twilightdawning

A writer's thoughts – mainly about music, sport and theatre. Shakespeare, Bob Dylan, live shows, New York Yankees

Like A River That Don’t Know Where It’s Flowing

Posted on June 21, 2016 by twilightdawning

Who: Bruce Springsteen & the E-Street Band

What: The River Tour 2016

Where: Wembley Stadium, London

When: 5th June 2016

My track record with the music of Bruce Springsteen has been a little chequered. I discovered his music early in his career and love the first four albums – “Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J.”, “The Wild, The Innocent and the E-Street Shuffle”, “Born to Run” and “Darkness on the Edge of the Town”. “The River” was an interesting album. Bruce felt it needed to be a double record. Listening to it in Yorkshire in England, I always felt it would have been better as a single album. Loved “Point Blank” but couldn’t get excited about what Mr Springsteen refers to as his “bar-room songs” especially pieces of fluff like “Crush on You”. But there was some real meat in there and I remember listening to that album a lot.

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Bob Dylan – “Saved” reassessed.

Posted on February 15, 2016 by twilightdawning

I was in my mid-teens when “Saved” was released. I’d just begun to discover Bob Dylan’s music around then but, to be honest, I was far more interested in albums like “The Times They Are A-Changin'” than “Saved” or “Slow Train Coming”. I’d caught on to the singles from “Street Legal” via Annie Nightingale’s radio show but really nothing else of his contemporary work was even on my radar. From “…Changin'”, I made the predictable moves to “Highway 61 Revisited” and “Blonde on Blonde” and for me Dylan was an interesting master songwriter from the 1960s.

I could be seen around college with a copy of “Writings and Drawings” under my arm but even in that my interest faded after the “John Wesley Harding” album.

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Already Gone – A Natural Progressions Update

Posted on January 19, 2016 by twilightdawning

Glenn Frey

When I was at High School he seemed like the coolest guy on the whole planet.

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Harping on…

Posted on December 17, 2015 by twilightdawning

Who: Serafina Steer and BAS JAN

Where: King’s Place, King’s Cross, London

When: Friday 11th December 2015

It’s not often I’m lost for words. It’s about 33 years since I had my first article published in a newspaper and since then there have been many thousands of words – in books, in magazines, in newspapers and, in recent years, on the internet.

I’m not often lost for vocabulary.

But then I don’t often go to see concerts by one of my favourite contemporary artists and find that she has committed the first half of the show to a harp recital.

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Steely Dan – The Most Unforgettable Night of Whatever

Posted on November 20, 2015 by twilightdawning

About a lifetime ago, my friend, Andrew, and I went to Leeds for the day and in the course of our shopping I brought home every Steely Dan album that had been released to that point, that I didn’t already own. By the time I had worked through albums like Pretzel Logic I was a fan for life. Indeed, Katy Lied joined Van Morrison and Bob Dylan in seeing me almost single-handed through some very tortured teenage years.

Flash forward to 2015 and my wonderful opportunity as I was invited to fly out to the U.S. and cover their residency at the Beacon in New York. I’d seen them a number of times but to see them on home territory playing with imagination and verve — well, this is the stuff that dreams are made of. So let’s take a look at their final night:

Who: Steely Dan

What: rockabye gollie angel tour 2015: “The Most Unforgettable Night of Whatever – Featuring Spectacular Musical Guests, Glorious Tunes and Riffage, and Whatever the Party Calls for! “

When: October 17th, 2015

Where: Beacon Theatre, New York, New York, USA

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The Greatest Damn Steely Dan Band to Ever Come Down the Pipe

Posted on November 14, 2015 by twilightdawning

Who: Steely Dan

What: rockabye gollie angel tour 2015: “By Popular Demand” night

When: October 16th, 2015

Where: Beacon Theatre, New York, New York, USA

“The greatest damn Steely Dan band ever to come down the pipe”. So said Walter Becker on this “By Popular Demand” night at the Beacon. And you know what – in terms of live performance, – I think he is just about right. This was an outstanding night of music. The “By Popular Demand” thing might just have been a cool cover-up: I’m not really sure what was so different from some other nights on the tour – but slightly dodgy promotional tools aside, this was a very, very good performance indeed.

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The Steely Dan Show

Posted on November 12, 2015 by twilightdawning

What could be better than New York in the Fall? Well, some things… Special reasons for being there. As it worked out, the Yankees went down in the first round of the playoffs and that meant no more live baseball for me for this year. Someone tried to persuade that a trip to Citi Field would be worthwhile but we all have our loyalties and so I passed on the Mets. Something else to do. And with me that usually means if not baseball then music.

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Hackett Ascending

Posted on October 13, 2015 by twilightdawning

Who: Steve Hackett

What: From Acolyte to Wolflight with a sprinkling of Genesis

Where: Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London

When: October 7th 2015

Last year, I was asked to review Steve Hackett’s “Genesis Revisited” project when it visited Hammersmith. I have to say that I was, initially, not that enthusiastic at the prospect. Hackett had been off my listening radar for quite a long time and I’m not a huge one for nostalgia and sentimentality. However, I had caught up with the former Genesis guitarist via his “Beyond the Shrouded Horizon” a little time before, which I had enjoyed and listening to “Genesis Revisited II” suggested he was been faithful to earlier versions of those songs so I accepted the commission and went along to spend an evening revisiting some past pleasures. After all, it couldn’t hurt, could it?

Well, I was suitably impressed and produced a quite exuberant review which also reflect on my personal journey with Genesis’ music which can be found here: https://twilightdawning.com/2014/11/04/time-lapse-in-hammersmith/

After the new tour was announced I was asked to once again go see the show when it came to my neighbourhood (this time to the slightly smaller Shepherd’s Bush Empire). I thought it would be an interesting contrast. The emphasis this time would be on Hackett’s solo career – both recent and early (he has a boxset of his early solo albums about to drop into the marketplace) and it would be interesting to see if he could cut it without relying too much on the songs of that old band he used to be in.

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An Embarrassment of Riches

Posted on October 6, 2015 by twilightdawning

Who: Daughters of Davis

Where: Ravenscourt Arts, Ravenscourt Road, Hammersmith, London

When: October 3rd, 2015.

The season at Ravenscourt Arts ended at the beginning of the summer with an outstanding concert of acoustic music from Judie Tzuke which played to a sold-out venue. The show tonight had one of those things in common. This was truly a night of great acoustic music even if there were a number of vacant seats around. No accounting for that – last time Daughters of Davis played here, they played to a very healthy audience indeed so let’s concentrate on the music.

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Natural Progressions Update – Summer 2015

Posted on August 10, 2015 by twilightdawning

A little update on all things Eagles.

The latest leg of the “The History of the Eagles” tour came to an end on the 29th of July in the U.S. with a gig in Louisiana. The tour has been more of the same – if you liked the last couple of years you would have liked this. The band is now being put to bed for a while whilst the members turn their attention to solo projects.

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