see them before they die or suck?

Whoa, Jeff, whoa.

Have you considered the fact that some of these entertainers get satisfaction by giving their fans what they want? That they show their appreciation to their fans by playing songs they know people want to hear? That they realize that their ability to pursue their love of the creative art of music is due almost entirely to people buying their recordings and tickets to their shows? Maybe Jon *really* loves playing "Oh! New England" for the eleventy zillionth time. Maybe he challenges himself to make each rendition more exciting than the last.

This is the kind of arch-hip, too cool for you, left handed compliment type stuff I'd expect from someone like Armond White, not Jeff Lewis. Not everyone wants to make an intellectual exercise out of a show. I would guess that far fewer people create their own music today, as opposed to twenty five years ago, fifty years, etc. Those people have become creativity consumers. People who make entertaining this group their livelihood, understand, instinctively, what a great many anti folkers, apparently, do not. People go out to have a good time and enjoy themselves. People like what is familiar to them. Most people enjoy music because it makes them feel something, reminds them of a happy time in their life or, just plain makes them wanna shake their ass. Not because the music is "smart." "Smart music" is another name for boring shit that no one want to fucking hear anyway, but the arbiters of cool force that shit down our fucking throats. Nellie McKay makes "smart music." Blech. Also, the vast majority of ticket buyers, for the acts you listed, have NO INTEREST WHATSOEVER in any new material, by any of those artists. Stevie Wonder, one of the finest, most gifted singer songwriters ever, hasn't written a song that moved me, since the 70's. There is a hugely popular portion of his work that makes me cringe. That said, if I went to one of shows, I would be enterfuckingTAINED. I'd probably end up dancing, even to "Part Time Lover." "I Just Called to Say I Love You," would be a terrific time to hit the bar or the john. But, I'd leave entertained.

I just don't understand the point of view of going to an iconic performers show, and leaving, somehow disappointed, that they played the music for which they are best known. Making assumptions about their level of self confidence no less.

Does this mean that if I go to a Jeff Lewis show, in the future, I can be guaranteed to not hear a single song that I know and love? Might it not be better, for me, to stay home and listen to the record I like, while reading one of your comic books, instead of buying a ticket, and incurring all the other expenses associated with a night out, to spend an hour or more trying to absorb all material that is totally unfamiliar to me? If the whole crowd chanted "ACID, ACID" between every song, for two hours, you're telling me that, even if you hadn't planned on it, you wouldn't play it for your devoted crowd?

You're certainly allowed to have an opinion on people's performances but, you do them and yourself a serious disservice when you assume/presume as to their motivations or state of mind. This last is true for almost every situation in which two people interact and is the source of numerous disconnects and conflicts between people.

Don't worry, I still love you. :)

This is a BIG subject for me!

I have other work i should be doing right now but I can't resist diving in here. Of course this is really a different topic, somewhat, than the initial post...

BUT...

I have a fundamentally different point of view from the "greatest hits" mentality, also from the mentality of a tour having ONE set list which is followed each night.

If the Grateful Dead had played only their "greatest hits" each night, there's no way I would have gone to see them play about 30 times... and there's other people who saw them play WAY more times than I did... I guarantee that this would not have happened if the Grateful Dead dished out what they THOUGHT the audience wanted to hear rather than what they themselves wanted to play. Sure, I would have been overjoyed to hear them play any of their greatest songs... Dark Star (which I never did see, despite attending all of those dozens of shows), Box of Rain (which I did see once or twice), Help On The Way (which I also got to see a few times), St. Steven (which they did not play AT ALL for decades), Casey Jones (which I saw them play ONE time, it was something like the first time they had played it in ten years!), etc etc... can you get a sense from the above statement, though, how EXCITING it was when they DID suddenly bust out with one of these songs unexpectedly??!?! It was an explosive, engaging thrill, completely unlike whatever "thrill" one might have gotten from hearing all of these songs played in one set IF that was what they did every single night. PLUS not only was there the element of surprise, there was the element (or at least the convincing illusion) that whatever they DID play was what they were REALLY INTO PLAYING rather than just going thru the motions, so every song was performed with (theoretically) much more enthusiasm and emotional involvement.

By contrast, when I saw the Rolling Stones, I knew 95% exactly what they were going to play, and that they were obviously just "clocking in" to their job to play Sympathy For the Devil etc. Tho it's maybe a fun "job" for them to "clock in" to, I can't imagine that it provides me with a better experience of Sympathy For the Devil as a truly ALIVE work of art as it would if they only played it when they felt like playing it, rather than AT EVERY SINGLE SHOW FOR THE PAST 40 YEARS, and the same goes for Satisfaction, and every other Stones "greatest hit" which I knew in advance they were going to play. AND of course that's why I feel NO need to see the Stones more than once. Maybe twice.

There's only a handful of bands who provide the "what are they gonna play next" thrill that the Grateful Dead provided. Yo La Tengo is one of the few. Herman Dune used to excel at this, when Andre was still in the band.

One important part of the ability to pull this off is having a giant pile of GREAT songs to choose from. When you go to see Stevie Wonder, as you say, you don't want to hear his crappy stuff from the past couple decades, you want to hear his GOOD stuff. I feel the same way - but artists like Jonathan Richman, Lou Reed, Bob Dylan, Sonic Youth, Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, etc, DO HAVE GIANT PILES OF GOOD STUFF. They just don't seem to have the confidence and/or the adventurousness and/or the memory to make use of their full catalog. Which is really a shame. I also think that when an artist starts to rely on the "greatest hits" in live shows, it has a killing effect on their ability to create NEW hits, because new songs aren't given time to grow and develop thru live performance, and it has a killing effect on the creativity and adventurousness of their audience, because they CATER to an audience that only loves them enough to know their greatest hits, and they alienate the audience members who truly love them and know a wider scope of their material.

That's part of why it's a crappy feeling to attend one of those concerts - the band is giving its love to the audience members who don't love them very deeply, and disrespecting the audience members who do love them deeply - and disrespecting themselves as artists as well. You turn into a cover band when you play songs written by somebody else, even if that somebody else is you from 20 years ago, it's still somebody else. I want to know what YOU are thinking and feeling and creating, if you are really an artist. You can put your energy into being an artist, or you can put your energy into being a cover band.

Obviously it's just EASIER for Mick Jagger to crank out Sympathy For the Devil every night then go home and watch TV (or ride on his yacht, whatever), than to have to go home and sit down and try to write a new song that's as good as Sympathy For the Devil. Why would I pay my money to see a lazy former-artist-turned-cover-band? There ARE real artists out there. The Antifolk scene has a lot of them. Art goes rotten when it's left sitting out for too long, fresh art is better.

Here's a good analogy that i stole from Can: I prefer music that is more like sports (in the moment, willing to win or fail but spectacularly either way) than like theater (pre-scripted, tho theater can still be great, you don't usually go to see Romeo & Juliet hoping to stand up and scream when something unexpectedly awesome happens).

Gotta get back to work!!! (on new art and songs, no less. or I could just fuck around on the internet all day and play Last Time I Did Acid at every single show. maybe that WOULD be better for my career? Would it? that's not an invalid question.)

Jeff

I didn't know you were out in New Mexico! I miss you! And your awesome music! Have a great time out there...
Jeff

I went to the Rolling Stones Steel Wheels @ Shea in '89 and I remember my fellow Antifolkers goofing on me "they're so old/tired" but the show was amazing and I remember thinking (especially during the acoustic set w/ Mick & Keith in the middle of the field) "there is a reason we are all here". And... I'm older than they were at that show

Well this thread was sort of interesting when Ben started it, but then Jeff made it REALLY interesting, so I may as well add to the chorus. I totally, totally agree with Jeff, with some caveats. What Ive always looked for in a concert is for the band to be saying to me "this is what we've been thinking about lately". And often that's with new material, or mixing the two and putting the old material in a new context, or even some people can do it with old material.

Everybody who knows me knows that Ive been to a million bazillion concerts but two of the most exciting concerts I ever went to were bands introducing unknown material--Pink Floyd playing the Dark Side of the Moon songs before there was a Dark Side of the Moon, Elvis Costello touring behind My Aim Is True but playing all the songs from the not-yet-released This Year's Model. On the other hand I saw Muddy Waters three or four times before he died, and he never did new material--why should he?--but it was completely present, completely living--"new"--each time.

I learned the same lesson from a hundred Grateful Dead shows as Jeff did (although I'll admit I did hear all the songs he mentioned a bunch of times, but I probably started earlier)--there's a certain relationship that you create with your audience, a kind of dialogue, and the songs, new and old, are inserted in the exchange. Thats a great show. Check out the "Psycho Killer" in the movie Stop Making Sense. At the time they had been doing the song for almost 10 years, and you see how in the context of the "Sense" tour they make it new again. How about Nirvana's masterpiece MTV Unplugged, with Vaselines and David Bowie covers and a Leadbelly song instead of "Teen Spirit"? And don't forget about Bob Dylan in his heyday.

Its the difference between making art and the "entertainment industry". And maybe its elitist to look down on the "entertainment industry", but without the artists making real art, there wouldn't be an "industry". When I first saw the Rolling Stones, those same old songs were new and vibrant and came right out of the depths of their emotions. Thats how they became their "greatest hits". And "regular" people do appreciate the difference. But they've also been trained to think otherwise by the "industry".

Thats why I love Robert Plant. He's a few years older than me and he still refuses to do that lazy ass shit.

I dont think it is in any way too hip or elitist or any of that other stuff to demand that of a musical entertainer. I like it when Jeff plays new stuff. I liked it when the Rolling Stones played new stuff.

But as to Ben's original point--I turned down five invitations to see Nirvana (including at CBGB!) over a three year period, always thinking I'd just catch them next time. So let that be a lesson to you.

I saw Sonic youth at Glastonbury in '98, and the played almost exclusively material from 'A Thousand Leaves' which had just been released, with Death Valley '69 thrown in at the end. They didn't really engage the crowd, and seemed to do their set and leave. My brother bitched about how they should have played a more palatable set to a festival crowd.

I was like: "They're Sonic Youth. They've been doing this 15 years - they can do whatever they want!" After Sonic Youth we watched Tony Bennett, waiting to be sardonic and were completely blown away by his charisma, the older-than-our-parents crowd pleasers that had been implanted in our tender young brains, and the kick he was obviously getting from playing a festival crowd.

OK, he's Tony Bennett, that's what he does for a living, but he was obviously loving it, as were his band who looked like they'd never been anywhere near a field that wasn't diamond shaped.

I think as long as whoevers performing is enjoying themselves - the material is...immaterial!

When you start making people get up on stage to do what YOU want, that's when they start treating it like a job, or offing-themselves.

If the musician isn't passionate about what they are doing, it won't matter whether they play new or old stuff, it will ALL suck.

I passed up a chance to see the Charlatans U.K. on the Us and Us Only tour, and I've been kicking myself ever since. Thankfully, they're pretty much the sole survivor of the Madchester scene, although I guess you could argue for Black Grape. Help me out here Vincent.

I've been listening to some Alice Coltrane stuff recently. Sometimes intently, sometimes as background. I do recommend.

There really aren't that many bands that are still touring that interest me. Maybe Slayer. Me and some friends tried to bribe a security guy at MSG, to let us in a Slayer show, on my 16th birthday. Didn't work :(

Seems like the most of the bands I dig implode or die off or just plain start sucking.

At this point, I'd rather find out what some of the folks that I've done sound for are up to.

Rusty Belle. The Gary Hood Band. Bryan and the Aardvarks. Otis. Michael Beauchamp. Mercy Bell. Whatever Dan and Scott do together.

I think Blind Melon was the last American rock band that I gave a shit about, and that ended badly. Never even bothered to check out the reformed version, though I remember Joie giving me a Unified Theory demo a few years back. I liked "California" but that was about it. I still think Rogers Stevens is one of the best rock lead guitarist/soundscape dudes around.

I've never seen the Allmans but, they aren't really the Allmans that I wanna see.
Stevie Wonder
Steve Winwood.
Sly and the Family Stone (if only)
Jeff Beck
The Misfits (but only if Glenn fronts so that'll never happen)
The Stone Roses (will also never happen)
Buddy Guy
Bonnie Raitt
Dave Mason
Ocean Colour Scene (could happen maybe I hope)
The Happy Mondays( I guess Black Grape will have to do)
Taj Mahal
Ry Cooder

The coffee is STRONG today so the ramble is long. Sowwy.

So I should clarify, my perfect ideal of a show experience is NOT the artist playing only their new stuff, but a nice and unpredictable mix of material from their whole career, new, old, covers, with NO song guaranteed to be played on any given night. Like when you watch your favorite sports teams - there's no guarantees. You root for them, though you understand that from one night to the next they may succeed or they may fail. If they start failing too much of the time, you're entitled to lose some of your interest - but better the possibility of failure than the boredom of a guarantee of what you will get.

Okay, here's an exception - I LIKE that the Grateful Dead were pretty much guaranteed to play Samson & Delilah if you saw them on a Sunday night... that sort of quirky thing is cool to me.

What I mean by this is that it's not my ideal sorta show if I were to go see Sonic Youth do what you describe, just play their newest stuff then maybe throw in a "greatest hits" encore. That's just as pre-scripted and un-thrilling as a full "greatest hits" set, especially if the person who saw the show the previous night tells you that that is what they are doing EVERY NIGHT of this tour.

Ditto for the Fall... though you gotta hand it to Mark E Smith for spending 30 creative years mostly refusing to play ANY Fall song past its one-or-two year shelf life, no matter how awesome the song is, there IS an aspect of boredom and pre-scriptedness to a Fall show if you know that all you are going to get is recently released material and brand-new works-in-progress. In fact, the Fall does not ALWAYS do this... the best Fall show I ever saw was Knitting Factory around 2003 when the set DID include a nice smattering of Fall material from the 80s and 90s, really a shame not to make more use of that phenomenal song book.

I guess one problem is that when a band's lineup changes a lot over the years (like the Fall, or even Sonic Youth a bit, and definitely Dylan and some of the others) the newer members don't necessarily have the authority or the know-how or the memory capacity to be able to bust out with anything from the full song book. That's why Yo La Tengo and the Grateful Dead, with relatively long-lived stable line-ups, are examples of being able to call on ALL of their material for potential inclusion.

PS - RE: Steve Winwood - I got to see Traffic open up for the Grateful Dead a bunch of times around 1994 and they were pretty awesome, they even varied their set to some degree from night to night, tho they only really have like 4 albums of killer material to choose among. I wouldn't have high hopes for a Winwood solo show tho, guaranteed to have too many crappy 80s hits included.

PPS - To the person who saw Pink Floyd playing Dark Side of the Moon before it was released - I have a bootleg tape of one of those performances, it's pretty awesome. A lot of the material is not yet in final form, and it was obviously an incredible experience for the audience to hear a preview of such a thing. I've also got a lot of other Pink Floyd bootlegs, some cool early versions of stuff from Animals, tho I mostly just collected the early pre-Dark Side live material (as a live band they peaked around 1970 really). 1968-1970-era live versions of "Careful With That Axe Eugene" or "Atom Heart Mother" or "Cymbaline" or the never-released "Embryo" etc are SO good... they mostly completely obliterate the mellow studio recordings. It's a really interesting period of cross-over between 60s Floyd and 70s Floyd ("interesting" if you care about such stuff, that is), when they were still performing Syd Barrett material after he'd been replaced by Gilmour.

I've seen Sonic Youth about 20 times and have never understood their appeal. In the early 80's every time I saw a band, SY would be the opening act, and my friends and I would always say "oh no, not them again". In '91, almost the entire antifolk scene went as a group to see Neil Young @ MSG... the ticket listed World Party as the opening act so when Sonic Youth took the stage, my friend, Cybele (who had endured many SY shows w/ me) and I had to laugh.... Both acts were boring (and I love Neil)

I haven't posted on here before but was drawn in by this topic. I don't have much of a list of acts that I still want to see because I guess I've been lucky enough to see most of them - but it's been just as interesting reading everyones experiences of the same act.

As said above - Dylan these days largely plays new material. I saw him at a festival in Denmark - perfect greatest hits fodder, I guess - maybe not? Usually I don't mind an act I know and love playing mostly new material, but he literally didn't move from behind his organ for 2 hours. Didn't say a word either.

It wasn't that the only song that people really knew was All Along the Watchtower (played the Hendrix way no less, is it just me that prefers his more simplistic original?), it was that there was no movement and no atmosphere, which you could forgive if the songs were well known enough to get the audience creating the atmosphere.

^ I guess I failed in a conclusion there, but I just meant that these things depend on the location - festival/own show, the type of people that go to the shows and the interaction the band itself has.

I think if you're going to play largely unfamiliar material, you need to interact to make the audience want to hear it - work for it, it is after all your job.

Saying this- I was shocked to hear that people have found Neil Young boring. I saw him the following year at the same festival, expecting a similar experience - but he blew me away.

At the front of the stage, communicating, making jokes, played a handful of the well known tunes, but it was the songs I was less familiar with that really got me going. 20 minute solos? It was incredible. I literally haven't been down the front of a larger show for years but I HAD to get there. I had to see this man play those notes up close, it was incredible.

And traditionally I would have said I was more of a Dylan fan, but a choice between a Dylan show and a Young show - it'd be Neil everytime.

When I saw Dylan he did a great, rare performance of "Hazel."

No one knew the song and I was ecstatic to hear it.

but it looks like it's to late to see him before he sucks... it's kind of sad that people near him even let him tour.....

As big a Chuck Berry fan as I am (I have all his recorded output from 1955-1968) I have to differ on seeing him live. He barely can go through the motions nowadays, sometimes stops playing guitar in the middle and forgets the words.

And the reason he hires "local musicians" is because he's too cheap to hire a band. Often there's no rehearsal beforehand. And I've had a few friends that were in these pick-up bands over the years--they could make more money on a good night at Sidewalk.

He's somebody you can cross off your list if you haven't seen him by now.

last year I saw Janis Ian at a tiny theater in Fairfield, CT. Her music has never meant much to me, and I only went because I've always liked her Howard Stern appearances... It was one of the best shows I've ever seen... I know this sounds corny, but it was very moving . She is also very funny and an amazing guitarist.

She is playing at a church in Brooklyn in April.

The best concert I've ever seen was U2. There were like, 20,000 people in the Pontiac Silverdome, and I was a hundred miles away from the stage, but I felt like they were playing directly to me. I've seen live DVDs of theirs since, and the banter is always the same, but something about their show makes a fan feel like they really matter (and I'm not even much of a fan).

The second best was Jonathan Richman. Both times I saw him, he played predominantly new material, peppered with a few choice hits like "Lesbian Bar," "Egyptian Reggae," "Since She Started to Ride," etc. The thrill of Jonathan's show for me was watching he and Tommy fill a room with such love and warmth. Not a single person left that show feeling bad.

Before they die/start to suck, I would like to see:
The Smoking Popes
Ween
Aerosmith (I was a big fan of Get a Grip)
Porno for Pyros (if that nostalgia wave ever comes around)
Tom Petty
Belle and Sebastian
Ass Ponys
R.E.M.
Bonnie Prince Billy (I left during the first song at Kim's in 2005 because it was too crowded)
Tom Waits (though I think I'm the only one who thinks it's already too late)
Public Enemy

yup, I think that's it.

well, at 15yrs old i considered moving from la to austin to marry gibby haynes of the butthole surfers, but chickened out right at hanukah time and never ever saw them live. if they're still creating insane zaniness on stage i'd like to see them and hope they wouldn't suck. ciaociao!

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