So last night, I watched, the “Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 25th Anniversary” concert, which took place at Madison Square Garden for two nights in a row in, New York City. The headlining acts included Jerry Lee Lewis, “Crosby, Stills and Nash”, Paul Simon solo, Simon and Garfunkel, Metallica, Aretha Franklin, U2, Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder, etc.
I must say, it was a really good show, I was impressed with it. The first half of the show was really amazing, but toward the end got kind of boring.
Tom Hanks, opened the show with a little introduction, then Jerry Lee Lewis came on the stage, banging “Great Balls of Fire” on his piano even almost at 80 years old. Jerry Lee Lewis still has it, he can still sing and play killer piano as always. Like he always does at the end of the song, he’ll stand up and kick the piano seat down, then he stood up, picked up the piano seat and threw it on the floor, and he is an old guy doing that!
Crosby, Stills and Nash, came on, and they put on an amazing performance. They still got it after all these years. The crowd in NYC gave ’em a standing ovation. When CSN invited Bonnie Raitt to the stage to sing a slow acoustic ballad, it blew my fucking mind. Bonnie Raitt has always been amazing and she still is. She’s a helluva singer.
Paul Simon played a solo set that was awesome, he kicked it right off with “You Can Call Me Al” and his vocals were quite impressive during that song. After his set, of course, Paul Simon had to bring out Art Garfunkel to the stage. Simon Garfunkel did their most well known songs, “The Sounds of Silence, Mrs. Robinson, Not Fade Away, The Boxer, Bridge Over Troubled Water and Cecilia”. It was an amazing set. I think this would have to be my favorite performance of the entire show. It was very powerful. I honestly think Art Garfunkel can sing way better than Paul Simon. Art sings beautifully, his voice is haunting.
After this Stevie Wonder came on stage, going from a variety of special guests from Smokey Robinson to John Legend to B.B. King. My favorite songs Stevie did was “Superstition” with Jeff Beck and MJ’s “The Way You Make Me Feel” with John Legend. Stevie Wonder is always amazing, he just never sucks every time he goes on stage.
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band were very dissapointing, not good. Only great performance that Bruce did was when he played with Tom Morello on the “Ghost of Tom Joad”, now that was an incredibly tight performance. Bruce wrote the song “Ghost of Tom Joad”, and he had Tom Morello perform with him ’cause Rage Against the Machine covered it. Bruce played the song acoustically on the album, this was full band electric. Tom and Bruce were trading licks and solos back and forth. As usual Tom Morello playing very unique guitar techniques that no one else could have played. I think Bruce was looking a little embarrassed up there ’cause he knew that Tom is a better guitar player than him. That was a really good performance but the rest of Bruce’s set was kind of boring.
Metallica however, they were ok, but nothing that great, that time. I wished they choosed better songs. It was kind of boring hearing Lou Reed play the same three chords through “Sweet Jane”, that was all he played, making it look too easy for Metallica to improvise on. The same with Ozzy and Ray Davies, choosing simple songs that the band could play.
Ozzy did a good job, but it was kind of hard to watch him. There is Ozzy the TV reality star, not the metal god he once was. He destroyed his music career and music image by becoming part of the gossip celebrity world, in the reality TV stuff. I lost my respect for Ozzy.
U2 was not good at all. I’m not really a fan of U2 anymore ’cause I’ve about had it with Bono’s ego lately.
Other than that, this was a decent show. I wished Eric Clapton didn’t pull out of this gig ’cause I can see Eric jamming on stage with his old friends like Jeff Beck for starters, B.B. King and maybe even Jimmy Page. That would have been kind of cool to see Eric, Jeff and Jimmy Page on stage together performing old Yardbirds songs which I’m sure would have happened if Eric Clapton didn’t pull out of the gig.
It was a cool show though, I liked it.
Kev
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