Happy Monday, folks. Everyone out here in the Bay Area is recovering emotionally after the transcendent experience that was this year’s Bridge School Benefit concert down in Mountain View, CA. While I couldn’t make it myself this year, most of my crew made it out for a day and reported back nothing but smiles and heartfelt appreciation for live music and what Neil Young brings to the table each and every year for this special event.
As always Neil Young made a set of special appearances each day, and footage is up from the feed so you can see the sit-in he did with Arcade Fire as well as this shot of him and Beck doing “Pocahontas.” Look at the Beck band reaction when Young joins them on stage… READ MORE
Our friend Ryan Matteson from Muzzle of Bees was in SF this past week for work and joined me for a beer at my local watering hole, but sadly I wasn’t able to join him for the Ry Cooder show at Great American Music Hall last night. Knowing that Ryan has impeccable taste in music and I’m unfamiliar with Cooder’s catalog, I asked him to put together some thoughts from the show and here’s what he sent our way…Photo via @jamesdamnbrown from 8/31/11.
Some artists have an allure about them that makes getting the chance of seeing them perform live seem a bit surreal. Seeing Ry Cooder last night at Great American Music Hall last night still hasn’t really sunk in. Cooder’s body of work is more than impressive. His contributions to music run deep through the veins of many musical genres. He can’t be pigeon holed. Let Wikipedia tell you where he’s been. This is what makes each new Ry Cooder offering – be it album or collaboration – so exciting to hear how it unfolds. READ MORE
Photo by Justin Ward
With a last minute show only announced a week ago and sold-out in a minute or less based on some estimates, Primus returned to the stage last night at the Great American Music Hall for a night labeled “An Evening With…” The room was packed with sweat, testosterone, and an absolutely mind-blowing performance through two sets of music. This was easily one of the best shows I’ve seen all year. READ MORE
Tortoise came through San Francisco last night clearly practicing for their Friday night set at Pitchfork Music Festival coming up this weekend. Given that the “Write the Night” setlist would likely include many of the older fan favorites, I heard the band do a bunch of songs that I’ve never seen them perform live. They opened the show with “TNT” and proceeded to mix the set with some of the songs off their latest album, Beacons Of Ancestorship
, and older albums and older grooves they know that they’re going to deliver on at their big set on Friday. Totally solid show overall.
Pit Er Pat opened the show as a duo, which I’ve never seen from that band before. Normally they had two up front singing and playing with their haunting-pop melodies, but this was usually over a drummer in the background that would play frantic yet light-to-the-touch grooves as he rolled around the drumset. This was severely lacking as a set without a full drummer working with the band. Instead it was dub and space rock, which generally sounded cool, but it still left a little to be desired for me having them a few years back.
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I’m about to head out to check out Everyone Orchestra at Great American Music Hall, a pretty solid venue and one I could get comfortable seeing shows at. It’s walking distance from my current place of residence, so that’s pretty sweet, too. See you in the beer line.
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