It’s hard to sum up a whole year of cultural input. What does it mean to be best? For me it means, the stuff that moved me most, shook me, made me happy, made me sad, made me feel alive.
It’s been an eventful year. With ups and downs. This post will be “all over the place”, i will put in lists about a lot of things. But let us start with the traditional concert list.
These are the 20 best concerts I attended in 2016: Continue reading “Hallgeir’s 2016 part 1: Best Concerts”
Van Morrison
BBC In Concert
29th September 2016
1080p ᴴᴰ – HQ
Only the BBC can play host to an artist of Morrison’s calibre in such a tiny venue. The Radio Theatre, New Broadcasting House, is made up in such a way that we are transported to a New Orleans jazz club. Van Morrison sing and play for just over an hour, with a few hundred lucky winners of the ticket lottery standing mesmerised. This is a fantastic show and a testament to the staying power of a tremendous artist.
Setlist (* = songs from his lates album, Keep me singing):
Too Late*
Magic Time
Wild Night
Baby Please Don’t Go/ Don’t Start Crying Now// Here Comes The Night
Every Time I see A River*
Cleaning Windows
Let It Rhyme*
Whenever God Shines His Light
Sometimes We Cry
Going Down To Bangor*
The Pen Is Mightier Than The Sword*
Keep Me Singing*
Enlightenment
Carrying A Torch
Brown Eyed Girl
Jackie Wilson Said
In The Garden
– Hallgeir
Neil played a wonderful set in 1971 that was taped and broadcast by The BBC. He arrived in England right after the release of Harvest the concert is part of a promo tour of the album. It is just Neil Young alone with his guitar and a set of songs that has become part of any best-of collections by him. At this concert they were fresh material. He also did some unreleased songs. The filming and the sound is very good, and Neil Young’s stories about his life and surroundings are easy to follow. This is a true gem, and one of the best captures of Neil Young in the early period.
Set list:
01.- Out on the Weekend 00:00
02.- Old Man 03:59
03.- Journey Through the Past 08:04
04.- Heart of Gold 13:09
05.- Don’t Let It Bring You Down 17:16
06.- A Man Needs a Maid 20:15
07.- Love in Mind 24:14
08.- Dance Dance Dance 26:27
Neil Young at The BBC 1971:
– Hallgeir
“Tonight you’re gonna hear the concert of your life”, the guy of KSAN states to his listeners at the beginning of this radio broadcast, and it is the truth!
Bruce’s Winterland-78 concert is by many fans & “concert tape collectors” regarded as one of his best shows ever… It is indeed a cornerstone in any collection of concert bootlegs (regardless of artist). Number 2 on my list (Egil) of the best Springsteen’s concerts I’ve heard. It is now selling as a “semi official” release at amazon.co.uk. Continue reading “December 15: Classic concert, Bruce Springsteen at Winterland Ballroom SF in 1978”
On November 17, 1990 Bruce Springsteen plays Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. This is the second concert (he played on November 16 as well), and a slightly better concert than the first.
These 2 concerts are absolutely fantastic, Bruce hadn’t played live for a while… and he is a bit nervous and 100% focused. These recordings are a MUST for any Springsteen fan.
Nebraska:
Continue reading “November 17: Bruce Springsteen @ Shrine Auditorium, LA 1990”
Baby, you got to get behind the mule!
– Tom Waits
The same year as Mule Variations was released, 1999, VH1 broadcast a Storyteller episode with Tom Waits. It aired in the middle of the night; I didn’t have any plans for the next day so I stayed up and watched.
What a songwriter! What a storyteller! He teases the audience, plays with them, he is the pied piper! All the stories are funny/weird and moving. Is he lying? He’s probably making the stuff up as he goes along, or have all of these things actually happen? I really don’t care, his delivery is amusing and so entertaining that he could probably read the A to G in the phonebook and I would find it funny. This might not work with newcomers to Waits’s concerts, they will probably find it a bit too weird and rambling. They should watch Big Time (the movie) first and then come back to this (or maybe it’s the other way ’round, he he).
VH1 Storytellers allows Tom Waits to showcase some his then new material — among them is House Where Nobody Lives, one of the finest ballads he has ever written, here in a heartbreakingly beautiful version. We also get some Tom Waits history with favorites like Downtown Train (also a hit for Rod Stewart); Old ’55, (a hit for The Eagles ); and Jersey Girl, which Bruce Springsteen turned into a live favorite.
Set list:
Downtown Train
Ol’ 55
House Where Nobody Lives
Jersey Girl
What’s He Building In There?
Strange Weather
Get Behind The Mule
Tom Waits – VH1 Storytellers 1999:
The show was around 44 minutes but there were much more material recorded.
The rest of the concert is available to stream or download (legally) at Internet Archive in great quality:
– Hallgeir