We Miss You, John

John Entwistle: October 9th, 1944–June 27th, 2002

If you look carefully, you might be able to spot me in the crowd just to the left of center stage. I’m standing behind my friend Lauren, who was standing right at the stage.

Zappa Plays Zappa

Recently I had the chance to check out “Zappa Plays Zappa” at The Depot in Salt Lake City. This concert performance is Dweezil Zappa playing Frank Zappa’s music. Dweezil is Frank’s son. Of course he doesn’t do it alone and has a collection of very talented musicians and singers along with him to help him play Frank’s music. My friend Jason is a big Frank Zappa fan, in the same way that I’m a big fan of The Who. While I don’t know Frank’s music by heart, and to be perfectly honest I don’t even own any CDs or anything, I’ve heard quite a bit of Zappa music as Jason and I went on our little excursions into the western deserts of Utah to go rockhounding and I always enjoyed what I heard.

The crowd at the depot was very mellow and didn’t mind at all as I worked my way through them back and forth to the bar to bring beers to our little cadre of 4 people. I found the concert most enjoyable and I was very much impressed with the musical proficiency of Dweezil and his crew. After working through a long two hour set with no breaks, they took a little breather. When they came back on stage, Dweezil gave us a choice of which of three songs we’d like to hear for an encore based on the amount of audience cheering. It was a tough call between the top two, but they picked one and played it. Then, they gave us a little treat by saying “since you’ve been so nice and we’re not going to be back here soon, we’ll play the other one too” and gave us our close 2nd runner-up.

If you get a chance to see these guys in your town, I recommend it, even if you’re not a Zappa freak like my friends.

Richard’s Forty Years of Who

This is a long post that serves two purposes: one to recount my personal love affair for my favorite band, and two to provide “liner notes” for my 4-disc 40 year retrospective of The Who’s music. You can skip to the liner notes, skip to the Youtube playlist or continue reading for my story.

Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon”…. NES style

Citizen K. on “Substitute”

Citizen K. writes about The Who’s “Substitute” on his Just a Song blog.

Charles Nelson Reilly

Punching Up the 80’s with Wolfgang’s Vault

If you haven’t been over to Wolfgang’s Vault yet to listen to all of the free streaming concerts, then you should head over there now. What I like about this site is that you can try out famous bands you’ve heard about but didn’t get a chance to hear in person. You can decide if you like their material enough to buy some or just give it a one time only listening. Registration is free and they’ve never sent me any spam.

OK, now that you’re back, here are my suggestions for 80s concerts to listen to on the Vault. The ratings were current at the time I snatched the links for these shows, but may have changed by the time you read this.

Group	Date	Venue	Length	Avg. Rating
Talking Heads	05/31/1977	CBGB’s	17:05	4.55
The Ramones	01/07/1978	Palladium	55:40	4.66
The Clash	02/13/1979	Agora Ballroom	33:44	4.62
The Police	03/04/1979	Zellerbach Hall	55:06	4.51
Talking Heads	08/24/1979	Berklee Performance Center	23:42	4.68
AC/DC	10/16/1979	Towson State College	1:15:56	4.69
The Pretenders	05/30/1980	Palladium	58:28	4.69
The Psychedelic Furs	08/29/1981	Ritz	58:28	4.55
U2	11/14/1981	Orpheum Theatre	1:05:08	4.47
Men at Work	09/13/1982	Pep Lounge	30:42	4.50
Duran Duran	11/16/1982	Hammersmith Odeon	56:32	4.52
Culture Club	03/01/1983	Palace Theatre	1:00:31	4.13
U2	05/06/1983	Orpheum Theatre	1:24:08	4.65
A Flock of Seagulls	06/01/1983	Grand Ole Opry	1:10:02	3.84
Thomas Dolby	12/04/1983	Roxy	32:58	4.59
Big Country	12/09/1983	Roseland Ballroom	1:21:14	4.55
Duran Duran	03/21/1984	Madison Square Garden	1:18:25	4.25
Echo & the Bunnymen	03/30/1984	Channel	1:09:11	4.58
Thomas Dolby	07/04/1984	Boulder Theatre	1:29:56	4.55
The Cure	11/16/1984	Ontario Theatre	1:30:12	4.57
Big Country	08/26/1986	Tower Theater	1:58:19	4.66
Duran Duran	05/17/1987	Ahoy	25:32	4.04