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Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats - Live at Red Rocks
Taking classic rhythm and blues, meshing it with rock, soul, and an intensity turned up to a thousand, Nathaniel Rateliff brings in the Preservation Hall Jazz Band as a perfect complement to a larger than life personality. This is belligerent joyful noise, but so charismatic that you can’t help but get swept away with it. From the hits, I Need Never Get Old and a SOB that just won’t quit, to the jammy Shake, Howling at Nothing, and the great cover of Having a Party, this is the stuff. Certainly makes you want to get drunk and have some fun.
The Essential Performances: Shake, SOB > SOB Reprise, Having a Party
Of the many bands I waited far too long to see, the Black Crowes were among the top of the list. Thankfully, I got to see them on their fall tour in 2013. They broke up soon thereafter, and didn’t re-emerge until the last couple of years in celebrating their back catalogue with basically just the Robinson brothers coming back together.
However, in 2016, Rich Robinson had formed a new band of former Black Crowes and his solo band put together to form Magpie Salute, and unsurprisingly these guys can bang out 70s rock like the Crowes before them. Each of these songs is pretty much a blast, with What Is Home, the Crowes’ Wiser Time, and the covers of Fearless, and Time Will Tell as huge highlights. With this live album and two studio albums, this is sort of short-lived, but a worthy addition to this journey.
The Essential Performances: What is Home, Wiser Time, Fearless, Time Will Tell
A couple of years ago these guys released their Doomscroller album, which made me think I should be diving in a bit more with them, but of course it’s one of those things I just never got around to. In that respect then, I was looking forward to this, a chance not just to hear them in a live context, but to get an overview of their earlier stuff. What’s disappointing here isn’t that anything is particularly bad - in fact, their performance when it took off elevated tracks I wouldn’t have otherwise cared about, like Somewhere Along the Way, A Little Bit of Everything, and From the Right Angle. But frankly, the thing reads largely somewhere in the middle, nothing offensive but little to get excited about. I did enjoy Less Than Five Miles Away though as well.
The Essential Performance: Less Than Five Miles Away
Up Next: Dopapod - II Saw Live Dopapod Evil Was II
Okay, set break largely done. I am sure Dark Matter will take a lot of my listening time, but I am already to start mixing other listening in, so we’re gonna jam all week. Up next is Dopapod - II Saw Live Dopapod, Evil Was II.
On this sequel to the first under the similar title (we covered it earlier), Dopapod make a huge swing in the right direction compared to the first release. They almost oscillate between big rock jams and funkier jams, featuring as much synthesized keys in their arrangements as guitars, making for a weirdly cerebral and cathartic experience. Faba, Psycho Nature/Piss/Psycho Nature, Vol. 3 #86, personal favorite Present Ghosts, and Stada are highlights, at times leaping out of the speakers. Sure there are some meandering moments here, but this proves worth the investment of time in the end.
So this one is a bit different from some of the jam bands we covered in the past because it seems more grounded in dance/electronic with guitar jamming over top of that. It works in various spots. This works in melding the rock and dance on Neon Tubes > Slow Cookin’ > Neon Tubes most prominently, though the highlight of this is the Talking Heads’ cover Moon Rocks which to my untrained ears sounded like a dead ringer of at least that band.
The Essential Performance: Moon Rocks
Up Next: Pigeons Playing Ping Pong - The Great Outdoors Jam
Pigeons Playing Ping Pong - The Great Outdoors Jam
This jam band is steeped in funk, rock, and jazz. On this one, they come blaring out the gates with a long and inspired Poseidon, Melting Lights, and Offshoot that are indications of a take no prisoners evening. Ocean Flows and The Liquid both grow into substantial jams, though nothing quite matches the fun of them busting into the Ghostbusters theme and turning that into a jammed out bliss. Fun fun entry into this journey.
The Essential Performances: Poseidon, Ghostbusters
Up Next: Tedeschi Trucks Band - Live at the Fox Oakland
I can’t really dispute that this is one of the great live bands of our moment in time. Susan Tedeschi’s voice is soulful, muscular, and certainly singular. Anything she sings pretty much turns to gold. Her partner in crime, Derek Trucks, is one of the great slide guitar players…ever. Add to the mix that their chemistry as an artistic unit in the live setting is off the charts and you have performances that take you away from your day to day and let you escape to their dimension. All this and what ends up being the most striking on this particular live album is the sonic range they cover: yes the southern rock and soul is front and center, but the little side journeys that touch gospel (that Bird on a Wire), psychedelic rock (Within You, Without You), and Nawlins soul (Right On Time) flavor this one in interesting ways. That said, when they build into their meat and potatoes sound and build into hysteria, like on Crying Over You, I Pity the Fool, and the jammed out I Want More complete with a Soul Sacrifice finale, they are pretty unstoppable.
The Essential Performances: I Want More, I Pity the Fool
In this journey, this is one of the bands I heard here and there but sort of built in an investment with them including multiple live albums. The first few were good, but I hadn’t been completely sold yet. This one is the start of the pay off on that investment. The band here is in much more focus, unabashedly settled into the jam band subgenre, but with a little harder rock edge. America and Ain’t That Wrong are the ultimate examples of this band peaking on this thing. A nudge to keep going.
The Essential Performance: Ain’t That Wrong
Up Next: Phish - Baker’s Dozen: Live at Madison Square Garden (the compilation)
Phish - Baker’s Dozen: Live at Madison Square Garden
Who doesn’t want donut themed concerts!? Okay, so actually this run is one of the more impressive live feats this century - 13 shows at the Garden in basically a row, no repeats. This compilation is, you may have guessed, a baker’s dozen of songs from those shows. The jams are certainly extensive, but through a lot of this it is astounding how quickly the time goes. The run on this from More through Chalk Dust Torture is killer, as is the 20+ minute Ghost. They were not just breaking the set list mood here, but playing some great shows along the way. My favorite here is an under 10 minute More, one of those songs where you can hear and sense the Garden swelling as the tension builds.
The Essential Performance: More
Up Next: Joe Russo’s Almost Dead - Morrison, CO 2017-08-31
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