NYS Music 20​17

Category: Show Reviews

  • My First Phish Show

    Picture a sold out show at Madison Square Garden on the night before New Year’s Eve. For Phish concert-goers, this was an average Friday night in New York City! For me, it was my first Phish show.

    my first phish showI watched the show alongside dedicated Phish fans who have traveled all over the US to see the band 100+ times. Sharing that it was my first show almost felt silly in comparison, but I was excited to join the community.  I didn’t know a lot before going to the show; I wanted to approach the experience with an open mind. Clearly, this band has something extraordinarily special that brings loyal and new fans alike to their shows.  So by virtue of it being my first show, I can’t say that I’m too well-versed, but certainly a real fan in the making.

    This was the third show of a four-night run from December 28 to the 31st.  We walked in right as the show was starting, and the fans were cheering in unison.  If you’ve never been to a Phish show, it’s one of the best crowds you’ll ever be part of. Everyone was grooving and swaying along to every song; not a single person could be found standing still nor having a bad time.  I felt like I was instantly welcomed into the community as people were exchanging comments about the music and checking in to see how I was enjoying everything. I was thrilled when a glowstick landed in front of my seat so, that when the music kicked up, I could join the glow stick tossing and launch it into the crowd. I wasn’t prepared for the amount of smoke around me, but that’s the only complaint I had. All part of the experience!

    The band opened with “Carolina,” which I learned they hadn’t done since 2003 – 378 shows ago. It was a treat to be serenaded by an acapella rendition of the song.  The vocals were authentic and raw, which was quite refreshing. The band members resumed their spots on stage, and I finally saw the unique Fishman dress with the red donuts that are found on Phish-inspired merch.  They then jumped into “Blaze On” which was a cool way to kick off the set – a slower-paced jam.  “The Moma Dance” was cool and funky; I loved the keyboard timbre and the wah-wah pedal on the guitar.  I’m told the second set was a great series of selections with “Tweezer,” into “Sparks,” into “Ghost.” The crowd went absolutely wild and I loved the transitions.  It seemed like everyone knew each song from the first couple notes and they cheered at the start of each one!  I can’t pick a favorite song just yet, but I have to say that the improvisation all around was amazing. I would get blissfully lost in each chasm of music.

    With this band, visual effects bring them to another level of excellence.  I was a big fan of Anastasio (guitar) and Gordon (bass) on the mini trampolines bouncing in unison. Apparently, it’s not a new bit, but I thought it was great. Outside of the band’s movements, the accompanying lights were spectacular!  There were numerous colored light beams illuminating the stage.  It reminded me of lights at a Trans-Siberian Orchestra show, but I think the lights at Phish were more tasteful.

    Overall, I really enjoyed the show. The musical experience and all of the Phish lovers in the Garden really sold me. I’d love to see more of Phish in the future.

    Set 1: Carolina, Blaze On, The Moma Dance > Gumbo > Cities, The Old Home Place, Bathtub Gin, Things People Do, My Friend, My Friend, Wilson, Sugar Shack, You Enjoy Myself

    Set 2: Tweezer > Sparks > Ghost > Light -> Party Time Jam, Wading in the Velvet Sea > Rocky Top

    Encore: Rock and Roll, Tweezer Reprise

  • Joe Louis Walker Serves Up a Savory Taste of Blues at Funk ‘n Waffles

    Funk ‘n Waffles Downtown is one of the few Central New York venues that offers live music seven days a week. The unique location on Clinton Street in Syracuse hosts everything from open mics to national touring acts of all genres in addition to serving up some fantastic waffles. Thursday featured the blues stylings of Grammy-nominated guitarist Joe Louis Walker and his band.

    The intimacy of the room was felt even before walking in the door. The headliner himself was standing outside the front door on this snowy evening, making time to speak with patrons and thanking them for coming out. Members of his band (Syracuse natives Byron Cage – drums and Will Gorman – keyboard and bassist Lenny Bradford) mingled about the crowd pre-show as a Chicago blues soundtrack provided the atmosphere over the PA.

    Walker and his solid backing band set the tone early with a funky Walker original “I’m Not Messin’ Around” from his 1998 album Preacher and the President. Walker’s soloing quickly heated up the room, displaying the skills he’s honed since the age of eight.

    Taking in a Walker show is experiencing a lesson in the history of American blues. The Blues Hall of Famer has performed with Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, B.B. King – name a late 20th century blues legend, Walker has played with them.  All of these influences are revealed in his style of play and singing yet he is able to channel the sounds of the Chicago style, Delta blues and Texas blues to make his own sound. The man is an encyclopedia of musical knowledge who turns that knowledge into the sounds he creates on stage.

    One of several highlights of the night came when Walker began plucking the opening notes to the Beatles’ “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” Those in the crowd who were passively paying attention quickly turned their eyes to the stage for an emotional and powerful rendition of the classic. Walker’s solo mid-song proved that this was no mere runthrough of an oft-played cover. He made this song his – a combination of force and finesse that had the near sellout crowd eating out of his hand.

    As the night wore on, the windows began to fog up and the smell of waffles mingled with the tight sounds coming from the band. Each member was featured prominently in the new song “Black and Blue,” one from Walker’s latest, Everybody Wants a Piece, a Grammy nominee for Best Contemporary Blues Album this year. The song began with a tribal beat led by native son Cage and carried along by Bradford. Over the course of the song, Walker and band straddled genres with ease. His soulful vocals mixed with great backing vocals from his bandmates, creating a sound that can be classified as contemporary soul.

    Walker is a story teller and at each show he makes sure to pay tribute to those who came before him who may have not gotten recognition for their talents. On this night, he chose to regale the crowd with a tale of Earl Zebedee Hooker, “a guitar player’s guitar player,” as Walker put it. Hooker, a highly respected disciple of the Chicago style, was a contemporary of Muddy Waters and Junior Wells. He recorded an instrumental for London Records titled “Blue Guitar” that quickly became a favorite among the bluesmen on the Chicago circuit. Chess Records acquired the song to use for Muddy Waters’ 1962 album, using Willie Dixon penned lyrics and Waters’ overdubbed vocals for a song that would become “You Shook Me,” a song that was made even more famous by Led Zeppelin later on.

    Following a humorous introduction by Walker, proper tribute was paid with his rendition of “Blue Guitar,” making full use of the slide techniques often employed by Hooker.

    Each band member took turns soloing, a particularly blistering solo by another Syracuse native, Gorman, had the audience singing his praises during a funky and stomping take on “Hornets Nest” from the 2014 album of the same name. Walker also took this opportunity to switch guitars, retiring his gorgeous Zemaitis for the blue hollow-bodied D’Angelico. Walker teased the Ohio Players’ “Rollercoaster of Love” during this one, perking up some of the Red Hot Chili Peppers fans in the crowd.

    After nearly two straight hours, the band wrapped up its set with the Hellfire track “Too Drunk to Drive Drunk.” This gritty number had a bit of a Double Trouble vibe to it and many teases from Walker, including “All Day and All of the Night” and “You Really Got Me” from the Kinks and the Monkees’ “I’m a Believer.”

    A brief break preceded the encore, a straight-forward cover of Chuck Berry’s “Reelin’ and Rockin’” followed by the Walker original “Aint That Cold.”

    It was a night well worth the drive through lake effect snow. Syracuse is blessed with a knowledgeable blues fan base and they were treated to a world-class performance in an intimate venue on this night.

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  • The Machine New Year’s Eve show in Niagara Falls

    Judging how well a tribute band does is a weird task to ask someone to do. For one thing, they’re not playing any original music. And the audience is there only to hear someone else’s music, mainly of a band or artist long since dead or disbanded. Sometimes you get an act that should be better off playing in a hotel bar. But others, you could swear you genuinely got the original. On New Year’s Eve at the Rapids Theatre, the people of Niagara Falls got their fill of one such band, Pink Floyd, in the form of The Machine.

    The Machine bills itself as America’s longest-existing Pink Floyd tribute band. Made up of Joe Pascarell on guitar, Ryan Ball on bass, Scott Chasolen on keyboards, and Tahrah Cohen on drums, they’ve been performing the Floyd’s music since 1988 and are regarded as one of the first and best tribute bands. It’s hard to come across a cover band with live DVD’s of shows in Amsterdam and performing with a symphony orchestra, but such is the demand for Pink Floyd music that sizable droves will show up like it’s one of the band member’s solo tours.

    The Machine started off right away with the first five songs from The Wall. From the first riffs of “In The Flesh” through the audience chanting along with “Another Brick in the Wall,” the audience got immediately hooked, living for every recognizable music line or lyrics, even coming from a ballad off the Atom Heart Mother album. The band certainly appeared to be having the time of their lives with songs you could tell were their favorites. Chasolen was living for every different keyboard effect used on “Welcome to the Machine,” along with the saxophone solo on “Money” played on keyboards too.

    There was a break between sets for the audience to refill their drinks and to watch the ball drop on two screens beside the stage. The second set, fittingly enough, began with “Time,” the clocks chiming at the beginning drawing immediate applause, while later on, the vocal interplay between Pascarell and Ball sounded just like it came from the Dark Side of the Moon album.

    The Machine wasn’t afraid to shy away from the longer Floyd songs either. They ended the first set with “Pigs (Three Different Ones)” from the Animals album, which Pascarell certainly got very involved in once the talkbox solo came in. They also performed the first half of “Shine On you Crazy Diamond,” complete with the long synth and guitar intro with visuals of a child playing and laser lights.

    I’m sure if I saw Pink Floyd back in their heyday, or one of the Roger Waters or David Gilmour solo tours, this would be quite similar to what I’d get from those. Certainly the kind where the long instrumental passages and medleys are best enjoyed with the assistance of some substance in your system. And considering this is as close to hearing a genuine Pink Floyd show I’ll ever come to, I was pleased with the authenticity. There were no flying pigs, but I can take that.

  • Twiddle Packs the Palace for NYE

    Vermont-based jam band Twiddle packed the Palace Theater in Albany with a near capacity crowd on NYE. Fellow Vermont two piece Soule Monde and Buffalo groove rockers Aqueous opened in support.

    photo by Steven Rauch

    Twiddle pleased fans with two sets of music. The night opened with Twiddle’s most recent song “Moments.” The first set also included “Blunderbuss,” the band’s newest instrumental piece, which was debuted this past May at the Capitol Theatre.  Twiddle’s first set also included fan favorites “Lost in the Cold,” “Doinkinbonk,” and first set closer “Apples.”

    Twiddle took to the stage just before midnight with the members of Soul Monde and Aqueous to ring in the new year with “Auld Syne Lang”. As the clock struck midnight, fans in the venue’s balcony lobbed hundreds of green and purple balloons onto concert goers on the venue’s lower level. Everyone also stayed onstage for a rendition of ALO “Barbeque”. The second set also included an extended version of “Polluted Beauty,” “Jamflowman” and “Frankenfoote.”

    Twiddle returned to the stage for their encore with Aqueous’ Mike Gantzer and Dave Loss, as the band debuted the classic hit “Layla.” Although the band is often know for teasing the tune, it was the first complete performance of the song.

    The Albany performance closed out a stellar year for Twiddle, who continue to develop a growing fan base, perform sold out shows and grow into larger venues as well as their own festival Tumble Down, which will enter its sophomore year this summer.

    photo by Steven Rauch

    2017 is already shaping up to be another stellar year for the band. Announced dates include a January stint on Jam Cruise as well as the Jungle Jam in Costa Rica in March. Twiddle hits the road with Aqueous in support for several dates including multiple two night runs in February and March. Twiddle is on a short respite until the end of the month.

    Setlist:

    Set One: Moments, Doinkinbonk!!!!, Lost in the Cold, Blunderbuss, Daydream Farmer, Dusk til Dawn, Apples

    Set Two: Auld Lang Syne (with Soule Monde and Aqueous) BBQ (with soule Monde and Aqueous), Polluted Beauty, Zazu’s Flight, Jamflowman, Frankenfoote

    Encore: Layla (with Mike Gantzer and Dave Loss of Aqueous)

  • The Rain Came Down during Phish’s Petrichor New Year’s Eve

    Phish has found a way to utilize the space inside Madison Square Garden for New Years Eve celebrations for more than 20 years. They’ve been scientists in a time lab, made it snow, flew in on a giant hotdog, lifted fans off the floor, held a runaway golfcart marathon, and moved the stage (twice), all as part of their celebration to ring in the new year.

    petrichorSo what do you do when you’ve already done this much with the room? You make it rain in the closing minutes of 2016, after wrapping up one of the strongest sets Phish has ever played at MSG, and in doing so washing away a year many would like to forget.

    The show began as the other three nights did, with an acapella rendition of a rarely played song, in this case, Fraternity of Man’s “Don’t Bogart That Joint,” keeping fans on their feet and crossing a rarity off the list of many fans. “Your Pet Cat” > “Kill Devil Falls” > “Back on the Train” > “My Soul” served to keep energy nice and high for the beginning of the night, when Trey took a minute to opine about the extra 6 feet of stage they had in front of them, and what could they possibly do with it but let The Chairman of the Boards, Page McConnell, take a stroll out on the stage while crooning “Lawn Boy.” Page and Mike Gordon alike took a wander around the enlarged stage, wandering over to Mike Side and Page Side, greeting fans and smiling widely. A well-placed “Divided Sky” followed before the energy kicked back up again with “Ya Mar,” “Character Zero,” and “Walls of the Cave,” all setting the stage for another monster second set.

    The night before in the second set, Phish dropped a “Tweezer” > “Sparks” > “Ghost” > “Light” for the ages, and given the three sets they had tonight, they had set the bar high for themselves and the challenge was accepted. Dropping into “2001” to get things rolling, the Garden dance party was in effect, getting dark upon entry into “Carini” and lighter again with Trey’s ascending jam in the “Twist” that followed. The segue into “Piper” was interrupted by Fishman singing his hilarious yet brief “Ass Handed,” which segued back into the rest of “Piper,” during which Trey played the marimba lumina and Mike joined Page on keys for a yet another full band jam. A filthy “Sand” followed, as did a perfectly placed and executed “Slave to the Traffic Light,” wrapping up the set with “More,” a fan favorite off the recent Big Boat, the line “In a world gone mad, there must be something more than this” resonating with the crowd.

    During the intermission between second and third sets, fans made their final preparations for ringing in the new year while the stage was set for Phish’s NYE stunt, including additional keys for Jeff Tanski, percussion for Andres Forero and mics for a horn trio of Jennifer Hartswick, James Casey and Natalie Cressman. Fans awaited patiently for the lights to dim and musicians to take the stage in the 20 minutes before midnight, which saw a full band performance of “Petrichor” complete with a choreographed performance of faceless umbrella-wielding dancers and artificial rain courtesy of David Gallo Design.

    As the dancers broke into their routine, they used umbrellas for props to block them from the falling ‘rain,’ an incredible sight inside the confines of Madison Square Garden. The dancers then used floating white umbrellas to continue their routine as the song moved through its 22 sections, culminating in the dancers standing at the front of the stage, awaiting Trey’s 2-minute early countdown, to which he jokingly commented “Well, it’s never too soon to say goodbye to 2016” as he began the countdown and the band broke into the traditional “Auld Lang Syne.” And with that, from the ceiling it rained down cats, dogs and foam rain drops, as well as thousands of balloons and confetti, making it hard to find band members on stage amid the decorative chaos.

    Over the next hour, Phish pushed into the new year with horns a blazin’, starting with “Suzy Greenberg” and “No Man’s in No Man’s Land.” Following were lackluster choices that fit well with the horns, and made the first set of 2017 feel like a true Phish first set – “Breath and Burning,” “Tide Turns,” “555” and “Ocelot” were all odd choices after 3.5 nights of powerful sets with little pause or relief, but given the horns and accompaniment onstage, they were apt selections that had audience dancing and laughing into the finale of the high energy “First Tube.” A cover of The Rolling Stones “Loving Cup” ended the run at the Garden and amid a sea of cats, dogs and rain drops, fans hugged, smiled and greeted 2017, having seen one of Phish’s finest New Years runs and NYE stunts to date.

    Setlist courtesy of Phish.net

    Set 1: Don’t Bogart That Joint, Your Pet Cat > Kill Devil Falls > Back on the Train > My Soul, Lawn Boy, Divided Sky, Ya Mar, Character Zero, Walls of the Cave

    Set 2: Also Sprach Zarathustra > Carini -> Twist > Piper -> Ass Handed > Piper[1] > Sand, Slave to the Traffic Light, More

    Set 3: Petrichor[2] > Auld Lang Syne[3] > Suzy Greenberg[2], No Men In No Man’s Land[2], Breath and Burning[2], Tide Turns[2], 555[2], Ocelot[2], First Tube[2]

    Encore: Loving Cup[2]

    [1] Trey on Marimba Lumina. Mike on keys.
    [2] James Casey on saxophone, Natalie Cressman on trombone and vocals, Jennifer Hartswick on trumpet and vocals, Jeff Tanski on keys, and Andres Forero on percussion.
    [3] James Casey on saxophone, Natalie Cressman on trombone, Jennifer Hartswick on trumpet, Jeff Tanski on keys, and Andres Forero on percussion. With recorded cat and dog noises as cat and dog balloons fell from the ceiling.

  • The Benevento / Russo Duo Reunite in Brooklyn

    The Benevento/Russo Duo played their first show together as a duo in 6 years on December 27 in Brooklyn. The last minute show was announced on Marco’s Benevento’s Instagram about four hours before the 8 o’clock start.

    They rewarded those who attended with an intimate show at Three’s Brewing in Brooklyn, with a capacity of around 100. The set was a nice mix of their catalog, with tracks that spanned the course of their career. The band sounded great, like they hadn’t lost a step, despite playing in side projects here and there that have obviously helped them keep their chemistry alive.

    The show was both a return to their roots, playing in a small club in New York City where they got their start, and also a warm-up for their only other scheduled date on Jam Cruise in January. But you can be sure this isn’t the last we’ll see from The Duo in 2017.