U2 Los Angeles Sports Arena 4/13/1992

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Well after going to several free shows courtesy of my employer at the time I finally get to write about a show that I bought tickets to.  I scanned some of my ticket stubs this morning and noticed that 3 of my next several posts will be about U2 on the Zoo TV tour.  These shows definitely rank among my all-time favorites.

U2's Achtung Baby also happens to be one of my all-time favorite albums.  I remember when I first heard it, Zoo Station was the opening track and it was a huge shift in the musical direction of the band. I listened to that track over and over because I couldn't get over how radical the change in their sound seemed at the time.  That shift translated to their live shows which became a visual spectacle, actually a visual overload that was really ahead of its time.   Zoo Station was appropriately the opening song for the show...amazing!



It was pretty impressive for a band to start off the concert playing nothing but music from their latest album.  As you can see by the setlist the first 8 songs were from Achtung Baby.  After the first 8 they strode out into the middle of the arena and played a few songs on a secondary stage.  I think it was just Bono and The Edge.  I loved their cover of Lou Reed's "Satellite of Love" and the way they created a duet with Reed appearing on video.



This was the only show I saw at the Sports Arena, it seemed slightly more intimate that The Forum.  I think The Pixies were the opening act but we were too late to catch them.   I remember hearing them as I was in the lobby buying a t-shirt, which has held up remarkably well over the years.

Rush, Great Western Forum, Los Angeles 1/22/92

This was my first Rush concert.  Actually when I lived in the Toronto area back in the late 70's I did get a glimpse of a Rush concert through a hole in a fence at CNE Stadium, it was interrupted by a police officer on the other side of the peep hole.  

I was a big Rush fan back in the day.  Hanging out with my friends and air drumming to Neil Peart's drum solo during Working Man...those were The Wonder Years!  From Farewell To Kings to Moving Pictures was when I listened to them the most...after that it was pretty sporadic.  Anyway I received free tickets to this show through work and went there with my brother.  It was a bass player's nirvana that night with Primus on the bill as the opening act.  I'm surprised that an earthquake with the epicenter in Inglewood area didn't take place with Les Claypool and Geddy Lee in the same building.  It was a great show, I was familiar with about 75% of the setlist.

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I found this video from the tour, I had forgot about the rapping skeleton during Roll The Bones. 

The Cult, Great Western Forum, Los Angeles 1/18/92

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I don't remember much about this show.  Neither my wife or I remembered that Lenny Kravitz was the opening act, maybe we were late?  I do remember that somehow I received 2 Cult albums and 2 tickets to this show for free.  I did like the band, loved Wildflower!  My wife remembers that the show was loud, unfortunately I don't have much to add to that.

We do remember Ian Astbury...great voice!  He also had long hair and some American Indian gear going on.

Mickey Hart's Planet Drum, The Wiltern Theater, Los Angeles 11/17/91

I love drums!  My Dad played a little bit and we had a 3 piece drum set in the house for years.  I played in the house, would jam with my brother who plays sax, but I never played in a band.  Well I take that back, I played bass drum in the high school marching band for 2 years, not really the coolest gig in the world.  One of my friends and fellow percussionist in the band and I used to talk about forming a two piece group of nothing but percussion instruments...we were going to call ourselves DUO.  That daydream never was fulfilled but seeing Mickey Hart on his Planet Drum tour was the closest I would come to seeing it happen.

I remember the first time I saw the Grateful Dead and marveled at the drum solo performed by Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann.   They were surrounded by all kinds of drums, would play some of them with mallets that looked like big hammers.  The sounds when they hit them would just rumble through the room...awesome!  So when I had the chance to see Mickey Hart play with amazing percussionists from around the globe, I jumped at the chance.

The first song they played that night was the first track from the Planet Drum album, it was called Udu Chant.  The song features an instrument called a Hoop Drum which was made somewhere in the Arctic.  It has this incredible deep sound when it's hit and it looked like nothing I had ever seen before.  Almost like a trampoline laying on its side.  It was just the beginning of a fantastic show.  At one point there was a guest appearance by Tibetan Monks to which my friend sitting next to me screamed, "Oh my god it's the Monks"!

The clip below gives you an idea of what it was like.

Mash-Up Time

Just happened across this cool mash-up featuring Led Zeppelin and The Doors.  Reminds me of Beatles, Zeppelin, Stones, Who Day on WNEW-FM back in the day.  Well not really, but it's a cool classic rock mash.

Nightfall in LA

Beautiful time lapse images of Los Angeles

NightFall from Colin Rich on Vimeo.

Happy New Year!

I just saw this video this morning and had to share it.  Tom Jones and CSNY performing Long Time Gone together on some German TV show back in 1969.  I think the first 45" I had when I was a kid was Tom Jones singing "She's A Lady".  I need to ask my parents how that happened...did I ask them to buy it for me?  Whatever the case I loved that record and was devastated when my baby brother accidentally broke it.

This performance is brilliant!  I've never heard Stills sing that high before.  A good start to hopefully a Groovy Tuesday for everyone....enjoy!

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, Great Western Forum, Los Angeles 11/11/91

This is one of several shows where I took advantage of free tickets from work...it was a great perk.
I liked Petty's music and I may have owned one of his albums at this point, but I wouldn't have been looking to buy tickets to one of his shows.  Fortunately I took advantage of the freebies.

The show was sort of a revelation.  What I never really grasped before was what a great band these guys were...extremely tight!  And it also struck me that they had so many great songs.  It was like I had taken advantage of Tom Petty, I had let him entertain me for years and I never gave him anything in return...sort of like the relationship I have with my local NPR station.  (I used to subscribe)

 I can't find a setlist from the show but I found some clips from the tour.  The band recorded a concert video during the same month that I saw them called Take The Highway and you can find the entire video on You Tube.  Here are a few from the show that really remember being outstanding.

Guns N' Roses, Great Western Forum, Los Angeles 7/30/91

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I'm probably going to say this quite often as I go back in time and recall these concerts, " I can't believe that this was 20 years ago!"  It seems like yesterday that I was watching Axl Rose run across the stage in a kilt.  This Guns N' Roses show back in 1991 was another one of the concerts I was able to experience thanks to some free comps at work.  I wasn't a huge GNR fan but I did like some of their songs and was happy to take advantage of the free tix.  I'm glad that I did, it was quite an experience.

Back around the time of this show, there was quite a bit of drama surrounding GNR.  New album, new band members, and Axl being Axl.  Earlier in the month that I saw them Axl was charged with inciting a riot in St. Louis.   I remember that the big question was going to be when they would eventually come on-stage....Axl didn't really seem to care how late they were taking the stage back then.

Skid Row was the opening act...nothing memorable about their performance.  Then there was the wait for GNR which became sort of a show itself.  The video crew for the concert started working, scanning the crowd for hot chicks who would hopefully be encouraged by the guys in the crowd to take off their tops.  Several of them did.  I remember someone said that the band was watching the feed backstage and would determine which girls they would have join them by watching the video feed.  

When the show eventually started, it was a great performance.  I really was impressed with Axl.  The amount of energy that guy had, running across this big stage that they had and singing at the same time.  I don't remember his voice sounding bad that night.  I've seen some You Tube clips from the tour where he sounds awful, but he sounded alright the night I saw him.  Of course some people might wonder what my definition of "alright" is.

The setlist featured all of their big hits plus some material from Use Your Illusion.  Civil War is one of my favorite GNR songs and it was cool to hear them play it live.  All in all it was a definitely a unique show that I was glad that I was able to experience.  Coincidentally I could have shared that fact with Slash just this past weekend.  We were at Disneyland getting ready to ride the roller coaster called "California Screamin".  I was talking with my brother when I recognized Slash on the other side of the tracks, he and his family had a personal escort from Disneyland.  I didn't realize until after the ride was over that he was on one of the cars behind him.  I should have done my best Axl voice and screamed out "You're Gonna Die!"

Chris Isaak, Wiltern Theater, Los Angeles 2/22/91

Alright...it's been close to a month and a half since I made a post about a concert that I attended and since that was the original intent of this blog, it's time to get back on track. Next up on the concert calendar total recall is Chris Isaak at the Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles on February 22, 1991.

I first heard Chris Isaak when his second album came out, we received a promotional copy at work. I really liked what I heard, incredible voice and a very cool guitar sound.  I went back and picked up his first record and then Heart Shaped World when it came out.  I had a chance to see him and his band play at a fundraiser for the Surfrider Foundation,  I think it was before I saw him at the Wiltern but I'm not sure.  He and his band sounded great live and what you realize when you see him in person is that besides having an amazing voice...he's a very funny guy.


When I saw him at the Wiltern, he was supporting the Heart Shaped World album and riding the success of Wicked Games which was receiving a lot of attention because it was a great song and oh yeah...the music video for the song at the time was considered risque.

It was my first show at the Wiltern and I really liked the setting. The show itself was good. The band didn't stray too much from how the songs sounded from the record.  Of course the key to the band back then was Isaak's guitarist James Wilsey.  His guitar playing created so much of the atmosphere in Isaak's music.  Luckily I got to see him play a couple of times before he left the band after recording the San Francisco Days album.

As I'm writing this, I can't believe that it's been 20 years since I saw this concert!  Where does time go?  I bought a few more of Chris's albums after seeing him, but I really stopped listening to him.  I think his sound was becoming a little too repetitive.  I've been listening to his music as I write this and it's fun to listen to him again.  I know he recently released a new album that he recorded at Sun Studios.  I've heard a few of his Elvis and Johnny Cash covers and they sound great.  After going down memory lane, I might just have to pick it up.