Archive
REVIEW: Blackfield @ the Bowery Ballroom (NYC – – 3/16/07)
The Blackfield show last night was excellent!!!
I showed up late (on purpose) as Jordan Rudess was opening. I had a slow subway ride to the Lower East Side, walked through the piles of snow to Leela Lounge (a tasty “hip” Indian restaurant), ate too much, then had a slow walk to the Bowery Ballroom. I still managed to catch about 20 minutes of Jordan’s set. I swear, it was painful. Nothing’s as boring as a rocker keyboardist playing piano-sounding keyboard classical-style songs for 45 minutes straight. I mean, yeah, he can play piano-board, but he still can’t write “a song” to save his life. I know I’ve griped about being bored at OTR shows. That’s mainly due to being tired and the music being slow. Jordan was truly bad, though (whereas OTR ain’t). I turned my iPod on and walked to the corner of the room to avoid it. I love
love instrumental music. Jordan Rudess is just
-ingly boring, though. The Dream Theater fans were eating it up like it was Chicken Pot Pie.
Ugh… I hate prog fans. No offense Steve, but I about had that reaction to you when you first started going on about PTree… “yeah, yeah, they’re a prog band.” They’re actually so much better than just about every prog band out there. Anyway, I’m glad that Porcupine Tree and Blackfield know things or two about song structure. I’m glad you pimped PT to me 4 years ago (wow… it doesn’t seem that long ago), but I couldn’t care less about the Dream Theater/Queensrÿche fans anymore… it’s just too much like watching a train wreck in a social setting.
Anyway, on to positive thoughts…
Blackfield came out. Steven Wilson was dressed like usual (t-shirt and jeans, glasses, floppy hair). Aviv Geffen (the other half of Blackfield’s songwriting) was dressed more like a rocker, dark shirt and tie, with glitter mascara and everything. The rest of the band was… the rest of the band (hired guns or friends or whatever). They played a good mix of Blackfield I & II songs (obviously). Steven also did his Cover Version I, which is Alanis Morissette‘s “Thank You.” It was just Steven singing and Aviv playing piano (no other band members on stage, and Steven not playing his guitar). It sounded great. Aviv also played a song on piano that was just him singing, too… I forget which song, but it was one of the quieter Aviv songs (maybe “The Hole in Me” than never got ‘boomed’ up like it does on disc).
Songs I know they played from I: Open Mind, Blackfield, Glow, Pain, The Hole in Me, Hello. Songs I know they played from II: Once, Miss U, Christenings, Epidemic, Where Is My Love?, End of the World. Other songs played: Alanis Morissette’s “Thank You” …and they probably played some that I’m forgetting…
I hope the filming turned out good for the upcoming DVD. I may have gotten into a few shots, as there was a guy filming the crowd some… I was in the back, though… so I doubt I’m in it too much… I bet the film crew started focusing on “shirtless Aviv” by the end… ![]()
~Dan
TRIPLE-REVIEW: Tori Amos, Radiohead, Over the Rhine (3 cities in Ohio – – Aug 2003)
(originally posted to the old Over the Rhine Actwin list)
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Ohio is great for concerts… triple show review (8/24/2003)
Not every week do you get to see 3 of your Top 5 Artists. This was one of those weeks for me…
Tori Amos, Radiohead, and Over the Rhine.
Here’s a triple review of OHIO shows this past week…
I. Tori Amos
II. Radiohead
III. Over the Rhine (bookstore show)
I. TORI AMOS & Marc Broussard
PromoWest Pavilion, Columbus, OH (just barely outside of downtown)
Wednesday, August 20th, 2003
HIGHLIGHTS: The opener was good. Strong voice. Tori was great… there were some technical problems partway through the set, but she handled it well. Her dress ripped, too… the resulting song that came out of that one was great. :) Song highlights were: Sweet Dreams (a Winter b-side), Mr Zebra, Caught a Lite Sneeze, Mary (another b-side), I Can’t See New York, Hey Jupiter, Bliss, A Sorta Fairytale, China, Liquid Diamonds, Girl, Precious Things, Space Dog, and Cornflake Girl… a lot of great tunes. Plus a birthday number was fun, too… apparently this was her last show before turning 40. She seems to be cool with that. :) Hanging out in Columbus’ Short North was great the next day, too. Magnolia Thunderpussy (awesome music selection), Monkeys Retreat (cool Simpsons collector stuff), and coffee for me; jewelry and art shops for Margarita… lots of glass in the Cow Town. Seemed like the shops fancied it. We some some excellent Chihuly pieces… my credit card wouldn’t handle purchasing them ($32k to start). Oh, maybe next time.
BUMMER: Ben Folds not being there was the biggest bummer. This was one of the two shows that he wasn’t going to co-headline. I didn’t find that out until *after* I bought my tickets and booked the hotel. Another bummer… she seemed to play too much from To Venus and Back (4-5 songs, ugh). Oh well, she played enough other material to make up for it… :)
OVERALL: Great show… my 8th time seeing Tori, and the setlist was been vastly different every time. That’s what I love about her touring… from day-to-day, it’s a different show.
II. RADIOHEAD & Steve Malkmus and the Jicks
Blossom Music Center, Cuyahoga Falls, OH (just outside of Akron)
Thursday, August 21st, 2003
HIGHLIGHTS: There There (with Ed on mini-drums and Jonny on mini-drums, keys, and guitar), Paranoid Android, Exit Music (For a Film), Lucky, Idioteque, Morning Bell, 2+2=5, Punchup at a Wedding, Wolf at the Door. They seemed to stick with the newer stuff, which is fine. But it seemed when they played any older stuff (Paranoid or Exit Music), that they were phenomenally tighter, and/or those songs lent themselves better to the live show. The Kid A stuff didn’t seem to lend itself as well (it did last time – 2 years ago). My favorite played was probably Paranoid Android. We moved up to the right side of the lawn, away from the crowd, after about 5 songs. We could see and hear (and breathe) way better. A nice breeze cooling us off, comfy grass to sit on, a beauty on my arm, and a great band flaoting through the air… ’twas a good time. Oh, and finally finding the only Indian restaurant in the Akron/Cuyahoga phone book was a blessing.
Different korma than our usual haunts (yummy as hell), and Strawberry Lassi (yum).
BUMMER: No My Iron Lung, Fake Plastic Trees, or Street Spirit (unless they had a 2nd encore that we missed)… also, the song “Kid A” was icky in the live performance (with a side of ICK sauce). Steve Malkmus & the Jicks were quite boring and lame. There were 2 or 3 Jicks’ songs near the middle-end that were *decent*. That’s about it. Oh, another bummer… Blossom’s parking is, like, miles and miles and miles from the venue. A 30 minute walk post-show is a drain. Oh, plus when we tried to check-in to our B&B at 3pm *no one* was there. We walked in, and *no one*. We eventually found a room with an A/C and napped until 5:30 until the proprietor finally showed up. It was surreal, at best. Quite disorganized B&B, but a KILLER house (O’Neill House in Akron) and a killer breakfast… yum.
OVERALL: Great lights, Thom’s a spaz, Jonny hates his guitar, Radiohead put on a great show again.
III. OVER THE RHINE and tons of books
Joseph-Beth Booksellers, Cincinnati, OH (just outside of Kentucky)
Saturday, August 23rd, 2003
HIGHLIGHTS: Hometown (Norwood) Boy, Suitcase, Anything At All, Show Me, Fever, Ohio, trivia break (Drew Vogel, aka D.V., won a framed poster), The Seahorse, and Summertime. They also had What I’ll Remember Most, Changes Come, and Bothered on the setlist, but didn’t play them. Suitcase was great.
Show Me was better than what I’d heard prior, and Fever was stunningly sexy (as usual).
BUMMER: I didn’t have my OHIO CDs from Paste yet. I didn’t even have them by the time I got home late Saturday night. I had K&L sign my Paste Order Confirmation email instead. I crack myself up sometimes.
OVERALL: Great set, sound was a bit off, but it was a really fun time. Song highlights were… all of ’em. It was good to see them in a nice intimate bookstore venue.
My wife (Margarita) somehow puts up with all of the driving to concerts… yay, I picked a winner! :)
Ohio traveller,
Dan
written in parts throughout the day, so…
pp: bela fleck & the flecktones – ten from little
worlds
pp: living sacrifice – reborn
pp: madonna – ray of light
pp: the magnolia soundtrack
np: sarah masen – carry us through
REVIEW: Over the Rhine @ Southgate House (Newport, KY – – 8/26/01)
(originally posted to the old Actwin list)
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BERL wrote:
> The show last night at Southgate was really
> fun, great sound.
yes, indeedy, petey. it sounded better up top, much
to the opposite recommendation from some folks here
(ahem… ahem)…
> Kim Taylor opened… she did great. Much looking
> forward to her CD.
eh… she was ok. better than girheuB ikkiN, nice
voice… and she didn’t smoke and scratch her head
incessantly. :P
j/k, she was pretty good. does she have a CD coming
out? i was out running my camera back to my car
during her last song.
> Bothered
> Lucy
i liked what karin did vocally at the end of these
songs… nice stuff…
> Miles
nice rendition. have they done that lately? i don’t
think so. that might have been my fav song of the
night.
> I Radio Heaven to her naked pot-farming
> TV buddy. It was a groovy version, just two
> acoustic guitars, kinda strumming along. It was
> one of the few songs of the night that wasn’t
> shifted downtempo of it’s original version.
jack was also playing lap steel along with this.
and unless you were at a different show than i…
this was not nearly the same as the album version.
dude, it was a freakin’ DIRGE. slow and moving and
droning. i liked it a lot, but i just had to really
disagree with you, though.
DIRGE was what it was. a freakin’ DIRGE.
you could see them all moping while playing it… ;)
> “Orphan Girl” is that same Gillian Welch song
> they’ve been playing for years. (Yawn) Pretty
> and all, but (yawn).
mmm… better than some other songs. i kinda liked
it.
> this all leads to “Hello Ohio”. It pretty
> much was a song about the things she just
> talked about…
she gave away half the lyrics in her talking.
where’s the surprise? i hate it when performers
do that.
overall a good show… i was sleepy after a long
weekend, but it was enjoyable.
i ate the crumbs- spilled the wine,
Dan
np: king’s x – KX4
The dirge comments prompted a discussion of Poughkeepsie, which prompted a post from a bandmember (Karin Bergquist)… It prompted this on the otr.com splashpage:

:sigh:
REVIEW: Over the Rhine @ Bogart’s (Cincinnati, OH – – 3/21/01)
(originally posted to the old Actwin list)
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rev: OtR – bogarts.
thurs, march 22rd/th/nd.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
fabulous set. mostest funnest for a while.
loved it. totally. echo megan & bink’s revs.
set. order not particular.
the world can wait.
if nothing else.
fairpoint diary.
no toy. no piano.
i radioheadven.
birds.
holy crap. loved it.
don’t be bothered. don’t be, i said.
well done. differentish.
something that (apparently) (isn’t) goodbye.
but i’m not so sure. or am i?
sleep baby jane.
it wasn’t my idea. it was karin’s first.
my love is a fever.
by firelight… hush.
all i need is e.
“crank the ‘e’ and let’s begin.”
(name that tune?) .5000 dollars if right.
faithfully dangerous.
give me strength. wild banshee mix.
aka album version. not acoustic.
moth. jesus was surprised.
when i go.
anywhere but down. name might be wrong.
the body is an escalator of skin.
escalator temporarily stairs.
little blue river/4 score & 7 yrs.
latter days.
like i said. awesome show. best in yrs.
they changed their setlist. they had fun.
standy bogart’s or not. it rocked.
did they do whatever you say? bruce? they didn’t do whatever i say, did they do whatever you say?
i still miss terri. brokenheart.
moth and e, mainly.
( :::|::|::: ) might fix it. temporarily.
jakc rocks. jack does too.
linford sticks up for him.
karin is beaut. always.
chris and dale, cool mofreekas.
nighty-nite.
someone snerdley,
Dan
np: wonderful thoughts
~ Dan Temmesfeld – dtemm@yahoo.com ~
~ zesenzestig sinaasappel schillen ~
REVIEW: Over the Rhine @ Canal Street Tavern (Dayton, OH – – 6/23/00)
(originally posted to the old Actwin list)
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They played a lot of new stuff and/or older stuff that they haven’t pulled out too often… the first set was shock full of the newer stuff, and the second stuff had some of the OtR staples…
It was a really good show overall… and it’d been since December since I’d seen OtR. Good stuff. Oh yeah, it was a three-piece (K&L and Jack). Nikki Buehrig opened.
Karin’s new hair-style…she needed to be wearing a big script “L” on her shirt. :) Sorry, but that’s just the first thing that came to my mind when they came on stage…
They played a tune that Bruce said that Jan’s been requesting forever (see setlist below), but they’ve never played it for her… so maybe their next Chicago show, you’ll luck out Jan…
Setlist:
SET 1-
When I Go (K&L)
I Let It Go
Goodbye
Anyway
Show Me
Green Clouded-Tail Butterfly
If Nothing Else
It’s Never Quite What It Seems
Cast Me Away
Little Blue River
Who Will Guard the Door (K&L)
Suitcase (K&L)
Fairpoint Diary (K&L)
SET 2-
And Can It Be
June
Moth
Jacksie
All I Need is Everything
I Will Remember
Now I Know (Cowboy Junkie’s tune)
Lucy
Circle of Quiet
Latter Days
ENCORE-
Faithfully Dangerous
Go Down Easy
Somewhere in SET 2, Jack and Linford did a little jam session… I forget in between which songs. It was fun. As for SET 1, I don’t remember hearing “Cast Me Away;” so maybe they didn’t play it, or maybe I fell asleep…
The three new ones in a row Show/Green/Nothing were cool. Jack’s guitar tone on several of them were what Bruce referred to as “porno guitar.” Twas humourous. They were good songs anyway. The first two new songs at the beginning of the SET 1 were good, too… but kinda mellow. They were nice, though.
Ah… I think this show made up my mind that I’m gonna try to make it to the Sunday show in Columbus…
Have fun everybody at the Kent gig!!!
save the erf,
Dan
np: bt – movement in still life
