanging on his wall, wishing and hoping that some day he'd be as sucessful as that band and that they were his "heroes" at which point Nuno ran up to the mic and said "they were MY heroes, too". This brought out three members of the orginal band Boston -- Brad Delp, Barry Goodreau, and Fran Sheehan. They played Boston's "Rock And Roll Band" and Led Zep's "Rock And Roll". I love Brad Delp -- one of the coolest guys I've ever met -- but he didn't sound so great for the first song; a little rusty and straining to hit those highs at first, but he pulled it out by the end and then he hit every high note in the Zep song, singing in an octave that Robert Plant can't get to anymore.
These songs were the only time that Nuno wasn't playing his ass off -- he relaxed a little to let Barry Goodreau show off. The rest of the night, Nuno kicked ass. He is a solid non-stop rhythm guitar player and a smokin' lead guitar player all at the same time. Not to mention that he is the only member of the band who still looks and acts like a rock star, but not in an egotitistcal way. I mean, he has long 1976-Joe-Perry-blond-patch hair and wears black and silver nail polish. The other guys, well, they look like they just came from their day-jobs and I wouldn't have recognized any of them if they walked past me on the street. I've seen pics of Pat with short hair before but I don't think I have even seen Paul completely clean-shaven...I did't even think it was him at first. And Gary...OMG...WTF happened to him?!?!?!?!?! He had more wrinkles than Mick Jagger and looked like someone gave him a black eye! Seriosuly! Like, maybe he walked into a mic...or maybe he got into a fist-fight with someone before the show...whatever it was, he looked REALLLLLLLLY bad!!
Mike Mangini came out and drummed for two songs. Gary and Pat and Nuno were trying to be funny by saying stuff like "Paul wants to take a break" and "Paul has to take a call from Sully" and "does anyone in the audience know how to play drums?". Kind of lame but when Mike did come out, I would say that he did a better job than Paul. He had more feeling and was more heavy and powerful. But, I can't drum for shit so who am I to talk.
Oh yeah, and Charlie Farren was the opener...wow...if someone offered me a million bucks if I could pick him out of a crowd, there is no way I would be able to...no longer the tall skinny guy I met way back in the day. His voice still sounds good however he was just doing the solo-acoustic thing which didn't seem to interest people too much. I would say there was no more than a few hundred people in the seating area for his set.
It filled up a lot more for Extreme but there were still lots of empty seats. In my row alone, I think there were 13 or 14 seats all together, but there was only seven of us in the entire row.
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