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tkdguy

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Tinnitus brings back fond memories of going to the Pantera/White Zombie concert. Three hours in a mosh pit with no hearing protection. I started a new job the next day and I couldn't hear a damn thing.

"How was the concert, Bob?

"What?"

"I said, how was the concert, Bob?"

"Sorry, can't hear you. I was at the concert!"

 

I was actually in that position once, the day after a concert by a Celtic-Rock band called tempest at a local club. I had almost precisely that exchange at the start of the housefilk the next day.

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Best concert I ever went to. Metallica and Rage were good but an arena can never be as good as a filthy warehouse with a stage and chain link fencing off the bar. kd lang was pretty good except for the sound; she spent the whole concert avoiding feedback. That one almost turned violent. I got dragged to a reggae concert that actually did turn violent--it got shut down and I had to hustle my gf at the time out of there before we got caught up in it. Caught Mavis Staples a couple months ago; she was great but her backing musicians were phenomenal. They did this twenty minute jam session mid-concert, presumably while Ms. Staples caught her breath, that was unreal. What thread is this again?

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"How was the concert, Bob?

"What?"

"I said, how was the concert, Bob?"

"Sorry, can't hear you. I was at the concert!"

 

I was actually in that position once, the day after a concert by a Celtic-Rock band called tempest at a local club. I had almost precisely that exchange at the start of the housefilk the next day.

 

I have several Tempest albums...

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I never did see the attraction to seeing a concert. I always feel like the sound quality would be better at home with a bought album, and cheaper too.

It would be, for me, like the difference between witnessing the experience and being a part of it. Like how seeing a Portland Timbers soccer match at the stadium is much more exciting than watching the same match on TV.

 

You can listen to the latest album of your favorite band anytime you want, but they play live in your town once or at most twice a year. That makes it a special occasion.

 

Add to that the fact that most bands put a lot of effort into their live sets, and that you don't always know what number they will play next or whether something truly spectacular would happen.

 

Not every band was like that, of course. At the end of the second phase of their careers (the first being their apprenticeship in Germany) the Beatles came to loathe touring in spite of the perks that went with it (Which I will not go into here). When they came home from their final tour in 1966 they started creating music that was, with the technology then available, utterly impossible to play live. And although each member of the band did resume playing live concerts after their breakup in 1970, it was a fundamentally different experience for them (Paul McCartney inducted his wife into the band so she would accompany him wherever he went, for example, which probably helped him keep the groupies at bay). Even then, John Lennon never overcame his antipathy for playing live and at one point spent four to five years outside the music business altogether (not even recording for several years).

 

Touring is hard for a top band. It's exhausting. You can't really write new music on tour, at least not consistently. If there are tensions in the band, a tour will bring them to the surface more rapidly than just about anything else. But many musicians never feel more alive and vital than when they are playing to a packed arena.

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It's also important to remember that touring is usually the most lucrative source of income for the band.  Used to be that the record label got a huge percentage of album sales.  Now that percentage goes to Apple or Spotify.  The money that the band gets from live gigs is pretty much all theirs, after covering the staff and venue costs of course.

 

I'm philosophical about concerts.  I like songs, not necessarily bands, and often the recorded version of the song is impossible to play live for some reason or other.  But a concert can have spontaneity and audience participation that a recording cannot.  It's a shared experience--moshing at home isn't quite the same, you know?

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Markdoc should probably weigh in on his opinion on this, but Science this week reports that they believe that the second (of three) types of polio virus has been eradicated. (The first type was eradicated in 1999.) One more to go.

 

(I dimly remember, when very young in California, standing in a very long line to get my dose (maybe my first dose) of polio vaccine. I also remember getting several smallpox vaccinations at later ages.)

 

News item, probably behind subscriber wall.

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NPR pointed out yesterday that the Keystone XL issue is somewhat moot since the tar sands oil is currently being transported by rail to Vancouver and thence to China.

Doesn't stop some politicians from trying to push for it hard though.

 

I'm still not sure what Keystone gets the American public. It pretty much seems for the oil company's benefits, and at the public's risk. It's not like the oil that would go through it is earmarked for the US. It's going to where it will make the oil companies the most money. Big Biz wants to make a profit, I get it, that's what they do. I just don't see why it's OUR government's job to make that profit happen, especially when in case of leak or other oops it's the public that will end up with the fall out.

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