Smashing Pumpkins Is Still a Heavy Metal Machine

I hope Virgin decides to keep its Festival in Pimilico for the next several years. It will be a welcome replacement for the HFStival and a good place to hear new bands. And this year's show was replete with excellent performances by some of the best bands around. It was a hard choice at first when deciding between this and Lollapalooza in Chicago. I love Chicago, and I love My Morning Jacket. But the Pumpkins weren't playing there this year, and all the other Lollapalooza bands I wanted to see were at Virgin Festival. (oh, and I liked the jokey riding guitar pick logo - very cool post-modern allusion to Preakness.

The atmosphere was free and fun, and as the Washington Post alluded to, there was plently of pot to go around if you're into that. I have always adhered to the South Park philosophy: "There's a time and a place for everyting, and it's called college."

One not-so-new-band that continued to Rock the House was Smashing Pumpkins with a tour de force performance of their new material interspersed with classics from their past CDs. They even hit "Heavy Metal Machine" from their ill-fated Machina/Machines of God concept double albumn. Of the six performances I've seen beginning with the inaugural date on the Siamese Dream tour (more out of luck, than rock knowledge), this was by far the best. The performances were outstanding, and the giant screens focused a lot on Billy's chord-play and Jimmy's stick banging. The fact that it dien't really focus on the bassist or other guitarist reminded me of rumors that D'Arcy and James Iha have not rejoined the band. However, Jimmy is back in despite almost dying of a heroin overdose.

While I got a teasing taste of The Police at Live Earth, their full-on concert rocked from beginning to end, demonstrating why theirs has been one of the most anticipated reunion tours in years. Evey song was played perfectly, and they thrived off the crowd's energy with one of the best performances I've ever scene. And Sting was gracious enough to reintroduce Stuart Copeland and Andy Sommers after their 20 year eclipse by Sting's solo act.

The Beasties of course rocked the house as well, setting up the crowd for the afore mentioned performance. Like the Pumpkins, they performed a variety of classics from each albumn. Unfortunately, they did not perform the always crowd pleasing"Paul Revere". Either that or I was overserved at that time.

Panic At the Disco won thousands of new fans with their performance. Reports of their eleclectic sound are not to be dismissed, and a major reason why you should see them at the next opportunity.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs put on a solid performance, that slowly built the crowd into a frenzy as Karen O crooned all our favorites.

Interpol was good. They may be a good studio band, but they need more festival experience. Not that they didn't rock, but they just didn't seem to connect with the crowd as much as they could have.

Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals put on another first rate show and converted me to full on fan. Their music is complex, mellow, funky, and radically fun. Anyone who hasn't checked them out, should definitely do so.

Incubus put on the first great performance I witnessed at the show. Though I got there late due to working on Saturday.

Live Earth Post-Mortem: We Were Only In It For the Music

I forgot to mention in my last post that the scientists playing in Antarctica were surprisingly good, and of course we all love penguins, so their images crossing the screen during the performance produced serotonin unloading among the rocking masses.

Anyway, the most discouraging thing about the concert was that immediaty outside the show, as we walked back to the shuttle buses back to Port Authority, there were no trash cans and loads of litter stacked along barriers or simply on the ground. This was the result of concert goers being given free Sunchips and Dannon Yogurt drinks as they left the show. The willingness of everyone to just blatantly litter after spending the whole day being lectured on the importance of being environmentally correct shows just how serious the concert goers were about the political message.

The products demonstrated by the concerts' sponsors showed how unserious they were about the global climate change message as well. Philips wanted everyone to switch to their new highly efficient, helix-like light bulbs which happen to contain mercury and therefore will only result in worse landfill problems, albeit gradually since the lightbulbs really do last significantly longer. And Democrats in Congress want to mandate that all schools and nursing homes have these mercury filled lightbulbs. If you don't believe me, read the official outline of the bill here.

And Smart, a Mercedes subsidiary showed off their 3-cylinder death bubble. This car, about the same size as the Mini with a bubble top, doesn't look like it could make it over a steep hill, let alone get you anywhere you needed to be in rural America. And you'd likely die in any accident, given the design of the car and the use of light materials to build it. However, my bigger point is that the majority of cars in the U.S. are 6 or 8 cylinders. Even most European cars are at least 4 cylinders. This car can't get you anywhere.

When I asked the company representatives if the car was either flex-fuel or a hybrid, the almost literal response I got was "No. We just want people to change the way they approach driving and then we'll work on those things." They would rather get you to change your behaviour than actually manufacture a car that produces less exhaust through better catlytic converters or other advances in technology.

I was not impressed, and little disgusted. A car that won't be able to do a damn thing on a farm and will kill you in a wreck. What's Mercedes trying to do - kill us and wreck our ag economy?

Live Earth: Snap Reviews

The concert yesterday rocked! Of course it would - the lineup was amazing, but the performances uneven (like me). The only real problem was that the artists only played 4-6 songs each.


The Police - Started off with a strong performance of Roxanne, and then seemed to play the order of their set list from the their 1980s best of albumn. Their solid performance definitely earns them a strong recommendation that you see them at Pimlico for the Virgin Festival on August 4th.

Roger Waters - First time I've seen him perform, and it was excellent. His superb performance of Us and Them seemed to be especially attuned to the current zeitgeist. For the less intelligent in the crowd, he beat them over the head by mixing the final juxtaposiiton of the song and war images with that of President Bush in a flight suit and the Mission Accomplished banner in the background.

Smashing Pumpkins - Gave a strong performance out of the gate with a lot of guitar gnashing before going into a new song from their next albumn (Zeigeist, out on Tuesday). Great performances of crowd pleasers Bullet with Butterfly Wings and Today. Based on this performance, I highly recommend you buy tix to their Tuesday show at the 930 Club, and see their August 5th performance at Pimlico during The Virgin Festival, on August 5th.

Bon Jovi - Obviously, the hometown favorite, after all the Meadowlands is actually in New Jersey. Added thousands of new faces that he's rocked at the concert. Ok, he spent his alotted time mostly playing from Slippery When Wet, and seriously rocked the stadium with Dead or Alive , which was one of the highlights of the night. The rumors of a surprise Bruce Springsteen appearance to paly with Bon Jovi proved unfounded. Unfortunately.

Kelly Clarkson - Put on a solid perfomance and really moved the crowd with Since You've Been Gone. Her newer music didn't sound as good.

Akon - Definitely won new fans with his great performance.

Dave Mattews Band - Not as strong as other performances I've seen. Mostly focused on early favorites that seemed to especially please the folks who came up from Virginiga. a surprisingly high number of the much younger fans could sing along to the early favorites too.

Missed John Mayer and Alicia Keys, both to my chagrin. Also missed Melissa Ethridge - a good artist, i just felt like eating instead.

2007 Music Festivals

I love Music Festivals, but have missed a large number of them by not knowing their exact dates until it was too late. Therefore, I have compiled a list of the top 2007 Music Festivals. Some of these are a bit off the beaten path, but should be well worth it.

The List So Far

March 9-11 Langerado (Sunrise, CA)
March 9-18 South x Southwest Music Festival (Austin, TX)
March 15 - April 1 Savannah Music Festival
March 23-24 Ultra Music Festival (Montreal, Canada)
April 20-21 Dewey Beach Pop Festival(Rehoboth,DE)
April 27-29 Coachella (Indio, CA)
April 27-29 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (New Orleans, LA)
May 4-6 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival
(New Orleans, LA)
June 1-3 Rock am Ring (Germany)
June 1-2 Rock im Ring (Nuremberg, Germany)
June 8-10 The Download Festival (Donnington Park, Leceistershire, UK
June 22-24 Glastonbury Festival (U.K.)
June 22-24 Sierra Nevada World Music Festival (Booneville, CA)
July 5-7 Essence Music Festival (New Orleans, LA)
July 5-8 Roskilde Festival (Roskilde, Denmark)
July 6-8 Vancouver Island Music Festival.
July 7 Live Earth/Earth Aid (henceforth referred to as Live Earth Aid). (Washington, DC)
July 7 Ozzfest begins
Mid-July Heineken Jammin' Festival (Italy)
July 19-21 Goodstock (West Virginia)
July 19-22 Festival Internacional de Benicassim (near Valencia, Spain with an excellent line-up)
July 27-30 Eclipe Outdoor Electronic Music Festival (Montreal, Candada)
August (TBA) Burning Man
August 3-5 Lollapallooza (Chicago, IL)
August 8-13 Shambhala (Canada)
August 24-26 Reading and Leeds Festival (U.K.)
September 1-3 Bumbershoot link is to last year's lineup but Rumor is that Kanye West is headlining again. (Washington State)

I have some downtime in August, so I'd love to start at the Eclipse Festival in Montreal end at Bumbershoot in WA and then head home.

I would like for this list to be as comprehensive as possible, so please let me know (and include a link) about festivals left off this list, no matter where they are in the world. Thanks!

Also please let me know if the Pixies or Garbage are playing near you, so I can figure out where I can see them play again. Thanks!

Screw the Politics: Earth Aid is going to Rock! (and Al Gore will be President)

I will happily shell out the $500 for VIP tickets to Live Earth Aid. The line-up, though not finalized, threatens to outdo that of the 1998 Tibetan Freedom Concert in talent. That concert, in my humble opion, actually had a better lineup than any music festival since, and including, the original Woodstock.

And I really don't care about the politics of the concert, and neither should you. Really, who are you hurting by not seeing a kick ass concert line up? Yourself, that's who!

Plus, if you go the American Concert you're likely to witness Al Gore lay the foundation for (or further) his effort to become President. Potentially, he'll announce, and all the publicity surrounding the concent, plus the simulcasting of the event will allow Gore to build an enormouse following.

My previous theory was that the'll announce at the Oscars if he wins. Which he still may do, but doing so may complicate his efforts to pull off the concert (due to FEC regulations and campaign finance laws). And it's actually a smart strategy for him to drop hints at the Oscars and then use the run up publicity to the concert will raise his national profile. Additionally, the concert would be the greatest presidential announcement venue EVER!