Former Washington Post music critic David Segal just published the sort of “goodbye to all that” article that gives rock-n-roll nerds like me big ‘ol boners. Segal writers about the Ahab-like quest for “great live concert moments” – moments during a live concert that are so unique and memorable that you realize you are sharing a special intimate moment with the band a few hundred fans (I don’t attend arena concerts as a rule, so it’s never more than a few hundred).
So, I’m thinking of some of my own great live concert moments. The first to spring to mind was a 2001 New Years Eve show by the Fleshtones at Handsome Dick Manitoba’s little club on the Lower East Side. The Fleshtones would gladly admit to being a party band, but their party that night was truly cathartic as we bid goodbye to that awful year. We counted down to midnight several times and danced the night away.
In the summer of 2002, I saw Spoon play a triumphant gig at the Bowery Ballroom. A few months earlier, I caught lead singer-songwriter Britt Daniel test drive his new songs at a solo acoustic gig at the Mercury Lounge to a room that was not near the 500 person capacity. The Bowery show came after rave critical reviews for their “Kill the Moonlight” cd and was sold out weeks beforehand. Britt was visibly uncomfortable with having such a large audience shouting out requests and singing along to all the songs, new and old. An unrelenting audience lured the band out for an unplanned second encore. They played “Jonathan Fisk” with such ferocity that Britt broke his guitar strings, which I’m sure left him relieved that the concert could finally end. (Fast forward to this past July, when Spoon triumphantly headlined the Sirens festival in Coney Island. Britt Daniel has grown into himself as the lead singer, and seemed to truly enjoy the whole show, particularly the delighted screams that came from the Cyclone.)
The eels delight in unexpected encores. The first time I saw them, in 2000, I had already left the Bowery Ballroom by the time they returned to the stage to deliver a surprise, second encore – twenty minutes after the show had ended (the song they played – “Mr. E’s Beautiful Blues” was an unlisted final track on the album they were promoting at the time), and the bouncers would not allow me to return inside the building to seem them play that last song. A year later, when the band returned to the Bowery to preview another disc, I knew to stay well past the last song. Sure enough, I – and thirty other hearty souls who stuck around – were treated to a solo rendition of the band’s sole pop hit (1996’s “Novocaine for the Soul”) by drummer Butch, who accompanied his drumming with a monotone delivery of the lyrics. Butch paused mid-song to admonish the remaining crowd for botching the lyrics. (Well, how were were supposed to remember the words if the band refused to play the song live for so many years?) Ten minutes later, the rest of the band came out and played another four or five songs for the few fans who remained. Without hundreds of bodies to absorb the sound of the instruments’ feedback, the music reverberated off the walls and sounded truly bizarre. The eels have kept this up as a tradition, stretching out the wait between encores for a half hour or more, occasionally breaking the tedium with a bit of break dancing.
I could think of many more, but I’ll only mention one: a Chuck Berry / Little Richard double bill at Westbury Music Fair that demonstrated that rock geezers deviating from the script can be entertaining (listen up, Mick and Keith). Chuck Berry has famously spent the last forty years touring without a band. Instead, he tells the venue to provide him with a drummer, bassist and pianist (and they have to be union, too!). There is no practice beforehand. “Practice” is the first thirty minutes of the show, whippersnapper. After the first half hour, the true King of Rock-n-Roll – who did not seem to be working from an established set list – asked the audience for requests. Chuck accepted a request for “Promised Land,” but when it became clear that he couldn’t remember the lyrics, he launched into “Sweet Little 16.” Nevermind that it was the second time he had played it during the show. The second time was so much better.
Little Richard upstaged Chuck Berry’s great live concert moment by promising fans that he would sign autographs in the lobby after the show. After security made clear to fans that such a fan interaction session was verboten in the lobby (despite the contract), a few dozen of us waited outside the venue, near the backstage entrance, for a little one-on-one with the Georgia Peach. After about a half hour, we watched a flamboyant white, stretch limousine pull into the parking lot to observe us, and then pull away to return to the hotel. Shut up!