Sandy Relief Concert

Cafe Society
81

My $0.02…

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band–Bruce was strong as always, but not special in my view. “Born To Run” w/ Jon Bon Jovi–Jon, it’s not your key. You should have considered singing a high harmony (and a different shirt).

Roger Waters of Pink Floyd–whoever thought Pink Floyd songs were a good idea should check their meds. “I know, let’s do ‘Comfortably Numb’, that’ll get people excited!”

Adam Sandler with Paul Shaffer–pretty darned funny. Stupid, but funny.

Bon Jovi–Jon’s voice is gone and he knows it. Had the audience sing all the high parts.

Eric Clapton–the absolute best of the entire night. His playing was awesomely wonderful, voice as good as ever (not that good, but he’s singing the blues where passion matters more than talent).

Rolling Stones–their usual professional performance, nothing special.

Alicia Keys–beautiful and musically precise as always. Has never done a thing for me.

The Who–Roger clearly knows that he can’t hold a note. Essentially fluffed his way through the whole set. Should not let his shit be unbuttoned. My recommendation to Pete: do the “hold your hands over your head thing” before choosing your outfit. Consider UnderArmor or similar…letting your belly flash on world-wide TV was not your best choice.

Kanye West–never been a fan, fast-forwarded through the entire thing.

Billy Joel–the best I’ve seen him in years and years (not that I’ve gone out of my way). Voice was strong, was clearly having a good time. Previous gigs (Trade Center benefit, with Elton on TV) he had trouble hitting notes and didn’t care about anything he was doing.

Chris Martin–pretty darned good. A bit over-enthusiastic (and thus some slop) but solid and engaging. Michael Stipe was OK, but not impressive.

Paul McCartney–opened with “Helter Skelter”! Maybe he got tired of people saying he was wimpy these days. Voice was MUCH better than at the Olympics. Bit with Nirvana was unimpressive. And then to end with “Live and Let Die” was disappointing…not one of his best IMHO.

Jon Steward was OK, Colbert was excellent, Fallon was drunk or something. Billy Crystal did his usual good job.

82

NBC had an online poll asking who had the best performance. With over 9000 votes, the tally so far:

Bruce Springsteen 12%
Roger Waters 10%
Eddie Vedder and Roger Waters 10%
Adam Sandler and Paul Shaffer 2%
Jon Bon Jovi 10%
Eric Clapton 6%
The Rolling Stones 5%
Alicia Keys 3%
The Who 20%
Kanye West 1%
Billy Joel 7%
Chris Martin and Michael Stipe 2%
Paul McCartney 7%
Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic, Pat Smear and McCartney 6%

83

I was hoping Olivia Wilde would say “Barack Obama doesn’t care about white people” during her spiel with P. Diddy.

84

It’s probably no coincidence that the vote tallies seem to correspond to how late in the evening each act played.

85

The Who at 20%? That’s a puzzler. I spent their set shaking my head at how sad it is that Roger sounded like he was straining, and looked like a grandmother (blue tinted granny glasses and wash/cut/set hair). And I was oddly distracted by whatever was going on with his stomach scars.

86

The Who’s 20% is likely due to an enthusiastic online fan community voting multiple times.

87

No, it’ people under 40 asking “who the fuck are all these old guys?”

88

As a diehard fan of the Who and someone who’s seen them live multiple times in their dinosaur years (and both of Roger’s solo tours as well), I’d have to say their set actually was pretty strong compared to some other showings I’ve seen from them. I’ve not seen them play Bell Boy live before and I thought it was an interesting rendition, and the tribute to Keith Moon was touching.

From what I saw, I’d have to say Billy Joel was the strongest performance of the night, though. “Miami 2017” is my favorite song of his, and the rendition of it that he performed just knocked it out of the park.

89

Roger Daltry sounded like shit but the band kicked ass.

Also, I know that younger acts were needed but why couldn’t they all come on later? Us old folks needed our sleep. We had work and stuff!

90

I’d have to agree. Billy Joel was really strong. Last time I saw him he sounded weak and couldn’t hit all the notes. He sounded great this time.

91

Here’s something to mull over.

For a lot of years in New York City, there was The Voice Doctor. He was the guy who would help out opera singers. Touring rock stars. Broadway belters.

Anyone having a bit of a tough time with their voices.

He helped them out. He helped them by injecting them with Prednisone.

Sure did help out their voices. Smoothed out the rough edges. Made a tough week easy to sing through.

My ex wife is a Coloratura Soprano. She never hit him up but knew his name and knew people firsthand who went to him for “help”. I still remember his name.

All said, I appreciate that a singer has bad nights. Older voices with the normal range of strength and weakness? Hell- Annie Haslam, Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Nicks, Glenn Campbell and so on.

If they’re honest about their instrument, they go out and sing and have a so so performance. Some nights are remarkable. Some are awful. Some are so so.

If they’re insistent upon perpetuating a youthful strength of voice that has nothing to do with their actual present abilities, they juice up on steroids to reduce inflammation of thinned and overworked vocal chords.

Rock on Billy.