Category / Music

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Concert Flashback: Pearl Jam

95pearljamWhen Pearl Jam announced that they would try to put on a tour without using Ticketmaster, they had a lottery for tickets, and, thanks to my sister, I found myself with 2 tickets to the show.  With my friend Joe along for the ride, we headed out towards Soldier Field, taking the Orange Line from Midway to avoid the traffic.

If my memory holds, the opening acts for the show were The Frogs and Bad Religion.  I don’t really remember anything about The Frogs other than Jim DeRogatis tearing them apart on an episode of Sound Opinions.  Bad Religion put on a full-on set, performing 17 songs, 2 of which I’ve even heard of.  I’m not sure if I did at the time, though.

Pearl Jam came out and performed an astounding 29 song set, including 2 encores.  My favorite memory of the night was during the performance of Better Man, when my friend Joe, not understanding the meaning of the song, said that all of the girls sang it about him, that they couldn’t find a better man.

After the show, we had missed the last Orange Line train back to Midway, so we had to take the Archer bus down to Cicero and then walk back to the parking lot by the train station.

The local alternative radio station, Q101, recorded the show and put it out on CD as a station giveaway, which put the concert out in the world to live forever.  I had a copy on cassette back when that was a thing and now have an MP3 version of the show.  Ironically, this was my last visit to old Soldier Field, which would be “renovated” in 2001 and 2002.

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Concert Flashback: Veruca Salt

95verucasaltIn the spring of 1995, I made plans, along with my friends Tina and Kelley, to travel from West Lafayette over to Champaign to see Veruca Salt, who was playing one of the bars at the University of Illinois.  The task of acquiring tickets was left up to my sister, who joined us at the show.

Neither opening act, Hazel and Squash Blossom, were well known at the time, or have been heard from since.  The headliners were just starting to make a name for themselves as part of the burgeoning Chicago alternative music scene.  Their first hit, Seether, would have dropped the previous fall and they were just about to wrap up their first headlining tour.

The show itself is a bit of a blur all these years later, but I do remember that either Tina or Kelley went home with a guitar pick and we all ended up with some of the tape that kept the extra picks attached to the mike stand.  Exciting, I know.

After the show, the girls headed off to stay with a friend while I crashed in my sister’s dorm room.  The next day, we headed back to good old Purdue, with a stop off in Danville for what I fondly remember as the greasiest pizza I’ve ever seen.  If you can’t trust the Danville Pizza Hut, who can you trust.

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Concert Flashback: Aerosmith

94aerosmithWith summer winding down and just a few weeks before it was time to head back down to college, Aerosmith and Jackyl rolled in to the World Music Theatre.  I don’t really remember who came along to this show, but my guess is that the usual band of suspects were there,  I’m going to be completely honest and say I don’t remember much of anything about this show at all.

Jackyl opened up the show and, based on their setlist, it wouldn’t have been too exciting.  Of their 8 song set, I’ve only heard of 2 of the songs, and only really liked 1 of them.

Looking back at Aerosmith’s setlist from the night in question, I’m struck more by the songs they didn’t play than the ones they did.  They managed to get 8 songs from their latest album into the show, which meant there was no room for older favorites like What It Takes, Angel, and Back In The Saddle, to name a few.  Beyond those 8, it was a pretty good mix of songs from their initial 70s heyday and their post-Run DMC resurrection.

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Concert Flashback: Def Leppard

93defleppardA mere month after the Bon Jovi show, the group got back together and headed to the World Music Theatre to see Def Leppard and Ugly Kid Joe.  While I don’t remember anything about this, school would have been back in session, so Scott and I would have had to drive up from college for the weekend in order to attend this show.  While Def Leppard was certainly the draw, I would be lying if I said seeing Ugly Kid Joe wasn’t an added bonus.  Sadly, lead singer Whitfield Crane had other plans and managed to get himself arrested the night before in Columbus, Ohio after allegedly encouraging the crowd to attack the security guards.  Of course, we were not aware of this until we showed up to the World.

So, two members of local band Enuff Z’nuff were recruited to open the show with what I remember being an acoustic set.  To this day, I can’t name an Enuff Z’nuff song, so I can’t say that they made much of an impression.  The Internet tells me that they may have done a cover of the Beatles Revolution.

My main memory of the Def Leppard portion of the show is lead singer Joe Elliot trying to curry favor with the crowd by wearing a Chicago Bulls t-shirt.  Judging by the setlist posted on the Interwebs, it was a pretty solid show, with all of their big hits being covered, including their latest from the Last Action Hero soundtrack.  Given my fandom for the band at the time, I’m glad I got the chance to see them live.  And, all these years later, I would rather have the story of Ugly Kid Joe missing the show than having actually seen them.

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Concert Flashback: Bon Jovi II

93bonjovi-2Less than 5 months since their last Chicago appearance, Bon Jovi returned to the area, this time at the World Music Theatre in beautiful Tinley Park.  This time they had Extreme on board as their opening act.  If I had to guess, I would say the guest list for this show included my sister, Scott, Tracie, Courtney, and, probably, Mike.  It was either this show or the next one where Mike managed to fall asleep between the openers and the main performers, while a Metallica song was blasting over the speakers.

Extreme opened up the show with a 12 song set, apparently, which were 10 more songs than anyone was looking to hear.  The strange thing was that they didn’t close out their set with their two hits, but rather wrapped them around a bunch of other songs nobody cares about to this day.  Eventually, the boys from New Jersey came out and, according to the Interwebs, played mostly the same set as their March appearance, although with 2 fewer songs, despite the additional $.25 in the ticket price.

Nothing particularly interesting sticks out about the show, other than the possible sleeping incident.  After seeing Bon Jovi twice in under 5 months, I haven’t seen them again in the 20 years since.

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Concert Flashback: Bon Jovi

93bonjovi-1Back in early March of 1993, I came home from college for the weekend to take my sister and one of her friends up to Rosemont to see Bon Jovi at the Horizon.  The opening act was the Jeff Healey Band, most notable for their blind lead singer and guitarist and a favorite of one of my high school teachers.

I will be honest and say that I don’t remember much about the show itself.  Looking at setlists on the Internet, the boys from New Jersey seemed to put on a pretty good show that night, performing 20 different songs over the course of the night, 6 of which were from their new album, Keep The Faith.

My main memory of this show was roaming around the Horizon once the concert was over, trying to find where we had parked.  After more than 20 years, I guess that is better than nothing.  As things would turn out, this would be my last trip to the Rosemont Horizon for any reason until the early 2000s.

by jim

Concert Flashback: Too Legit World Tour

92hammerDuring the spring of 1992, my friends and I were big fans on the R&B group Boyz II Men.  When we found out that they were coming to town, as one of the opening acts for the former MC Hammer’s Too Legit world tour, we decided to make this our first concert experience.  A little more than a week before high school graduation, a small group of us, which included at least myself, Scott, Tracie, Courtney, headed north to the Rosemont Horizon to see the show.

The scheduled performers for the evening were, in reverse order, Hammer, Boyz II Men, and Oaktown 357.  who I didn’t even realize were a female rap group until I just looked them up now on Wikipedia.  For reasons I don’t remember, the girls of Oaktown 357 did not perform that night, and instead were replaced by a little group called Jodeci.  While I hadn’t heard of them at the time, they would come to have a few hits that I would enjoy over the years.

Boyz II Men, who were the stars of the show as far as our small group was concerned, played the middle set.  They only had the one album out at the time, and hadn’t really hit it big yet.  Of course, later that year, their hit from the Boomerang soundtrack, End of the Road, would make them the biggest stars in music.  I don’t remember how many songs they ended up singing, but it couldn’t have been much more than 5 or 6.

Eventually, Hammer came out and, no matter what you think of his music, put on one hell of a show.  He was a few years removed from his U Can’t Touch This heyday and the follow-up, 2 Legit 2 Quit, did not have the success of its predecessor.  You wouldn’t know it from the show, as Hammer poured 100% effort to dance and rap, in that order, for the full house that had come out to see him.

It was definitely an experience.  From our perspective, we were the only white folks in attendance, which doesn’t seem likely today.  From the ticket stub, it doesn’t appear that we had great seats, but, being our first concert, we certainly didn’t know any better.  This was my last hip-hop show, and while something in the rock genre would probably have made more sense for my first show, it does make a funny story all these years later.

by jim

iTunes Top 100 Artists: #1-10

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My latest desktop computer arrived in late 2007, at which point I transitioned all of my music off of my laptop. 2 iPods, 2 iPhones, and an iPad later, that computer is still my main repository of music, with iTunes updating its stats every time I listen to something.

Having already gone through cassette tapes and CDs, and digital music, it’s time to roll everything up with the Top 100 artists that I’ve listened to as of 8/21/2013, according to iTunes. Today we finally get to the top 10 and the end of this journey.

#1: The Beatles

iTunes stats: 665 plays

The boys from Liverpool used 95 different songs to make up this total.  The most impressive thing is that the total should be higher, as all of the counts got reset back to zero when the remastered albums came out in 2009 and I deleted all of the old versions and ripped the remastered versions.

#2: Garbage

iTunes stats: 614 plays

I have seen this band live 4 times over the past 11 years, and look forward to doing so again in the future.  There are 112 songs, many of which are live versions, that made up the total.

#3: Foo Fighters

iTunes stats: 425 plays

Only 39 songs put the Foo Fighters in third place with nobody on their tail.  I saw the Foo Fighters with Weezer back in 2005 and would love to do so again.

#4: The Cast Of Buffy The Vampire Slayer

iTunes stats: 307 plays

Back in 2001, during the sixth season of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, the show produced a musical episode as Buffy and the Scooby Gang battled the musical demon Sweet.  The following year, the soundtrack was released, and those 21 songs make up this total.  One of the standouts was Amber Benson, who autographed my copy of the CD at a Wizard World appearance back in 2004.

#5: Tegan and Sara

iTunes stats: 274 plays

An even 50 songs combined to make up this total for the Canadian sisters.  I saw them live back in 2005, less than a week after the Foo Fighters/Weezer show and the same day the White Sox won the ALDS against the Red Sox.  It was a busy week.

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by jim

iTunes Top 100 Artists: #11-20

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My latest desktop computer arrived in late 2007, at which point I transitioned all of my music off of my laptop. 2 iPods, 2 iPhones, and an iPad later, that computer is still my main repository of music, with iTunes updating its stats every time I listen to something.

Having already gone through cassette tapes and CDs, and digital music, it’s time to roll everything up with the Top 100 artists that I’ve listened to as of 8/21/2013, according to iTunes. Today we look at the the the next batch, numbers 11-20, which includes a nice mix of musical genres and comedy.

#11: Garfunkel and Oates

iTunes stats: 156 plays

31 songs have put the two funny girls on the list in less than a year.  They will likely be higher the next time I do this, as I’ve listened to them a lot since their concert 2 1/2 weeks ago.

#12: David Cross

iTunes stats: 153 plays

39 tracks from 3 albums puts the funny man on the list.

#13: Poison

iTunes stats: 144 plays

The quintessential glam metal band used 28 songs to get to this total.

#14: Eminem

iTunes stats: 136 plays

Only 16 tunes from the white rapper gets him to this mark.

#15: Def Leppard

iTunes stats: 133 plays

35 songs for the troubled band from Sheffield give them such a high total.

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by jim

iTunes Top 100 Artists: #21-30

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My latest desktop computer arrived in late 2007, at which point I transitioned all of my music off of my laptop. 2 iPods, 2 iPhones, and an iPad later, that computer is still my main repository of music, with iTunes updating its stats every time I listen to something.

Having already gone through cassette tapes and CDs, and digital music, it’s time to roll everything up with the Top 100 artists that I’ve listened to as of 8/21/2013, according to iTunes. Today we look at the the the next batch, numbers 21-30, which includes a nice mix of musical genres and comedy.

#21: Bon Jovi

iTunes stats: 113 plays

25 tunes make up the total for the boys from New Jersey who I’ve seen in concert twice.

#22: Queen

iTunes stats: 112 plays

O,nly 3 songs from Queen make up the list, with the majority coming from the one celebrating the 2005 World Series Championship.

#23: Dr. Dre

iTunes stats: 111 plays

The father of west coast rap used 9 tunes to place this high on the list.

#24: Steam

iTunes stats: 110 plays

Only 1 song made up the entire total for Steam, thanks to its inclusion on my White Sox playlist.

#25: Alanis Morissette

iTunes stats: 109 plays

The Canadian songstress, who I saw in 1996 at the New World Music Theater, sets a new high with 33 songs making up her total.

#26: George Carlin

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