Sunday, September 6, 2009

Farewell, Casio!



The good news is that in the past nine days, I've seen seven shows: the best Cubensis show I've ever seen last Thursday, two nights with Moonalice in the greater L.A. area (with Nate LaPointe and Cece the second night) over last weekend, Christopher Hawley Rollers at the Venice Bistro on Monday, Greensky Bluegrass at the Mint on Wednesday, Patti Smith at the Santa Monica Pier on Thursday, and, last night, Saturday, Jackie Greene and Ratdog at the Greek.

The bad news is, the camera finally kicked it. Right after it took this final photo just before the Ratdog show last night:


As my husband pointed out, it has truly been a good camera to us over the past three years. It went to Rothbury and the Vibes last year, has been to every wedding and show we could smuggle it into and has given us some great memories. So now, with the passing of the device, I offer you this montage of the last week of my life. Thank you, Casio. You done good. Real good.


Jackie Greene and band - Greek Theatre, Los Angeles - Saturday, September 5, 2009


Jackie is a freakin' rock star. He played "Don't Let the Devil Take Your Mind" and "Ball and Chain," and had Mark Karan come out and join him for a slow blues "Tell Me Mama, Tell Me Right...Where did you sleep last night?" I've said this once and I'll say it again, the man is just Dylan reincarnated early. It's quite bizarre. Amazing, to say the least, because he's not Dylan; he's doing his own thing. At the end of his set, he busted out "Taxman." When was the last time you heard that played live? From there, the evening slid right into Ratdog as members of the band just took their places onstage with Jackie's band and jammed into the "Franklin's," the first song of Ratdog's set. Jackie played a few songs with Ratdog before exiting.

The Ratdog show was not the strongest I've seen. Some very nontraditional song placements and Bob Weir walked offstage for a moment during the second set after he forgot some words and it seemed like an odd moment. But otherwise they sounded great (Highlights: "She Belongs to Me," "Masterpiece", "Terrapin," "Goin' Down the Road Feelin' Bad") and Mark Karan looks very happy.




Moonalice - The Mint, Los Angeles - Saturday, August 29, 2009

Even Molo can't take his own playing full-strength...



Nate LaPointe and Cece Sherman opened for Moonalice at Blue Cafe in Long Beach, on Sunday, August 30, 2009. They sounded great together, with Cece's sultry blues voice, Nate's originals, and two Dead covers they performed with Barry Sless of Moonalice sitting in on pedal steel.


Greensky Bluegrass - The Mint, Los Angeles - Wednesday, September 2, 2009

This was my first time seeing Greensky in a small club. The first time was among tens of thousands at Rothbury 2008, when they were debuting many of the songs from their new album at the time, Five Interstates. These guys put on a great show at the Mint last week and had the audience (a lot of people drinking and talking, not there for the band) eating out of their hands by the last songs. Great covers of Prince's "When Doves Cry" and Paul Simon's "Gumboots" ("You don't feel you could love me, but I feeeel you could!") Amazing banjo picking by Mike Bont. Amazing.



No photos of Patti Smith, although she did tell a great story about coming to Los Angeles. Apparently, she was just coming back from Japan and had forgotten to make a hotel reservation for her L.A. trip. So when a car picked her up at LAX, she told the driver just to take her to Venice Beach! Then she spilled coffee all over herself in the backseat.

Ah, such is life! The death of a camera and the birth of a new day...all in one full moon!

Here's to another week filled with music and love.

Joy



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