Suzanne Vega Live at The Village in Dublin - June 10th, 2010

Despite the fact that I have seen Suzanne Vega live 6 or 7 times, I still get a sense of anticipation every time. I first listened to her when back in 87 on a rare day I stayed home from school and the local rock station had a feature on her. Her voice captured me instantly and I went on a quest to get her first 2 albums (not easy to get imports in Mexico back then!). I had become a true fan.

I have seen her with a number of different backing bands, including 3 piece (guitar, bass & drums), 4 piece (keyboards, guitar, bass & drums) and even just herself and a bass player, usually Mike Visceglia. However this time she was joined on stage by Mike, and by Dubliner Gerry Leonard on electric guitar, giving her performance a whole new dimension.

This tour is to promote Suzanne's new album "Close-Up Vol 1, Love Songs". the first in a series of 4 that are planned to be released over the next 2 years and are more raw re-recordings of Suzanne's songs. This tour also marks the 25th anniversary of the first album, so a good few old songs were included in the set, sadly no Undertow (I have never heard it live!), although she told me after the show that she still plays it occasionally. Here is hoping for the next time!

The show started with "Marlene on the Wall", her voice sounding as good as ever, and the crowd of mainly seasoned fans enjoying every bit of it. She played the usual suspects of Luka, Gypsy, Left of Center and The Queen and the Soldier. She played some new ones for me live: New York is a Woman, Frank & Ava and a rare gem for me Some Journey. The setlist also included the DNA version of Tom's Dinner which was fantastic!

She was more talkative than I have ever seen her before, telling stories before every song, and not the same ones I have heard before! This time I learnt that the guy behind Gypsy was the Arts and Crafts councilor in the boys camp... which brought a chuckle to the audience. There was no reading before Neighborhood Girls, which thankfully didn't skip like on my original vinyl. (Well, I couldn't travel back to the States to return it so I had to leave with it... to this day 23 odd years later, I still expect the CD to skip when I am listening to the song!)

I got the setlist from stage, if you are wondering what are the numbers beside every song, it is for Suzanne to know where to place the capo on her guitar. I then went to the the merchandise stall to buy her new CD (well worth a listen) where I was told that she would be coming out to sign autographs in 5 minutes, so I decided to stick around and she kindly signed my setlist.

If Suzanne Vega plays anywhere near you, go and see her. I hope she keeps coming back to Dublin tour after tour. I will keep going to enjoy what has always been a great night!

Setlist

• Marlene on the Wall
• Small Blue Thing
• Caramel
• Frank & Ava
• New York is a Woman
• Pornographer's Dream
• Gypsy
• Harbor Song
  

Intermission

• Tombstone
• Left of Centre
• Blood Makes Noise
• Solitaire
• The Man Who Played God (A Sparklehorse song)
• The Queen and the Soldier
• Neighborhood Girls
• Some Journey
• Luka
• Tom's Diner
  
  
• Calypso
• Rosemary
• In Liverpool (it was on the setlist but it wasn't performed!)

Live picture of Suzanne from the flickr photostream of zoomzuzaki

Def Leppard Live - The O2, Dublin - June 12th, 2009

Setlist from the Def Leppard show yesterday

Rocket
Action
C'mon C'mon
Make Live like a man
Too late for love
Nine Lives
Love bites
Rock on
Two steps behind
Bringing on the heartbreak
Switch 625
Hysteria
Animal
Armageddon It
Photograph
Pour some sugar on me
Rock of ages
---------------------
When love and hate collide
Lets get rocked

Update: I have posted a review of the show

Journey Live - The O2, Dublin - June 12th, 2009

Almost a year to the day I saw Journey for the first time, I saw them yesterday for the second time. Even better! I am glad I saw them last year because this was a shorter show and I would have been left wanting a lot of songs that they didn't play this time around. But Don't Stop Believin' sounded even better... if that's possible. No printout of the setlist this time, but here it is:

Separate Ways(World's Apart)
Stone in Love
Ask the Lonely
Change for the Better
DD Harp Segway (this time Neal used a mandolin rather than acoustic guitar)
Wheel in the Sky
Wildest Dream
Faithfully
Don't Stop Believin'
Anyway You Want It

Anybody got Def Leppards setlist from the concert?

Again, I will try to post a review later on.

Update: I have posted a review of the show

Julie Feeney Live at Crawdaddy - June 10th, 2009 - Setlist

Here is the setlist for yesterday's concert. It was fantastic! I will do up a review at the weekend with some pictures. Hopefully my little camera worked OK as it was very dark.

I got the setlist from the stage handwritten by Julie, I will post a scan later on.
Update: I posted the setlist, please note that she changed things around a little bit!


Setlist
Hiho - Julie a capella
Autopilot
Judas
You Broke The Magic
Wind Out Of My Sails
The Reaper
Aching (with Harmonium)
Alien

Pages:
Nothing To Declare
Grace
Valentine's Song
Mr Roving Eye Guy
Myth
Stay
Life's Nudge
Knock Knock
One More Tune
Monster

Encore:
Love Is A Tricky Thing
Impossibly Beautiful

2nd Encore:
One More Tune

Polar Bear at Crawdaddy (Dublin) - July 18, 2008

It is not often that you get t see jazz musicians of the calibre of Seb Rochford in Dublin. Last Friday Polar Bear gave the small crowd in Crawdaddy a rare treat. They played a short but very intense set of about 1 hr and 15 minutes which was mainly made of songs from their new album which was released barely a week ago. Each song included some improvisations and went on for considerably longer than the versions on the albums.

Seb Rochford is an incredibly talented drummer, who has worked with many people including Herbie Hancock and Brian Eno. I was fortunate to be standing about 2 meters from where he was playing and it was qute interesting to see how he kept the beat during the songs with his left foot on the hi-hat while the songs canged tempo. You know this is always going on when jazz is being played, but it is something else when you can see it first hand.

On the double bass Tom Herber didn't put a foot wrong, whether he was playing a walking bass line, a syncopated bass line or simply playing root notes. It has been a long time since I've seen a goof double bass player.

Leafcutter John was playing the mandolin and the "electronics", which basically means that he was triggering samples and noises through his powerbook. You can read more about him, ad the software he uses on the wikipedia and his own site. It blew me away, he was standing there with the laptop and at times he was sampling and playing what was happening on stage. At some point he was able to do a solo of something that soundes similar to a sax with the touchpad on his mac.

The group was rounded up by Mark Lockheart and Pete Wareham on tenor sax.

The setlist:

Hope every day is a happy new year
Leafcup
I am alive
Tomlovesalicelovestom
Appears, moves and sails
The king of Aberdeen

encore
To touch the red brick

The image comes from jazzreview.com by Brian O'Connor, and yes, the hair looks bigger in person!

Journey Live - Dublin, now the review

So now the review. We got to the national stadium a few minutes before the show was due to start. If you haven't been there, it is an excellent venue for concerts. It can sit 2000 people and because it is such a small venue, every seat has excellent visibility. I was sitting on the left of the stage behind Jonathan Cain (see the picture below!). One good piece of trivia, the national stadium was the first purpose built boxing stadium in the world and was opened in 1939. It was packed!

The concert started just before 8:00 with John Parr doing a short acoustic set, closing with his big hit from the 80's St Elmo's Fire (Man in Motion).

Journey came out just before 9 o'clock to a standing ovation. I was worried that the Ray Foley effect would have meant that the place was full of people that wanted to hear "Don't Stop Believin'" and knew nothing else. Well I needn't have worried, there are a lot of Journey fans who knew and sang along to all the songs from "Wheel in the Sky" to "Change for the Better". It was absolutely fantastic. The guys where having a great time on stage, and because of the size of the venue, it was great to actually see what they were playing. Neal Schon is the fastest guitarist I have seen in a long time, but he also knows how to play a melodic solo, or just play chords if that's what the song needs. Ross Valory is still full of energy, and he plays with such ease that it is contagious, his faces are so funny. Jonathan Cain moved between the keyboards and the guitars all night long. Unfortunately I coudn't see much of Deen Castronovo on drums, but he was very good as well. He sang on "Mother Father", and was great. Note how the setlist (from JC's piano) has the details of who is going to introduce each song!

When I first got interested on the bass, the first couple of songs that I learnt where "Anyway You Want It" and "Lovin' Touchin' Squeezin'". A bit later I learnt how to play "Don't Stop Believin'" and it was the sound of Ross Valory's bass in Escape that made me want to learn how to play the bass. Not surprisingly my highlights from yesterday where "Stone in Love" (listen to that bassline towards the end of the song!), "Who's Cryin' Now" and "Don't Stop Believin'" which has been my favourite song for the last twentysomething years! I also enjoyed the fact that they opened with Majestic, which they hadn't been playing for a while. On the other hand, they played Lights on it's own! The picture on the left is from when they started "Don't Stop Believin'"

Arnel Pineda has to have a special mention, he looked the part. Not even a year ago he was playing in a cover band in the Philippines, and now he is the lead singer for a big band on a worldwide tour and an album that has sold more than a quarter of a million copies in the first month. He was fantastic!

For those interested in the gear, Ross Valory played a Music Man stingray, judging from the way he played, he was using his signature tunning (B-E-A-D), using the 4 top strings of a 5 string bass on a 4 string one. Neal Schone played mainly on his Gibson signature les paul, although he used a stratocaster for one of the songs. Jonathan Cain played a telecaster, a 12 string stratocaster, and a Neal Schon signature les paul, on a stand, for the rythm guitar section on don't stop believin'

What a great show!

Journey Live - National Satdium, Dublin - June 25th, 2008

Wow... your man Arnel Pineda can sing. I am just back from the Journey gig at the National Stadium in Dublin... what a show, it was fantastic!

Here is the setlist for now, I will post some comments and a couple of pictures tomorrow. I got the setlist from Jonathan Cain's piano!

Majestic
Never Walk Away
Separate Wayes
Only the Young
Guitar Segway
Stone in Love
Ask the Lonely
Keep on Runnin'
The Journey (Revelation) - Instrumental
Who's Cryin' Now
Change for the Better
Lights (They didn't play Stay Awhile!!!)
After All These Years
Mother, Father (Dean on vocals)
Key Segway (JC Solo)
Open Arms
DD Harp Segway (NS on acoustic guitar & JC on harmonica)
Wheel in the Sky
Edge of the Blade
Faithfully
Don't Stop Believing

encore
Escape
Anyway You Want It

To see the a picture of the actual setlist, go to the review post.