S P A C E . .. . . . . . . . .

Last night I had the privilege (?) to drive to Marysville, CA to catch the Black Crowes. The most rock and roll band in rock in roll, preceded by the Drive-By Truckers and Robert Randolph and the Family Band (both cool to see but nothing to really write home about) and performed two hours of solid Black Crowes stuff. Scroll below to look at the setlist and notice how many hits they played last night. Last night was for the hard-cores and the band itself. I enjoyed myself thoroughly though I'm paying for it right now. One of three things about last night:

1. Mid-week, off city, play whatever the #@&! we want
2. The mushrooms are more than the set decoration
3. Since the Allmans ain't coming to CA and Phil's not playing soon, we're filling in.

Good night - thirteen songs in a hundred and twenty minutes? Lots of twirl dancing or sitting wondering who you just paid to see. The band looked typical history-book r n' r - Marc Ford looking very Robbie Robertson a la The Last Waltz, Rich Robinson looked like he just popped off the Free tour, TWO George Harrisons (!) - Chris R. from All Things Must Pass (very cool long beard and hair) and Sven Pipien from the Concert For Bangladesh. Of course, Ed was Ed. Incredible interplay between the guitarists and Sven, I must say, is really stepping up and owning the bottom end of these songs. His bass playing was thunderous yet very melodic; he always knew how to fill the spot with glissendo riffs or sparse root note thunder. The shed was only about 3/4 full, which is too bad, as some really great music was put on for us last night. My biggest complaint were the false directions from the website and the drive - "just" out of Sacramento? No, Marysville was just under two hours away at nearly 80 miles an hour at one in the morning. Do check out the Instant Live recording as it's crystal clear and wonderful.

George Bush gave a press conference for nearly an hour this morning trying to capitalize on his surprise visit to Iraq yesterday. Journalists are finally putting some spine into their questions but Bush is doing his best to subvert and dodge the serious questions about Rove's dirty politics and the crisis in Iraq. Whether this shores up his numbers at all is to be seen; what I saw was a president that finally is admitting some huge failures. A president is not a king and he must be approachable and willing to see that a populace requires him to talk with them and not down them (the ulimate ironic insult in this case). A president must recognize the political winds and address times when they seem to go awry. A president can not dodge and duck forever in the guise of "freedom", "war on terror", "terror", "terror", and if I forgot, "TERROR!". I'm glad that Americans have begun to smell the odor of his decaying message but I have faith that they'll be stupid and prejudiced enough to remember their idiocy and bigotry in time to support Bush and the GOP since flag burning and gay people are truly the threats to national security come November. And then in December, we'll all forget again...

The Black Crowes

13 June 2006 - Sleepy Train Amphitheater - Marysville, CA [ USA ]

S E T L I S T »

WAITING GUILTY
STING ME
COSMIC FRIEND
YOUNG MAN OLD MAN
TOUGH MAMA
BALLAD IN URGENCY
JAM -> THORN IN MY PRIDE
YOU'VE GOT TO HIDE YOUR LOVE AWAY
SOUL SINGING
STEADY ROLLIN’ MAN
BY YOUR SIDE
NO SPEAK NO SLAVE
- encore -
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