The last time this reviewer covered Bruce Springsteen was when he finished his seven fall stops in the Metropolitan area in 2009 with a complete performance of The River. You
Dark Star Orchestra has “recreated” many Grateful Dead shows throughout its career. However, it is extremely rare for them to announce (and the audience to know) the concert they are covering beforehand. Last Friday, they played a replica of the Dead’s final show at the Fillmore East on 4/29/71 to a sold-out Irving Plaza.
After three (mostly) triumphant shows in Oakland in September, Furthur began its mini-tour of the Northeast in Manhattan last week. With a New Year’s show and February swing already scheduled, Bobby and Phil have given guitar responsibilities to former DSO frontman John Kadelick for the foreseeable future. Wednesday, the second of the two shows began with a nice “Stranger,” that was more upbeat than the half-speed version that was unveiled in Oakland.
It’s been a little over a week since Bruce Springsteen returned to the NY Metropolitan area. After closing down Giants Stadium with two performances each of Born To Run and Born In The U.S.A apiece (but sadly only one of Darkness Of The Edge Of Town), the two Garden shows looked to be even more special. Earlier that week, it was announced that on the first night, he would play The Wild, The Innocent And The E Street Shuffle and on the second, the entire 20-song double album, The River. Neither of these had ever been performed in their entirety and the second show looked to be an especially ambitious project, even for The Boss. Then again, Bruce wouldn’t have tried if he knew he wasn’t up to it.
Expectations ran understandably high for the last-ever concert at Giants Stadium. After all, the show was added after the third had been billed (and subsequently sold-out) as the “final show.” We already knew that we would be hearing “Born In The USA” in its entirety once again and that Bruce would play “Wrecking Ball” once again at some point in the set.
The third night of Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band’s farewell stand at Giants Stadium had a markedly different tone than the first two. This was mainly due to the fact that its centerpiece was the first-ever performance of the 1984 album Born In The USA, start to finish. Even before the “album suite,” the show had a stadium-sized sing-a-long feel.
With the prior Monday’s announcement that Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band would play 1975’s Born To Run in its entirety, you’d think that the element of surprise might be lacking from the opening show of Springsteen’s Giant Stadium farewell run. But true to form, Bruce reached into his bag of tricks for a brand new song scripted specifically for the evening.
ZZ Top pulled into the Beacon last Friday for a hastily-scheduled one night stand at the Beacon. When Steven Tyler fell off the stage, their gig opening for Aerosmith on the “summer shed circuit” was scrapped. Instead, their tour finds them playing some venues, like the 9:30 club in Washington, which would ordinarily be too intimate for a band with their drawing power. However, “that little ol’ band from Texas” had played the Beacon in ’05 and ’07 and their raunchy brand of border blues has always been a great fit for the venue.
Gov’t Mule ended their summer tour, the last before their By A Thread album is released in the fall, with a monster show at Atlantic City’s Showboat Casino.
After two "acoustic" shows which you already read about on Hidden Track, Gov't Mule played the first of their annual year-end shows at New York City’s Hammerstein Ballroom on December 30th. Of course, this was a new venue for Gov’t Mule with the Beacon Theatre being recently renovated, however Warren Haynes immediately made the room his own by opening with “Blind Man In The Dark.”
