Snippets from the Road

1. Sir Paul McCartney has tacked a few more shows onto the itinerary for his 2010 "Up and Coming" tour.

The former Beatle will return to the road beginning with a two-night stand March 28-29 in Glendale, AZ. Since last check, four new dates have been confirmed, including a second night at LA's Hollywood Bowl (3/30-3/31). The legendary performer will also host concerts in Miami (4/3) and San Juan, Puerto Rico (4/5).

2. ZZ Top, Godsmack, Buckcherry and Tesla are just some of the bands appearing at this year’s Rocklahoma, scheduled for Memorial Weekend in Pryor, Okla. Along with the aforementioned bands, other groups appearing at the 3-day festival include Cinderella, Chevelle, Stone Sour, Theory Of A Deadman, Saliva, Saving Abel, Adelitas, Aranda and Burn Halo with more to be announced.

3. Alicia Keys is among the recently confirmed headliners for the 2010 Essence Music Festival, set for July 2-4 in New Orleans. The newest additions to the lineup also include Arrested Development, Estelle, Trey Songz, War, LL Cool J, Mint Condition and Mary Mary among others.

Keys joins previously announced Mary J. Blige, along with Earth, Wind & Fire, Gladys Knight, Keri Hilson, Jill Scott, Raphael Saadiq, Charlie Wilson, De La Soul and many more at the annual weekend celebration.

BPD has received assurances that we'll have passes for #s1-3. So don't delay, request yours right away.

Member Review: Jeff Beck/Eric Clapton

BPD member Manhunter wrote:

It was definitely worth the wait, but it wasn't exactly what I was expecting.

Legendary guitarists Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton shared the stage occasionally over their four decades in rock, but it was only recently that they decided to join forces for a Together And Apart tour. Heroes during British blues-rock’s heroic age — in 1965, Beck replaced Clapton in the Yardbirds — the pair has a history of sidelong glances, but not really one of true collaboration. They’ve joined each other on stages now and then, but haven’t worked together for any length...... until now.

Beck, releasing a new album Emotion & Commotion in April, included accompaniment by a 12-piece orchestra. As for oomph, it was hard not to view Jeff Beck’s slot as teeming with that intangible. Beck isn’t exactly in the same mainstream realm as Clapton is, but his body of work and frenetic style holds up with anyone. This was showcased often during his performance which included the fine signatures he doled out in Led Boots and the beefy Big Block, and the questionable operatic Nessun Dorma.

Perhaps the set highlight was Beck and orchestra covering The Beatles’ A Day In The Life, with the rising walls of sound in the song majestically coming to life.

Clapton has an extensive back catalog, blues standards and his low-wattage, high-precision style. And for this night, they have each other.

While perfectly complementing each other throughout, the pair could not have had more varied individual sets if they tried. Clapton, 64, opened his slot – basically Act Two of this three-act performance – seated for acoustic versions of Driftin’ and Layla, the latter getting a loud ovation despite being the lounge-y Unplugged rendition. Early on Clapton’s nickname Slowhand could have been changed to Slowerhand as Running On Faith and I’ve Got A Rock ‘N Roll Heart did little to energize the audience. Yet when he stood up and strapped on his electric guitar, the muddy, bluesy nugget Key To The Highway, Cocaine and Bob Marley’s jewel I Shot The Sheriff easily upped the oomph factor.

After each guitarist completed their own roughly 50-minute set, Beck returned onstage with Clapton and his unspectacular but solid blues-by-the-numbers supporting cast for Shake Your Moneymaker, a boogie-fuelled romp which set the stage for what was to come.

Thankfully void of the “super group” mentality where players either timidly sit back or figuratively fight for extended, bloated solos, the dazzling Beck and the more deliberate Clapton alternated playing lead and rhythm on the seedy You Need Love. Here Beck playfully pretended to look at his wrist wondering when the duo would rein the song back in to close.

Although some of the selections definitely could have been fleshed out further, including the finale Crossroads, seeing the duo play off each other during Little Brown Bird atoned for Sly & The Family Stone’s I Wanna Take You Higher which was a tad short.

Both of these guys are in to their sixties, but high-end guitar riffing is timeless. I didn't get to spend any time with the two of them together, which shot to shit all the questions I had prepared. I did get a couple of minutes with each and was so star struck that all I could do was ask how the tour was going and what their respective recording plans were.

Duh!

Anyway, what a privilege, what a treat. Thanks BPD.

Glad you enjoyed it, Manhunter.

The 2010 show season is starting to heat up. So members, get your requests in early.

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Member Review: Wilco

StrataVarious checks in:

Holy Shit! There I was backstage with my #1 band, Wilco. Does it get any better than this?

Frontman Jeff Tweedy may be the focus and main instigator of this unusual Chicago combo, but the six musicians on stage behave as a single unit, another sterling example of the old “sum greater than the parts” phenomenon. You could tell these guys have played together — more importantly, listened to each other — for quite some time. Even the so-called “new guy,” secret weapon guitarist Nels Cline, has been with Wilco for five years. Each one serves the whole, no one hogs the spotlight. They couldn’t get any tighter if they tried, even when they don’t look like they’re trying. From a whisper of subtle magic to a barrage of three-guitar noise to blow the roof off the joint, the dynamics were remarkable.

Just one of the alternative wrinkles heard last night: The band's set list was determined by fan vote on its website. They even pulled out some obscure song even if just one person voted for it. “I don’t think that’s any way to build a following,” Tweedy admitted to me. Maybe a cult following, though, eh?

And so, the night opened on a quiet note, with Sunken Treasure. The vocals were practically a whisper, the accompaniment minimal. Cline played these beautiful slide guitar licks, his guitar hooked up to some contraption that seemed to record a loop of what he played and spit it out backwards. Interesting.

All hell broke loose shortly thereafter. There followed an eclectic blend of material from Wilco’s varied career, very little of it in a country vein. The closest probably came in the encore for California Stars. You might also count a pair of tracks from Mermaid Avenue — the album of unreleased Woody Guthrie lyrics set to music by Billy Bragg and Wilco — but given the wild arrangements, especially in Hoodoo Voodoo, it was a stretch. I Am Trying to Break Your Heart evolved into a frenzy of noise reminiscent of the big build-up in the Beatles’ A Day in the Life. You Are My Face featured the odd lyrics — “I remember my mother’s sister’s husband’s brother working in the goldmine full-time” — with Crosby Stills Nash and Young-style vocals. Well, three part, not four, but close enough.

You literally didn’t know what you were going to get next. The show did drag a bit in places, but the lulls didn’t last. There was always a surprise right around the corner. And that’s the real magic of a band like Wilco.

Thank you BackstagePassDirect for letting me do "the impossible".

Impossible? Not quite, but glad it kicked your ass.

Want your ass kicked? Don't delay; join us.

Crossroads 2010 Announced

The date is June 26; the place, as it was in 2007, is Toyota Park, just outside the Windy City.

Guitarists extraordinaire lined up so far for the single day event include B.B. King, Jeff Beck, Doyle Bramhall II and Buddy Guy as well as ZZ Top and the Allman Brothers Band. Vince Gill, John Mayer and Sheryl Crow will also appear.

Other artists appearing at Crossroads include Steve Winwood, Sonny Landreth, Bert Jansch, Joe Bonamassa, James Burton, Earl Klugh, Robert Cray, Albert Lee and Hubert Sumlin.

All profits from the festival will benefit the Clapton-founded addiction treatment and education facility The Crossroads Centre, located on the West Indies island of Antigua.

We'll be assigning passes in early June. Make your requests today. Not a member yet? Join right away.

Member Review: Elvis Costello

BPD member BombsAway sent this to us:

Let me get this out of the way right at the start. Sitting backstage and talking with Elvis Costello about his work with Allen Toussaint was one of the highlights of my to-date brief life. That said, let me tell you about this killer show.

If anyone can pull off a solo show and make it sound so much more than just one guy and his guitar — and not even a round-the-neck harmonica holder or knee tambourines to fill out the sound — it’s Elvis Costello.

The man is a master. The 55-year-old singer-songwriter put a slice of his storied and strange career on display for all to see.

The show included classic songs about women (Alison, Veronica), classic songs about self-loathing (like Brilliant Mistake) and new material featuring both of the above that was just plain weird. His last record, Secrets, Profane and Sugarcane — the one he made after he said he would never make any more records, or was that the last one? — seems to be an old-time country concept album of sorts, and the even more recent, presumably unrecorded stuff, follows suit nicely. And weirdly.

Elvis is no stranger to the strange, of course. Anyone who has collaborated with both Burt Bacharach and the Kronos Quartet can attest to that.

There in fact is no one else in the music business who has worked with such varied artists, gone in such different directions from all-out rock to delightful operettas.

Sure, there were cheers when Elvis pulled off the familiar old stuff — like opening with (The Angels Wanna Wear) My Red Shoes, much appreciated. As was his classic version of the Beatles’ You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away, spliced with one of his own tunes.

But the newer material was brilliant. The whole show was. He played what he claimed was his one and only Christmas song, Bedlam, which is a twisted version of the baby Jesus story, likewise filled with disturbing images. That’s the magic of Elvis. You can enjoy his unique voice, his unusual chord progressions and his wonderful acoustic guitar accompaniment — few people realize the guy is one hell of a guitar player — but his fans come for the clever, haunting wordplay. You have to listen carefully lest some gem pass you by. “I’m twice the foolish man I was before” is just tip of the iceberg of self-loathing genius.

Later on, Costello introduced a special guest — himself — before moving to a chair in front of another microphone setup whose EQ seemed specially tuned to sound like it came from the 1930s. The song fit the occasion. He played an old-time ragtime groove on what he claimed was an old guitar for another odd tale: this one about a cowboy singer who for some reason is touring Northern England in 1937, and is stuck in the rain at the Lancaster train station.

Elvis sang the tale of woe like he lived it himself, noting “there’s no place for a half-cut cowboy in polite society.” No one said we were living in a polite society these days, of course.

In some ways, a solo Elvis is better than Elvis with a band. 'Nuff said.

We couldn't agree more.

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Bonnaroo Followup

Although the list remains incomplete, the initially posted lineup is nonetheless quite impressive. Consider:

Dave Matthews Band • Kings of Leon • Stevie Wonder • Jay-Z • Tenacious D • Weezer • The Flaming Lips with Stardeath and White Dwarfs perform "Dark Side of the Moon" • The Dead Weather • Damian Marley & Nas • Phoenix • Norah Jones • Michael Franti & Spearhead • John Fogerty • Regina Spektor • Jimmy Cliff • LCD Soundsystem • The Avett Brothers • Thievery Corporation • Rise Against • Tori Amos • The National • Zac Brown Band • Les Claypool • John Prine • The Black Keys • Steve Martin & the Steep Canyon Rangers • Jeff Beck • Dropkick Murphys • She & Him • Against Me! • The Disco Biscuits • Daryl Hall & Chromeo • Jamey Johnson • Clutch • Bassnectar • Kid Cudi • Baaba Maal • Kris Kristofferson • Medeski Martin & Wood • The xx • GWAR • Dan Deacon Ensemble • Tinariwen • Wale • Deadmau5 • The Melvins • Gaslight Anthem • Miike Snow • The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band • Dr. Dog • They Might Be Giants • Punch Brothers • Isis • Blitzen Trapper • Blues Traveler • Miranda Lambert • Calexico • OK Go • Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue • Martin Sexton • Lotus • Baroness • Dave Rawlings Machine • Mayer Hawthorne and the County • Japandroids • Jay Electronica • Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros • Ingrid Michaelson • The Dodos • Manchester Orchestra • The Temper Trap • Cross Canadian Ragweed • Big Sam's Funky Nation • Carolina Chocolate Drops • Needtobreathe • Tokyo Police Club • The Entrance Band • Local Natives • Brandi Carlile • Mumford & Sons • Rebelution • Diane Birch • Monte Montgomery • Julia Nunes • The Postelles • Lucero • Here We Go Magic • Hot Rize • Neon Indian • B.O.B

Our suspicion is that some of the biggies are still to be announced.

If you've been living on Mars, FYI, the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival is a four-day, multi-stage camping festival held on a beautiful 700-acre farm in Manchester, Tennessee every June. Bonnaroo brings together some of the best performers in rock and roll, along with dozens of artists in complementary styles such as jazz, Americana, hip-hop, electronica, and just about any contemporary music you can think of. In addition to dozens of epic performances, the festival's 100-acre entertainment village buzzes around the clock with attractions and activities including a classic arcade, on-site cinema, silent disco, comedy club, theater performers, a beer festival, and a music technology village.

The dates this year are June 10-13 and we WILL have passes. Make your requests asap for this premier outdoor fest.

Bonnaroo 2010

The lineup for Bonnaroo 2010 is starting to take shape. BPD has it on good information that Paul Simon will be there, quite possibly joined by another Paul (hint, hint).

We'll lay it all out for you next week. Check back with us.

Grammy Report

Another year for the Grammys is in the record books.

BPD's own Tara Lemmon was backstage and filed this report:

I was looking forward to this year’s show for a couple of obvious reasons. And for the most part, I wasn’t too surprised at the results. There were several great moments, a bunch of mediocre ones, and a few dreadful ones. Not wanting to alienate anyone, I'll just highlight the high spots.

Lady Gaga/Elton John
First Elizabeth Windsor and now Elton John. Gaga sure has been hanging with a lot of old queens lately. Seriously, the whole thing was the kind of eye-catching, show stopping number we've come to expect from her. (It was also surprisingly sweet and charming when she and Elton were singing together.) And it would have been the performance of the night if only it weren't for.......................

Pink
To quote Lady Gaga, "You've left me speechless." Pink managed to walk away with the whole thing last night. First of all, she looked gorgeous. Then there was the SINGING. While hanging halfway upside down, soaking wet and spinning. And somehow is was still an understated performance. (Sorry Gaga, love ya, but you been served.)

Mary J. Blige/Andrea Bocelli
Classy and moving. Especially considering what a tightrope walk the opera + pop combo can be. But then Mary J. always brings that. (Why am I suddenly hungry for spaghetti though?)

Lady Antebellum
An excellent display of good old-fashioned musicanship. Three of young Nashville’s most talented delivering another solid performance - despite a vengeful curtain.

Maxwell/Roberta Flack
Also a classy, understated performance by two insanely talented singers. And who doesn't love Roberta Flack? ("I felt all flushed with fever...")

Jeff Beck/Imelda May
When I first spotted May sitting next to Beck in the audience, I just assumed she was his wife/girlfriend/friend. When he started playing Les Paul and Mary Ford’s “How High the Moon” and she was onstage with him I thought, hmmmm. Then she sang. Wowee-wow-wow! And that’s one tough song. If you don’t believe me, you try getting through the modulated scale that leads from the bridge into the second verse without pulling something. So we have a guitar great (Beck) honoring a guitar legend (Les Paul) plus the evening’s “Holy Cow! Who is that singing?” moment in the same number. Brilliant.

To be honest, I was so awestruck by all the star power backstage that I spent almost all my time wiping the never-ending drool stream from my mouth.

Sorry boss, no interviews.

Who can blame her?

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