Jim, I couldn't have said it any better regarding The Who performing at the Super Bowl. WHO PICKS THE PERFORMERS FOR HALF TIME ANYWAY??? Maybe that could be a topic for a future column.
They might as well have Milli Vanilli perform! I mean, they don't really exist, just the like The Who no longer does. I couldn't wait to change the channel when they started their halftime show. Exasperating! I know that no matter who performs it won't please everyone, but some of these old time rockers are just way beyond relevant!
Just my opinion!
Gary
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I think Townshend, Daltrey, McCartney & Ringo should form a band (guitar, vocals, bass, drums, respectively) and call it WHO ARE THE BEATLES?
John
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My first chuckle of the day yesterday was the irony in the origin of your surname. 1495-1505; LL dērogātōrius cursing, equiv. Used as an adjective it is perfect.
Daltry and Townshend will always be "The Who" and will continue to be icons long after some of the other bands you have awarded stellar reviews. They have spawned a generation that yours, will never match in musical creativity.
They were grizzled old pros and my guess is, there wasn't a Who fan in the crowd that didn't want to jump up and fan the strings of their air guitar with Townshend....if only we had help getting out of our wheelchairs!
Townshend's glasses were totally acceptable to a generation that has abused their eyesight from watching laser shows for a lifetime. I'm surprised you didn't mis-identify the earplugs for hearing aids. I'll bet the hat helped reduce the camera flashes from the non fans taking photographs.
I wish I was around to read your reaction to the half time show from Super Bowl LXXIV. Unfortunately I doubt the "Sun-quirer" will be around then.
Until then....."Long live rock, be it dead or alive."
Ed Iphish, Chicago
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YOU REALLY HAVE A LOT OF NERVE INSULTING THE WHO!! YOU HAVE TICKED-OFF A LOT OF WHO FANS, FROM FRIENDS OF MINE WHO ARE IN THEIR 20's TO LONG- TIME FANS WHO ARE IN THEIR 60's!!! THAT 12 MINUTES OF THE WHO WAS REALLY A SHOT IN THE ARM TO US WHO FANS THAT LIKE THEM NO MATTER WHAT SOME TUBBY 4-EYED MUSIC CRITIC HAS TO SAY ABOUT THEM. YEAH, I INSULTED YOU , CAUSE YOU HAVE INSULTED 1 OF THE BEST BANDS OF ALL TIME. I WOULD REALLY LIKE TO SEE YOU SAY WHAT YOU WROTE RIGHT TO PETES FACE!! AS OLD AS HE IS , HE WOULD PROBLABLY HIT YOU SO HARD, HE'D KNOCK YOU BACK TO DIAPERS. BY THE WAY, HOW OLD IS YOUR FAT-ARSE??? I AM 50 & I STARTED LISTENING TO THE WHO AT 9 YEARS OLD , WHEN MOST OF THE KIDS IN MY 4th GRADE CLASS WERE LISTENING TO THE " ARCHIES "!! AS THE SONG GOES " WHO ARE YOU?" , YOU ARE CRAP. FOR 1 THING ,I DARE YOU TO PRINT THIS LETTER TO, 2, WRITE AN ARTICLE SAYING YOU ARE SORRY FOR WHAT YOU WROTE, 3 , E-MAIL ME BACK SAYING YOU ARE SORRY TO ME, 4, I HOPE FOR YOUR SAKE, YOU DON'T RUN INTO ANY WHO FANS THAT HAVE READ THIS ARTICLE, CAUSE THEY WILL PROBLABLY KNOCK YOU IN THE HEAD, & 5 IF YOU DON'T DO 1,2,& 3 , I HAVE ATTACHED A PICTURE OF ME, CAUSE I WILL WANT TO HAVE A WORD WITH YOU FACE TO FACE. HEY, I KNOW WHERE YOU WORK, & IF YOU DON'T WORK DIRECTLY FOR THE SUN-TIMES, WELL, I AM 1 OF THE MILLIONS WHO ARE UNEMPLOYED,SO WHEN I'M NOT LOOKING FOR A JOB, I'LL BE LOOKING FOR YOU. OH, I'M NOT STUPID ENOUGH TO HIT YOU & THEN GET SUED, BUT I WILL DEFINITELY GIVE YOU AN EAR FULL!!
After the ferocious explosion of the Jesus Lizard on opening night, the bands on the middle day of last summer's Pitchfork Music Festival had a tough act to follow. But Toronto's art-punk provocateurs F---ed Up were up to the task.
As the group tore through a riveting set of unrelenting yet ultra-melodic hardcore punk, including tunes from its stellar 2008 album "The Chemistry of Common Life," bald, bearded and beer-bellied singer Pink Eyes, a.k.a. Damian Abraham, spent most of the set in the field with the fans, standing atop the crowd barrier or using his teeth to tear apart any stray beach ball tossed his way in an ecstatic explosion of unbridled energy.
I spoke with this unique rock front man as he and the band prepared for three events in Chicago next Saturday, Feb. 13: two shows and an exhibition of his drawings at the Concertina Gallery, 2351 N. Milwaukee, from 6 to 8:30 p.m.
Celebrating its storied 50th anniversary, the annual University of Chicago Folk Festival moves into Mandel Hall, 1131 E. 57th, for three nights of concerts plus daytime workshops, dances and jam sessions tonight through Sunday, Feb. 12 to 14. Among this year's performers: Kim Wilson, Kurt Bjorling and Jim Stoynoff, the New Mules, Liz Carroll and friends, Aaron Moore and the James King Band. For a schedule of performances and other events, visit www.uofcfolk.org; to purchase tickets, visit the Mandel Hall box office or call (773) 702-7300.
Otherworldly music isn't just for Halloween, and Chicago's reigning Goth DJ Scary Lady Sarah will preside over two holiday events this weekend. Nocturna's "New Loves & Broken Hearts Valentine's Ball" takes place at Metro, 3730 N. Clark, starting at 11 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 13 ($10 cover), and "Shimmer: A Shoegaze/Dreampop Valentine's Dance" starts at 10 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 14, at Darkroom, 2210 W. Chicago (admission is free). For more information, visit www.americangothicprod.com.
Notoriously tough on body and soul, football is a young man's sport.
Though fans who know their history honor the accomplishments of the stars of the past, they wouldn't want the New Orleans Saints to bring quarterback Archie Manning out of retirement for the Super Bowl, any more than they'd expect the Indianapolis Colts to despair because Johnny Unitas died in 2002.
Yet since the infamous "nipplegate" incident of 2004, the NFL has turned to an increasingly hoary roster of classic rockers well past their prime to crank out their dustiest hits during halftime--nostalgic blasts from the past in the middle of the game of the moment.
On Sunday, in the wake of Paul McCartney (2005), the Rolling Stones ('06), Prince ('07), Tom Petty ('08) and Bruce Springsteen ('09), Super Bowl XLIV gave us the saddest, most tired musical spectacle yet: the band that pretends to be the Who.
The Who hasn't really been the Who for 20 years now: Drummer Keith Moon died in 1978, and bassist John Entwistle passed away the same year as Unitas. Yet Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey endure under the corporate moniker with a group of ringers that includes Pete's brother Simon on second guitar, Welsh session veteran Pino Palladino on bass, Ringo's son Zak Starkey on drums and longtime sideman John "Rabbit" Bundrick" on keyboards.
Wearing a goofy hat and shades (at night), Townshend got things rolling with the ringing acoustic guitar chords that signal the start of "Pinball Wizard," though the band only gave the crowd in a Miami a taste of that anthem before shifting into "Baba O'Riley" ("teenage wasteland"--ha!). From there it was part of "Who Are You," an equally brief snippet of "We're Not Gonna Take It!" (the "See Me, Feel Me" section from "Tommy") and a big finale of "Won't Get Fooled Again."
The newest song on that set list was 32 years old; the oldest was 41. But it wasn't even the tunes' over-familiarity that was the biggest problem.
Townshend (64) and Daltrey (65) were woefully flat and way out of sync during the unison vocal parts, and they relied on empty theatrics to convey the musical energy of the Who when the Who really were the Who. But the lasers, fireworks, geysers of flame and an elaborate illuminated stage that put U2's current tour setup to shame couldn't disguise the fact that these were two grizzled old pros going through the motions for a high-profile payday, with barely a hint of the powers they possessed at their peak.
Somewhere between the pointless button-pushing and pop pandering of Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake and the recent procession of sad old Hall of Famers phoning it in, there has to be a happy medium for Super Bowl music.
Heck, shortly before halftime, the NFL ran a self-promotional ad that tapped the Arcade Fire for its soundtrack--proving once again that the big game's commercials are often a lot more entertaining than what happens on the field.
Reunited alternative-era heroes Pavement, modern rockers Modest Mouse, dance-rock wizards LCD Soundsystem, indie-pop diva St. Vincent, rapper Raekown and singer-songwriter Cass McCombs will be among the headlining acts when the fifth annual Pitchfork Music Festival takes place in Union Park on July 16 to 18, the promoters announced today.
Tickets for the festival go on sale at noon via www.pitchforkmusicfestival.com. Single-day tickets are $40, three-day passes are $90, and this year for the first time day one will feature a full roster of bands instead of the music starting on Friday night.
Promoters announced only about a quarter of the acts, with more names to be added to the list in coming weeks. Modest Mouse will perform on Friday; LCD Soundsystem and Raekwon will take the stage on Saturday, and Pavement, St. Vincent, Lightning Bolt, Cass McCombs, Here We Go Magic and Sleigh Bells will close things out on Sunday.
Slated to take place July 16 to 18 in Union Park on the city's west side, the Pitchfork Music Festival will begin selling tickets on Friday, February 5th, via www.pitchforkmusicfestival.com.
Single-day tickets are priced at $40, three-day passes at $90, and promoters say that this year, opening day will start earlier with a more complete roster of bands. (At the last few festivals, Friday started in the early evening and featured only a few acts each year.)
No word yet on this year's performers, but promoters say "the first round of bands will be announced on Friday," with the rest of the lineup, as in years past, no doubt doled out a few at a time once a week or so, just to keep things interesting.
The local office of the now-monolithic concert promoters Live Nation, soon to be merged with monopolistic ticket brokers Ticketmaster thanks to last week's ruling by the Justice Department, announced on-sale information today for the first concert of its summer season: the local stop by the Bamboozle 2010 Tour featuring Cobra Starship, 3OH!3, Travis McCoy, I Fight Dragons, Jump Smokers and more at Charter One Pavilion on Northerly Island on Saturday, May 15.
The most curious thing about the announcement -- besides who would want to see this particular grouping of mediocre pop-punk bands -- is that Live Nation's contract to book shows on Northerly Island, the site of Meigs Field until Mayor Daley's bulldozers demolished it in the middle of the night a few years back, expired at the end of last summer's concert season.
Live Nation's competitors in the local concert scene, including Austin, TX-based C3 Presents, promoters of Lollapalooza in Grant Park, had expected the Chicago Park District to issue a request for proposals for the concert venue before the start of the 2010 season. Instead, the Park District is letting Live Nation stay on, seemingly without consideration of other options for this summer.
"The Live Nation contract was extended for this season only while we spend the next several months putting together a scope for management of the Pavilion for future years," Park District spokeswoman Jessica Maxey-Faulkner wrote in an email. "It will go to the February board for information to the Commissioners."
The Park District's Board of Commissioners next meet at 4 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 10, at Taylor-Lauridsen Playground Park, 704 W. 42nd St.
In a later phone interview, Maxey-Faulkner explained that the authorization to grant Live Nation another year on Northerly Island was made via a letter from Chicago Park District Superintendent Tim Mitchell because of 'special circumstances"--to wit, the city was planning to use the site for a venue for the 2016 Olympics, which, of course, is now moot.
The city is just now beginning to reconsider long-term plans for Northerly Island's development, and those may or may not include a permanent concert venue.
"Since we don't know what the future holds for Northerly Island, it didn't make sense to [put the concert venue out to bid for Live Nation to compete with other promoters] since it's only for one year," Maxey-Faulkner said.
Suburban-bred pop-punk heroes and guyliner champions Fall Out Boy, the most successful band to spring from the Chicago rock scene into the national pop spotlight since the Smashing Pumpkins during the alternative heyday of the early '90s, may be extending the hiatus they announced last summer into a permanent break.
Fittingly for the generation for whom they spoke, news of the split originated with bassist and lyricist Pete Wentz's semi-coherent posts on Twitter:
man. dont you get it? a hiatus is forever until you get lonely or old. i dont plan on either.
cant imagine playing in fob again. something would have to change in my head or my heart- not my wallet. itd have to be real
didnt want you to hang on a string, same time if it happens dont want to feel like a liar. it might happen w/ out me. oh well.
would you rather me lie to you through a publicist?
i want today to be over right now. theres nothing like applying 14 yr old emotions to 30 year old logic. its a tragically angst-y ending.
Meanwhile, in a more comprehensible statement to Spin.com, singer Patrick Stump said, "I'm not in Fall Out Boy right now. Whether we play again or not, I don't know. If we do, it will be for the right reasons. If we don't, it will also be for the right reasons."
That prompted drummer Andy Hurley to weigh in on this message board, where he is a frequent poster:
i really wish i could tell everyone if we were done or not. but i just dont know. its not looking great right now, but when we went into the break it was for sure that we'd come back in 2 or 3 years. i still think we will come back, but i just dont know. theres no official decision one way or another. pete loves fob. i love fob. patrick loves fob. and [guitarist] joe [Trohman] loves fob. its just that we're in different places right this very instant. which is why we took the break. i honestly think all the pressure of people asking stuff like they are on twitter every five seconds is more damning to the band than anything. the whole point of the break was to just get away, and not think about it, and in 2 years or so, come back and decide where to go from there. i believe in us, and i believe we will get in a room, hash out the bullshit like in some kind of monster (haha) and we will be super stoked to do another record. i know all of us are already, but just not at this exact moment.
the reason ive given of touring and recording straight for 7-8 years is absolutely true as well. it was just burning us all out. and everyone else. we did too much so fast. going away and coming back fresh could only be a good thing.
but i just dont know right now. i think we will be ok in time. maybe not. like i said though, i cant tell the future. because heres the thing, i want a definitive answer as bad as everyone else. i think thats whats causing all of this in the first place
Hey, boys: One of you call in that therapist who helped Metallica before it's too late!
The queen of "quiet storm" R&B from the mid-'80s through the early '90s, Nigerian-born, British-raised Helen Folasade Adu has been missing from the pop world for nearly a decade, since the release of her fifth album "Lovers Rock" in late 2000. Sade--which, like PJ Harvey, has always been the name of the singer as well as her band--seemed to have said everything she wanted to say, varying the formula of intimate, sultry vocals and exquisitely recorded but minimally arranged instrumentation very little on signature hits such as "Smooth Operator," "Hang on to Your Love" and "The Sweetest Taboo," but nonetheless selling 17 million albums in the U.S. alone.
A staple in the then-new CD players of Reagan-era yuppies, some detractors branded the former fashion designer with epitomizing that era's sleek, superficial and materialist values. But there always were many facets to the diamond life Sade sang about, with a bottomless reservoir of soul obvious to anyone who really listened to her work instead of treating it as mere background music. So it will come as no surprise to those fans that Sade is exploring a much darker vibe on her long-awaited new disc.
As the title might indicate, the theme of love as a battlefield dominates these 10 tracks, and Sade certainly has earned her stripes: During her Greta Garbo-like exile, she endured the dissolution of a marriage in Spain and another relationship in Jamaica that produced a daughter before finding true love with a former Royal Marine in the English countryside. But like Mary J. Blige, she has emerged as an optimist, though one whose eyes are wide open. "There's no way I can find peace and the silence won't cease," she coos in the lovely "Morning Bird," though over a martial beat in the title track, she adds, "I've lost the use of my heart, but I'm still alive."
While the song "Soldier of Love" has a harder, angrier edge than anything Sade has recorded in the past, and her voice has become a little deeper and huskier at age 51, most of the other tracks settle into that familiar late-night groove as the singer reunites with her longtime band mates, including key player Stuart "Cottonbelly" Matthewman, who spent some of his long vacation working with another neo-soul great, Maxwell. Sony is banking on this album to duplicate the sales success of Susan Boyle, believing it's tapped a new market for "adult" (some would say "senior citizen") sounds. But don't let that stop you from enjoying these sophisticated and soulful grooves: Sade may not be giving us anything radically new, but it's a pleasure just to have her back doing what she's always done so well.
Conceived as a contrasting bookend to the aptly titled "Distortion" (2008), the ninth album from absurdly prolific singer, songwriter and stylistic chameleon Stephin Merritt trades its predecessor's walls of guitar noise for tinkling bells, plucked banjo, wheezing accordion and bleating tuba for its auteur's version of '60s folk-rock. The New York artist has said he was aiming for Judy Collins, but with his baritone voice and fondness for baroque filigree, he actually comes closer to mellow Jethro Tull.
This isn't a new trend on the current indie-rock scene--witness the Decemberists--and though his barbed lyrical wit produces more than a few gems ("I no longer drink enough to think you're witty," he sings in the opening track, "You think you can simply press rewind, you must be out of your mind"), it's not a sound that really suits him. Several tracks miss the homey, rootsy vibe or stripped-down intimacy that seems to have been the goal, instead achieving a prissy, fussy tweeness--as the titles might indicate, "The Doll's Tea Party," "We Are Having A Hootenanny" and "The Dada Polka" are especially annoying.
Though plenty of critics continue to hail the Magnetic Fields' "69 Love Songs" (1999) as a masterpiece, that epic triple album easily could have been cut in half, and Merritt always has shared similar problems with fellow home recording maven Robert Pollard of Guided by Voices: a chronic inability to edit himself, and a reluctance or unwillingness to focus on his strengths at the expense of genre experiments that just fall flat. Excepting a few tunes spotlighting the gorgeous vocals of Claudia Gonson, "Realism" is one of those failures.
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