NYC Fun:
In NYC, we have been enjoying the cultural
offerings. Lots of great concerts! Just within a short time we've
seen:
- Ozzfest is coming up soon (at Great Woods, MA).
- Metallica with Korn and Kid Rock -- actually at Foxboro, MA, but it was worth the drive. Met was great as always, and Korn has improved enormously since we first saw them (granted, that was 6 years ago at a tiny club when just "Balltongue" got airplay on obscure college radio stations -- you could tell it was college radio because if you missed the rock hour the next program was "polka hour"!).
- Sevendust at Hammerstein with Static X,
-
Godsmack,
at the Bowery Ballroom (great show -- their album had just gone gold, and since the losers at K-Rock hadn't yet figured it out,
they were comparatively unknown here in the City -- we knew them from listening to WAAF out of Boston). Then we saw them at
Hammerstein (now that they're big -- though I have to point out how much the sound at H'stein sucks, like listening to sound from wet socks in a deep cave, I don't know why anyone plays there) and soon they'll play Ozzfest -- what a trajectory!
-
Hole,
at Roseland -- Courtney
rocks!
-
Metallica
(at Roseland in their limited
Garage tour where they played non-Met songs and their opening act was a
tribute band), and then at Madison Square Garden, for their concert with
the symphony -- Donna got excellent (6th row!) tix through the Met
fanclub,
-
Liz
Phair, at Roseland,
the first time we'd seen her in concert, which was fun because we love
whitechocolatespacegg,
-
PJ Harvey,
at Hammerstein,
although I liked her last concert tour (a few years back, with Live) better,
as this one was a little more experimental noodling, like dance hall
at louse point with John Parish -- but that's not to say I didn't enjoy
it
-
REM, at
Jones Beach, a very nice mellow concert,
-
Rage against the
Machine, in a rare club appearance (Roseland
-- capacity 3000 for a band that can sell out arenas), was fantastic as
always, and then again in New Haven CT
-
Matthew
Sweet, at the Bottom Line, for whom we waited in line an hour in the
pouring rain (worth it - we've seen him a few times before, and it's always
a super show), especially since his new album is so good after a few weaker ones
-
Soul
fly
[actually in Norwalk CT at the Globe, not NYC but close], who just rock awesomely -- we've been fans since we first caught them at Ozzfest, can't say enough in praise of these guys!
-
Pearl
Jam, again not in NYC rather at the Meadows in Hartford,
-
Ministry, at Roseland as usual,
-
Live at Hammerstein: although we haven't loved
their recent albums, we've seen their concerts both in a club and a stadium,
so we went to see if they could change our minds (some bands you see live
and you like them even more [e.g., Rush] and others you see live and lose
a lot of respect for them [Limp Bizkit and Korn being the most notable
recent examples -- saw Bizkit on Ozzfest in MA when "Counterfeit" was their
only song out, and they sucked massively; saw Korn at Toad's in New Haven
touring on their first album, and they gave note-for-note renditions with
no real excitement, they could have just put the CD on and lip-synched]),
-
and probably some other concerts that I've forgotten
about...
We've also hit the somewhat-higher-culture of
theatre, from "Death of a Salesman" and "Not About Nightengales" (Salesman
didn't impress me; NAN was much better) on Broadway, to smaller shows such
as "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" (not
only is it a great show, but the music rocks, and who can complain about
so much cross-dressing!), "bash" (a creepy but good series of 3 short plays,
directed by Neil Labue, with that actress -- what's her name? -- who's
preternaturally skinny and plays a lawyer on TV), "Blue Man Group,"
De La Guarda Villa Villa
"James Joyce's The Dead," Brecht's "King Edward,"
"Cider House Rules, Part 1," and the first version of "Ride Down Mt Morgan" at the New Theater. {The last two partly
because they starred actors from the
StarTrek
series, so Donna wanted to see Colm Meaney and Patrick Stewart -- we even went to hear Stewart talking at the Guggenheim about the play before the bigger version. He's shorter than the cardboard cut-out that we have in our living room.}
