A Good Year In Music (2015)

(Rolling Stones during ‘Sympathy For The Devil’ @ TCF Stadium 6/3/15)

Well 2015 is winding down, New Years Eve is fast approaching, and I have been thinking about all of the cool concerts I was fortunate enough to see this year.  Some bands I have seen a million times, some bands I have never seen and some are bucket-list guys.  There was one stand-out fantastic show and one stand-out crappy show…but mostly a year filled with awesome music.  I have ramped up my live concerts in the last couple of years mainly due to age concerns…my age and the advancing ages of all my musical heroes.  I always regretted skipping AC/DC the last time they came around (twice) during the ‘Black Ice’ tour in 2008 and 2009.  It has now been almost 15 years since the last time I saw them in 2001, and until they announced they will be here next February I was starting to wonder if I would ever see them again.  And I made that mistake with Ray Manzarek as well…I skipped his last show here in Minnesota few years ago and then he died.  After I let those shows go by unattended I started thinking about age.  And time…it is relentless.  It is moving faster and faster the older we get and all my favorite bands are retiring or dying.  Ten years from now I may have nothing to see.

 

So I decided that I had to try and see every single band or artist that I like when they came to town in case it is the last time.  That’s the thing about ‘the last time’.  You never know when the last time is until it’s over with.  Was the summer Rolling Stones concert the last time I will ever see the world’s greatest rock and roll band?  Or what about Motley Crue?  Three times now I have gone to see their ‘last show ever in Minnesota’, but the bastards keep coming back and I have to keep going.  Or the freaking Who…I paid out big bucks ($17) when I was in high school to see their ‘final tour’ in 1982, and yet I have tickets to see them coming up next May.  Or the Rush concert last spring…they kind of hinted that was their last tour.  You just never know.

 

Looking at the list below, here are some of observations:  I would have to say my favorite show of the year was the Rolling Stones and my worst show was Gordon Lightfoot (as detailed in my 7/30/15 blog-post ‘The Good, the Bad and the Awesome’).  My favorite venue for quality of shows, sound, staff, the bar, and convenience (it’s just down the road from my house) is the Medina Ballroom.  My worst venue is the Dakota.  I suppose seeing a mellow performer like Jorma Kaukonen is okay in that small, intimate, upscale expensive environment, but seeing a rocking band like the Subdudes and having to sit down instead of dancing is counter-productive and annoying.  The Medina can have that problem too, but usually for the hard rock bands they remove the tables and make the whole place General Admission.

 

I have to give special mention to two other concerts.  First of all, the Dead & Company show.  I do not know why some people are so insanely opposed to this.  Jerry can’t be in the band, he’s dead.  Does that mean everyone else in the band should refrain from making anymore music?  I pay money to see good music, and this was good music.  I do not know anything about John Mayer, but he is an awesome guitarist and I would definitely go again.  I liked this Dead even better than last summer’s Chicago version.  I am not a fan of Trey’s (or Phil’s) voice, so this new version was the best post-Jerry show I have seen.  I scored a pit ticket for the Dead by calling AXS instead of toiling with their website and it worked great!  I got right in and scored a coveted General Admission pit ticket.  The front third of the floor was GA, the back two-thirds assigned seats.  Doors at 7 pm and music at 8 pm, and they said people with GA could start lining up as early as 5pm.  I figured the hell with that…it was freezing out and I did not need to be up front. 

 

So I got there at 7:15 pm but there was still a massive line as the doors had not been opened yet.  I was not going to wait in that line so I walked up to the front to ask one of the guards when they were opening up.  She said “Right now” and grabbed me and I was the first one in the building!  So I ran downstairs and holy sh*t the floor was empty…I walked right up and got front row center on the rail!  I could not believe it.  Then two nice girls got next to me and I told them that for all 100 of my Dead concerts I had been front row only once…in Louisville.  They asked when that was and I told them spring tour ’89.  They both laughed and said that was the year they were both born.  It was a pretty good mixed crowd between young and old, with all the young ones having been introduced to the Dead through their parents.  It was a pleasant crowd and I had no problem leaving to go get a drink or pee and getting back to my front/center spot.  One of the girls went into a seizure-like thing though during ‘Space’ with her head bouncing off the railing as she collapsed, so me and the other girl had to help her to the back.  Other than that it was a great night, fantastic show.

 

The other honorable mention goes to Alice Cooper/Motley Crue’s final ass-kicking show here in Minnesota last week.  I did not care that this was the third final show in Minnesota that I had seen on this tour and I did not care that the setlist was the same as last August.  I just love seeing these two bands in concert.  Alice Cooper was his usual great self playing all his hits while being electrocuted and stabbed and beheaded, and Motley Crue was just as loud and brash as ever with a monster set full of explosions and flames and great tunes.  It also helped that I went in solo on an $18 ticket and managed to walk right up to a 5^th row aisle seat right on the side of the stage.  I could feel the heat and the concussions from all of the explosions, and I had Nikki Sixx in my face all night.  He even threw me a guitar pick.  Great concert, great night, and I will miss seeing those guys live.

 

Another thing I noticed on the list is that all but one of the concerts was in Minnesota.  The only out-of-state show was in Chicago.  That is a far cry from my earlier days when every other month I was traveling with Mitch or Ted or Freak or B-Dog or Arnie or Brad or Penny or Dirty Dan to San Francisco or New York or New Orleans or someplace to see the Radiators.  Or going to see major music festivals like Jazz Fest in New Orleans or the Austin City Limits Festival in Texas or Summerfest in Milwaukee.  Or before that touring with the Grateful Dead all over the country.  Now that I have a couple of small kids my traveling days have come to almost a complete halt.  I miss those adventures, but I would not trade what I have now for anything.

 

I also noticed that a good majority of the bigger shows I went to solo.  I am totally cool with that.  A younger me would have never dreamed of going to a concert by myself…uh, loser.  But now I almost prefer it.  I go to a concert to see music, not to talk.  Also, when I am solo at a large venue like an arena or stadium I have the option of buying a cheap ticket and then sneaking my way down to the front and finding an open expensive seat.  That works just about every time when I am solo, but is much harder with a friend.  Don’t get me wrong I like going to concerts with friends, but I have no problem going solo if nobody else wants to go.

 

The best show that I did not see last year was the Foo Fighters on January 10^th at the LA. Forum.  On January 7^th, the night before heading to Los Angeles from Jan 8-11^th for a funeral, I decided for the heck of it to go to ticketmaster.com and see what music was playing for the 3 nights I was going to be there.  I happened to login at exactly 9:00 pm and suddenly a Foo Fighters concert popped up on the screen.  Huh.  I was ignorant and had never seen them before but I know they are huge so I decided to try for one ticket.  Huh again…12^th row in the lower level on the front-side of the stage.  Perfect.  Wait, only $50?  Oh, it was a benefit show and all tickets were $50.  I did not know much about the Foo, but I thought tickets were hard to get for their show.  This was easy.  I had 8 minutes to complete the purchase.  I called my brother in Los Angeles to see if the family was doing anything that night…if not, I could go.  He did not answer.  I called my mom in Portland…I got her voicemail too.  Hmm.  It was a great ticket but I did not want to be stuck with the ticket if I couldn’t go.  Nobody called me back, time expired and the ticket was gone.  I immediately started to feel pangs of regret.  I tried again right away to get another ticket just to make sure they were still available in case my brother or mom called back.  The wait-time for tickets was now 45 minutes!  It was 9:10 pm.  They must have went on sale at 9 pm and they were now basically sold out!  Weird, I thought. 

 

Turns out it was a surprise unannounced concert for Dave Grohl’s 46^th birthday party, complete with special guests Paul Stanley, Jack Black, Slash, Alice Cooper, Zakk Wylde, Perry Farrell, Trombone Shorty, David Lee Roth and Lemmy Kilmister.  Tons of my musical heroes doing all my favorite songs.  And as it turns out I could have went.  By that third night in town all the family activities were done, so the night of the Foo concert I was sitting on a bed in a hotel room just down the street from the Forum with my Uncle Jim swilling a bottle of scotch watching Sports Center.  It is now and will remain one of my life’s all-time biggest musical regrets.  After telling my friend Penny McCartney about what I had done she was shocked at my stupidity for not buying the $50 ticket.  “You realize of course that people will pay $1,000 for a ticket to see these surprise Foo concerts.  It would have been the concert of a lifetime.”  I think she was genuinely mad at me, and for good reason.  Ughhh.  Here is what I missed:

http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/foo-fighters/2015/the-forum-inglewood-ca-5bcab724.html

Anyways, here is what I DID manage to see last year:

 

1/16/15 – Fleetwood Mac @ Xcel Center – St. Paul, MN

1/17/15 – Sesame Street Live @ State Theatre – Minneapolis, MN
2/6 & 2/7/15 – New Orleans Suspects @ Bunkers – Minneapolis, MN
2/26/15 – Gov’t Mule @ State Theatre
3/13/15 – Robby Krieger @ Medina Ballroom – Medina, MN
3/29/15 – Stevie Wonder @ Target Center – Minneapolis, MN
4/11/15 – Jorma Kaukonen @ The Dakota – Minneapolis, MN
4/12/15 – Disney’s Frozen On Ice @ Target Center
4/19/15 – Sixx A.M. @ Mill City Nights – Minneapolis, MN
5/12/15 – Rush @ Xcel Center
5/16/15 – Billy Joel @ Target Center
6/3/15 – Rolling Stones @ TCF Stadium – Minneapolis, MN
6/20/15 – Gordon Lightfoot @ State Theatre
6/27/15 – Dr. John @ CHS Field – St. Paul, MN
7/3/15 – Grateful Dead @ Soldier Field – Chicago, IL
7/10 & 7/11/15 – Raw Oyster Cult @ Bunkers
8/5/15 – Motley Crue @ Xcel Center
8/21/15 – Mofro/Big Head Todd @ Hilde Performance Center – Plymouth, MN
8/22/15 – Foo Fighters @ Xcel Center
8/27/15 – Def Leppard/Styx/Tesla @ State Fair – St. Paul, MN
9/18 & 9/19/15 – Honey Island Swamp Band @ Whiskey Junction – Minneapolis, MN
9/20/15 – Uncle Acid @ Mill City Nights
9/29/15 – Mark Knopfler @ Orpheum Theatre – Minneapolis, MN
10/9/15 – Leon Russell @ Medina Ballroom
10/16/15 – Ringo Starr @ State Theatre
10/25/15 – Arlo Guthrie @ O’Shaughnessy Auditorium – St. Paul, MN
10/29, 10/30 & 10/31/15 – Raw Oyster Cult @ Bunkers
11/10/15 – The Subdudes @ The Dakota
11/14/15 – Eric Burdon @ Medina Ballroom
11/21/15 – Dead & Company @ Target Center
12/8/15 – Motley Crue @ Target Center
12/31/15 – Hairball @ Medina Ballroom

 

Looking ahead to 2016, I have tickets lined up for the following…I can’t wait!

 

1/15 & 1/16/16 – The Radiators @ Tipitinas – New Orleans, LA

1/25/16 – Black Sabbath @ Target Center
1/29/16 – Blue Oyster Cult/Jefferson Starship @ Medina Ballroom
2/14/16 -- AC/DC @ Xcel Center
2/23/16 – Warren Haynes Band @ Fitzgerald Theatre – St. Paul, MN
2/28/16 – Disney On Ice @ Target Center
2/29/16 – Bruce Springsteen @ Xcel Center
4/9/16 – Marvel Universe Live @ Target Center
5/1/16 – The Who @ Target Center