Concerts thread: Best/Worst/Next/Last one you attended?

Saw Los Lonely Boys last night, and it was OK. Guys are talented, but some guitar solos just seemed endless. Ended, obviously, on a strong note by playing Heaven.

A Facebook friend posted late last night that she and husband found a good space down front - it was a free concert in downtown - and settled in for a “nice, pleasant Tejano band” and instead got this “acid rock” and left after three songs because it was too loud.

 

Drive-By Truckers tonight at the Botanical Gardens in Richmond. What a treat of a venue, I'm going back tomorrow night for Ben Folds.

As for tonight, it was part of their Southern Rock Opera revisited tour, but they threw a few other ones in there, like Carl Perkins' Cadillac. Mike Cooley still brings it hard, such a great voice. Such a contrast between him and Patterson.

After tomorrow, only a week until Hold Steady in D.C. Giggity.

 

One of my favorite memories as a kid was attending the HFStival at RFK Stadium. Went in 1994 and 1996. They just announced that it's coming back this year, Sept. 21 at Nats Park. Pretty cool lineup:

Postal Service
Death Cab
Incubus
Bush
Garbage
Jimmy Eat World
Girl Talk
Violent Femmes
Tonic
Filter
Lit

When I saw it in 1996, the day opened at noon with Gwen Stefani rappelling down from the rafters to the Star Wars hero theme to kick off No Doubt's set. I probably can't make it this year -- I'm going to be involved with U.S. Mid-Amateur coverage in Richmond that day -- but it looks pretty great.

 

Coming up this summer: Outlaw Music Festival (Willie, Dylan and Robert Plant/Alison Krauss) and Metallica. Probably also Journey/Def Leppard/Heart for an outing with my wife.

 

That was a great show, and probably the classiest concert venue I've ever seen. Really excited to get CPC in the encore.

 

Still time to reschedule the SJ.com outing?

 

Thoughts on the Ben Folds paper airplane request tour, after tonight's show.

The first half of the show sucked out loud, and it wasn't his fault. I was literally the only person in the crowd standing, and when I started singing along to a song, someone gave me a cross look like I was violating the sanctity of a piano recital. He tried to get people going, but the whole crowd sat with a collective thumbs up their ass. My friends actually left.

The second part, when the actual requests came in? It was fantastic. Great interaction with the crowd, played a lot of classic stuff including Kate, Annie Waits, Zak and Sara, and Army. It rescued what I thought was a total waste of $50. But seriously, the first part of the show was fucking weird.

 

So George Strait came out of retirement and does a show at Kyle Field breaking the previous record for an event at Kyle (which was a Tam fb game) which surprised me. I mean they don't seat people on the field for football games.

https://www.billboard.com/music/country/george-strait-breaks-concert-attendance-record-1235710814/

 

Last week, Mexico and Brazil played soccer at Kyle Field. Someone who is in the know told me that A&M is hosting these events to help with the Jimbo Fisher payout.

 

I didn't go, but the Stones played here a night or two ago. Not sure I'd have gone anyway, but at least part of the reason I didn't was because it was at least a day after the show took place that I found out it was happening. A lot of others did find out, because it was reported as a "capacity" crowd (at Browns Stadium), but pictures strongly suggest otherwise. I blame my lack of every listening to commercial radio for my ignorance of the concert. How do you find out about shows these days?

 

This isn't the first time he has done a paper airplane tour. I went to a show in Denver in 2017. It was set up the same way. It was a long time ago at this point, and maybe the venue and crowd played a role in how it went down, but it was set up the same way and I thought the whole thing was awesome. The paper airplane part was the better part, but it was honestly one of my favorite all-time shows. I loved that he had a big notebook to remember how to play some songs if requested (it happened with one, but I can't remember what song it was).

 

George Strait never really retired. He has been doing his somewhat Vegas residency since 2017, with a few Texas arena shows mixed in, and then stadiums in the summer the past three years. Kind of surprised it took him this long in his career to get an attendance record in Texas!