This is about my fave concert footage. . .

(pulp. . .THAT song. ..)

Somehow I knew that would be a Bruce link before I clicked (maybe because 'insanely great performance' just brings Springsteen to mind). I needed that - I'm in the middle of Eric Alterman's book about him and have been imagining all the amazing Bruce concerts I missed, just because I was in grade school.

I have two great performance memories. the first one is Bruce, of course - "The Rising" tour, 2003, Giants Stadium, the last night of his "historic" 10-night concert stand. He left us typically wrung out, and it had that special "last night" feeling. The crowd was transported.

The other one was Dan Bern. I tell this story a lot. It was 1998 or so, and he was playing an auditorium at UPenn with his little band. The sound was all messed up. Volunteer sound managers from the audience started calling out all sorts of helpful suggestions, like turning down the gain or whatever, and nothing really worked. Finally he said "aw, fuck it. Let's just play acoustic." The whole band unplugged and Dan switched out his guitar for an acoustic. The drummer moved out from behind the kit, and found a metal folding chair on which he played brushes. And Dan told the audience of about 1800 people "There's no way y'all are gonna hear me from way back in those seats. You better come right up onstage. We'll have a hootenanny." So that's what we all did - everyone came right up on the stage and sat cross-legged at the band's feet and around the steps and in the front rows, lending a serious campfire feel as we all sang along with "Marilyn Monroe" and stuff like that. It was the best, most professional example of a musician's confidence and ability to punt that I've ever seen. Great memory.

Wow Miko, that's quite a story. I loved Dan's first record, but sorta lost interest after that. Sounds like that was a show to be at.

My best couple of shows include one last year at the Phoenix in Toronto, seeing the Weakerthans. The sound was so perfect, and LOUD but not too loud, and amazing...I remember just feeling like I'd left this earth listening. It was amazing.

Another fantastic show was Bruce Cockburn, solo, at the Northern Lights Festival, in the old, run down outdoor amphitheatre. It was a perfect summer night, clear sky, lots of stars visible in the northern sky, the moon shimmering in the visible lake. It suited Bruce's show perfectly.

One last I'll mention involves the festival again...A group called Blackie and the Rodeo Kings were set to headline the main stage on Sunday night, but a nasty storm was blowing up, so they canceled the show. Well, one member of the Rodeo Kings, Tom Wilson, is a rocker from way back and knew that there was a bar close by, which also acted as an off site venue for the festival. A bunch of us headed over there, and sure enough, B&RK showed up and played at this small bar. The set included them coming off the stage, and doing The Band's "Acadian Driftwood" without any PA. (This, it turns out is a schtick they do regularly, but that makes it no less noteworthy and goose-fleshy). That was a pretty wicked night too.

Miko's story reminds me of one of the (handfull) of times I saw Leonard Cohen.

It was in Royce Hall on the UCLA campus. First, someone had a bottle of champagne on the stage and they were passing it around. .Cohen took it and poured a bit on the windscreen of his mike. . .it did not appear to hurt the mike.

But the extraordinary thing was when a crazy guy started yelling random incoherent things from the audience. Everyone tried to ignore him until he jumped up on stage, still spouting gibberish. .the cops came to get him but Cohen waved them off, and then sat on the edge of the stage talking quietly to him, eventually holding hands with him.

After a bit, he went back to the mike and said, "Why doesn't everyone come up here?" and so the stage filled with as many people as it would hold, and they went on with the concert.

I was there with my sister, who is not the model of flexibility or going-with-the-flow, so we stayed in our seats. . .

Pretty special night, though.

richat, that sounds awesome. Being a Hamiltonian, I've seen Tom Wilson in about 100 different incarnations, from the Florida Razors through Junkhouse, including solo gigs, sitting in with local bands like The Trouble Boys and supporting blues legend Kerry Bell when he came to town. The man is amazing. I still haven't seen a BARK show yet, however.