Sophie B. Hawkins at the Café Carlyle:
I got the chance to see a new show at the Carlyle this week featuring Sophie B. Hawkins. I had not caught up with her since the 1993 Bobfest at the Garden and I guess she’s grown up. She is clearly someone who the Carlyle wants to develop for the future and she was both nervous and thrilled at the opportunity. The room was filled with her fans who appreciated the focus on her original material. Some people even tried to get up and dance. (You don’t do that there.) For the uninitiated like, admittedly, yours truly, the highlight of the show was her incredible possession by the ghost of Janis Joplin, whom she played off Broadway. That was scary great. Hawkins has just the right amount of scratch in her voice and passion in her performance to demand that you just come on and take a little piece of her heart. I think the show could do with a few more standards. Tuesday night we got “Someone to Watch Over me,” and then “I Want You” as the encore. Read all about the place here https://www.rosewoodhotels.com/en/the-carlyle-new-york/dining/cafe-carlyle
U2 at Metlife Stadium:
Thursday night I was one of the happy masses at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford to see my old friends from U2 perform “The Joshua Tree” among other things. Well, we are not really friends, but we could have been. They were our house band during the semester I went to the London School of Economics in 1980 and used to play in the gym every few weeks. They’re a lot better now and certainly a lot fancier. And what an argument for getting old! At Metlife they had the biggest video screen I’ve ever seen and possibly anyone has ever seen. And the music filled the place like no one except the mighty E Street Band last summer.
While the show was devoted to Joshua Tree—a tour I somehow missed in my concert-going prime--the show started off as if with encores, another Bruce move, played from a small stage in the middle of the field surrounded by people on each side: “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” “New Year’s Day,” “Bad” and the always magisterial “Pride (In the Name of Love.” And that was just for starters. Don’t get me wrong. Joshua Tree has its moments, especially “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” “With or Without You” and “In God’s Country”. And hey, the encores, closing with “One.” More moments of near-transcendence than I can count. All I can say is if you’re seeing these boys down the road, don’t plan on leaving early. There’s been no better band since the Beatles who of course were not a live band at all. Ok the Stones, But that’s it. And these guys know it. And you’ll know it too, if you’re lucky enough to see them live before you you die.
Jethro Tull: Songs from the Wood
Jethro Tull’s tenth album, “Songs from the Wood,” gets what’s become the Jethro Tull treatment. What that has come to mean is a first rate remix of the cd by Steve Wilson, plus three cds of outtakes, live performances, q 5:1 remix, a live DVD and a 96 page booklet and some really classy packaging. The latter has first rate sound quality for a non-blu-ray release. It’s from the Capital Center, Landover, Maryland on 21st November 1977 mixed to 16/48, stereo LPCM and 5.1 DTS, AC3 Dolby Digital surround by Jakko Jakszyk, taken from the video that was projected at the show. Rolling Stone said, at the time of its release that “Wood” “may well be the group’s best record ever”. That’s crazy talk. But after Aqualung, Thick as a Brick and Passion Play, it is; which ain’t bad. It’s also, it’s not that expensive for what it is.