Macumber Macblog

I scored second row seats to Jeff Beck in Indianapolis last night. My friend Jim and I went up to Indy, had some dinner and saw the show.

Aside from some issues with a bad stage monitor that caused a very “crunchy” bass sound through the first four songs, it was an auditory experience like none other. Jeff played his classics, some of his blues stuff, four tunes that I counted from his latest album “Emotion and Commotion” as well as many of his more challenging jazz pieces. He opened the show with “Spectrum” and it was simply amazing.

The killer female bass player, Tal Wilkenfeld, that played on Jeff’s latest studio album was not part of his band. Any disappointment I may have felt about not getting to see/hear her was quickly dispelled after a few songs of hearing Rhonda Smith play. Rhonda is a former member of Prince’s band “The New Power Generation” and she can sing some bluesy vocals as well. She played a mean Fender Jazz Bass and a pretty unique upright electric bass.

The drummer, Narada Michael Warden, filled out the rhythm section and Narada had more stage presence than any drummer in recent memory. He was smiling broadly as he absolutely pummeled his drums. Being so close to the stage, Warden’s drums and Smith’s bass were literally causing my t-shirt to flap. I was a little surprised at the “crisp” volume because I understood that Jeff Beck had a bad case of tinnitus and/or hearing loss at one time.

The keyboard player, Jason Rebello, was an important part of the sound as well. Jeff is using a lot of string arrangements and synthesizer accompaniment these days. He did a really nice version of Jeff Buckley’s “Lilac Wine” and while I thought it sounded a little corny on the record, his performance of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” was beautiful live.

I had never seen Jeff Beck play live before and I was very fortunate to be so close because he put on a clinic last night. His right hand was constantly working the whammy bar and the volume knob as he carried out his signature finger-picking style. He had several stretches of harmonics from which he squeezed-out additional notes using the whammy bar.

I could go on and on. There were a couple of points in the show (like when he played an instrumental version of the Beatles “A Day In The Life”) where the sounds he was making were at once hypnotic and mesmerizing. It was as close as I have been to hearing someone put 4000 people in a trance.

He played for 90 minutes and did one 4-song encore.

Jeff Beck turns 66 this Thursday. Don’t make the mistake I did with BB King. If you have a chance to catch Jeff Beck on this tour – do it. He is still very much at the top of his ability and the performance last night was a masterpiece.

Photos are here.

written by mark

In May the Kentucky Macumbers were still suffering through the worst allergy season we had ever experienced. James and Kayleigh were hit especially hard. It is not uncommon around here for certain allergenic children to be housebound for 6 weeks or so as it is simply too painful for them to go outside and deal with the stuff in the air. It was a normal allergy season for me personally but I had some bad days. Mine were especially bad whenever I took a motorcycle ride. We used local honey (local bees supposedly help with resistance or something) and tried several drug store potions like Claritin, Allegra, Benadryl all to pretty much no avail.

May also held a few important occasions for celebration. First up was Mother’s Day. On Mother’s Day weekend Glenn and Suzanne came down to visit for the weekend and stayed with the kids on Friday night while Melissa and I drove up to Indy to see Pearl Jam in concert. The concert was a trip. There were thunderstorms in the area so the show started late and while the show was delayed everyone appeared to be tailgating and drinking out in the massive parking areas. As Melissa and I walked in I commented what a rowdy, festival like atmosphere it was. It reminded me of the sex/drugs/rock’n'roll era shows that I used to go see back in my younger days. There were a LOT of drunk people and I guess I had expected the Pearl Jam audience to have aged and matured a bit. Melissa and I had a great time even though the venue was very poorly run and very poorly secured. I had toyed with the idea of bringing James at one point and I am sure glad I didn’t. It was no place for kids. Even having said that …. it was oddly interesting (or nostalgic?) to see this place in the world where people were still OK with letting it all hang out. I had not been to a concert in maybe 15-20 years where people were openly smoking marijuana. I usually can’t even smoke a cigarette in public anymore with all the laws and changing social mores. Not at Pearl Jam. It was like stepping into a time machine. I hadn’t seen so much beer, pot and long hair in many years. And the band was superb. They are incredible live. Vedder has a voice that just works well over a big, loud PA system. McCready played spot-on through the songs and then extrapolated some of the bluesier stuff as instrumentals and long interludes between songs. The weather held on well enough for us all to stay dry and warm. I think Melissa enjoyed it as much as I did.

Because Glenn and Suzanne were home with the kids Melissa and I were able to spend the night at a nice hotel in Indy. We had a great meal before the show and had an excellent breakfast the morning after. Once we got home, Glenn, James and I worked in a round of golf that Saturday and then we all visited, ate and relaxed for Mother’s Day. I gave Melissa a new Flip HD Slide video camera and the children made sure to shower her with love and appreciation for what a great Mommy she is.

Fast-forwarding a couple of weeks, on May 21st James became a teenager and celebrated his 13th birthday. He is acting like a teenager too. Nuff said on that. James did receive some new games and assorted gaming paraphernalia and Melissa made him an awesome turtle cheesecake which was rich beyond description. It was so dense you could only eat it in small helpings – but it was a true work of art. Melissa and I also gave him a nice pull-cart for his golf clubs. We have been walking the course when we play since we both need the exercise and since his matches are all walking matches.

The next day, on May 22nd, Stella turned 4. She was very happy with all of her gifts and made sure she told everyone she spoke with that she was now four. As she imparted this information she would hold up four fingers just in case there was any confusion.

As the school year wound down and the weather turned from warm to hot, everyone’s spirits were lifted at the prospect of summer fun at the swimming pool and not having to rush around in the morning to get everyone off to school. It was a month full of good stuff.

All the May photos are here. We took them with a small point-and-shoot camera that we apparently have not yet mastered. Even though they are blurry, grainy and red-eyed we still like them.

written by mark

My buddy Jim and I went and saw BB King in Evansville, Indiana on Thursday, April 29th, 2010. I had not seen BB before. This is odd considering how many blues festivals he has played over the years and how much touring he has done in support of his own recordings. As a younger guy I had regarded BB as being one of the originals but always felt maybe he had was a little too sterile and that maybe he was pandering to his white fan base on records and to the white audience in some of his shows. In fact, my friend Jim saw him play at the Louisville Gardens back in the late 70′s and he says that BB had a white setlist and a black setlist and that after seeing him play to a predominantly black audience at the Garden that I can’t underestimate how powerful BB was back in his prime playing days.

BB is 84 years old and in Jim’s words, “He’s out there playing at an age when most people are dead.”

So I figured this was probably my last chance to catch him perform unless I made a trek to his club in New York.

The show was short and BB did more chatting with the audience than he did singing and playing the guitar. Some of what he had to share with the audience was in the form of funny, charming stories but at several points in the show he stopped to share wisdom that he had accrued over the years. He talked about treating people with respect and love (women in particular) and also talked about gratitude for the gifts in life and not taking the present for granted. He didn’t get into politics but he did take a moment to remind the younger of us in the audience not to get too bogged down in bad news and that things had been tough before in the past and he had always seen our society pull through with a combination of hope and hard work.

And when he played he still gave his picking a lot of feeling and intonation. He sustained and bent notes in the signature BB King style. His vocals were brief but still packed punch and had 84 years of experience behind them.

It did sadden me though because I realized that I had missed the opportunity to see him and hear him when he was at his best musically. He performed the entire show from a chair and his backing band (kickass players in their own right) played more than he did.

No regrets though. It’s not every day you get to sit 20 yards from a living legend and hear his thoughts on life as he picks a few of his favorites and lights up the room with smiles. Hearing him play “The Thrill is Gone” sent chills up and down my spine and made all the hairs stand-up on my forearms.

I took a few photos with our small point-and-shoot camera. They didn’t turn out well and are all pretty blurry but it’s hard to get a digital SLR into a concert these days …

written by mark

Last night Justin and I went to go see Alice In Chains at the Louisville Palace Theater. I bought their latest album, “Black Gives Way to Blue” back in December and was overwhelmed by it. I spent the better part of Christmas vacation learning “Your Decision” and trying to get the lead down on “Check My Brain”. I was in that mode where I was listening to the album over and over and was telling a buddy how I thought it was my “record of the year”, when he informed me that they were coming to Louisville. I never listen to the radio anymore so I don’t catch the concert announcements. By the time I went to buy tickets they were sold-out. I noticed that they were playing at the Louisville Palace Theater and had never seen a show there before. Robert Plant and Alison Krauss opened their world tour at the Palace Theater and I had known it was a fairly small, renovated space that had previously been used for plays and small musical productions. When I found out that it only seats 2700 people I was pretty sure I needed to pull out all the stops to get some tickets. As luck would have it, I found a pair of front-row seats on StubHub and just couldn’t pass them up.

It wasn’t hard finding a home for that second ticket.

Justin said he would kill me if I sold it to anyone else and he came down from Cleveland for a couple of days and we caught the show together.

I remember clearly when their second album (Dirt) came out and that sort of visceral connection I felt with it musically and thematically. Many of the songs were about addiction and depression but in a lot of ways it was just a blues record to me and I loved wailing to it. I was in college and was starting to get interested in playing guitar again and before long, with Garth’s help, I would be playing a lot of AIC songs (badly). I had already been listening to AIC’s first album “Facelift”, and grunge was a movement in full force. Heroin was making its comeback and claiming more than its fair share of young artists, particularly those in the Seattle scene. Then came Kurt Cobain’s suicide, Layne Staley’s struggles and how he shared them in his lyrics and how the music media gossiped about his heroin problem. By the time Layne died, the grunge era was well on its way out. In the aftermath of Kurt and Layne, as if their passing wasn’t bruising enough, it also struck me as tragic what it did to their friends and band-mates. It seems Dave Grohl used the losses as a life lesson, as if it were a call to kick life in the ass before it kicked his. Dave went on a creative tear like a man living on borrowed time. He started a family and became a positive force in the world of music. But guys like Kris Novoselic and Jerry Cantrell seemed to sort of step back and lick their wounds (I don’t know, this is just my impression). In Jerry’s case it was particularly hard for me to take because he was always such an original composer and his playing always had that bluesy feel even though he was characterized as a grunge player. Jerry had also picked up more and more vocal duties for AIC over the years and I thought that there was no reason that Alice In Chains couldn’t move on without Layne and keep making music. Jerry’s solo records after Layne’s death were interesting but they didn’t get picked up much by the public or by radio. I don’t know if it is was grunge backlash or that people wanted him back where he belonged, fronting Alice in Chains.

Anyway, last night was cathartic for me. It was good to see them together again, drinking water, hitting every note, playing tight. William DuVall has his own voice and style but he can belt out all the Layne Staley vocals on the old stuff. Not some caricature of “sex, drugs and rock n’ roll”, but as a group of friends doing what God meant for them to do. I fist bumped Jerry Cantrell and I managed to get one of his guitar picks as a momento. I shook Mike Inez’s hand. I thanked them for coming to Louisville and for playing the best show I have ever had the privilege of seeing.

Click here to see all of the photos Justin and I took with our camera-phones.

written by mark

I had such a good time seeing Rush on the “Snakes and Arrows” tour last year I went to go see them again when they came to Riverbend in Cincinnati on June 30th. The setlist was a little expanded and they played for about 2 hours and 30 minutes. They were as good, or better, than last year and the weather was perfect. I am glad I am not too old to still like a good rock concert. I went with my buddy (Kris) from work and met one of my former managers (Dan) there. The crowd was into it. On a side note, Rush appeared on “The Colbert Report” report last week. It was their first US TV appearance since 1973. It was funny. Colbert had a supremely funny interview with them.

written by mark

Dad flew in on Good Friday and stayed with us over Easter weekend. Mom couldn’t make it because she had planned on doing some seasonal work back in KC. I managed to get tickets to the Bruce Springsteen show in Cincinnati the Saturday night before Easter. Dad and I went up to Cincy and ate dinner on the Ohio River at the Montgomery Inn. After a long wait for a table (we watched the NCAA Tournament up in the lounge) we demolished our barbeque and headed down the street to the show.

So some reviews of the show complained that it was over too quick and that Bruce seemed like he was in a rush. The show was well over two hours (maybe 2hr 25m?) and Bruce even came out after the house lights went on and said “it’s too early to stop” and they played “Kitty’s Back”. The two things that stuck out most to me were 1) the setlist was great 2) the improv, soloing and musical detours were awesome. I thought Nils, Bruce and Steven jammed harder than any of the best “guitar bands” I have ever seen. In fact, Bruce and Nils laid down some licks that were metal-fast on a couple of occasions. It was the hardest edged I have ever heard him play. Dad and I both loved the performance of “American Land” during the encore. I had not known it came out on a re-release of the Pete Seeger sessions and will be picking up that album soon.

I was glad they played “Gypsy Rider” from the new “Magic” LP. It’s probably my favorite song on the new album. “Prove It All Night” and “Badlands” were also highlights for me. I had hoped he would play a song or two from “Nebraska” and “The River” but the man is to the point that his repertoire is so vast that he can’t possibly hit all his best in one show. He’s still the Boss as far as I’m concerned.

written by mark