Thanks Joseph, appreciate that.

Saw Sheryl Crow 9/14 at the Portchester Cap. Great show! Was rescheduled from a year ago. This kicked off my usual NYC area concert going again. Missed it. I'm Vaxxed and ready to rock again!

Coming up:
Chris Stapleton MSG 10/8
Phil Lesh w/ Warren Haynes Portchester Cap 10/13
Gary Clark Jr. Portchester Cap 11/2
Psych Furs Tarrytown Music Hall 11/7
Steely Dan Portchester Cap 11/10
Bob Dylan Beacon Theater 11/20
Genesis MSG 12/6
.moe Portchester Cap 12/11
2022:
Tool Belmont LI 2/23 New Venue in NY!

I had Tix for John Mayall/Walter Trout at Tarrytown Music Hall but Mayall has decided he is too old to take a chance touring for his health so it was cancelled. Bummer.

I bought my first concert ticket in 2 years yesterday; Hurricane Nita Strauss is going to be playing a bar here in Toronto, so I'm gonna go. I'm a little doubtful - I expect an instrumental evening - but she has such a great energy and personality on stage that it's worth it to get out of the house. Finally...

In my first concert since March 1st, 2020, I saw…

38 Special

Sure hope I don’t catch COVID for that one. Went with a friend who really wanted to go. And I did enjoy myself thoroughly. But still.

A friend's wife bought him tickets and didn't want to go, so I tagged along and saw The HU last night. For those that haven't heard of them, they're a Mongolian band that plays rock incorporating traditional instruments and singing. It's an interesting sound, and it translated pretty well to a live setting, even with the band speaking little to no English. The crowd was a surprising mix, and the band capped off the night with a pretty heavy cover of Metallica's "Sad But True," with a little help from the Seattle Seahawks' drum line, Blue Thunder! (you can see in the second picture that several of the band were even wearing custom Seahawks jerseys for the encore)

Had tickets to see Carmine Appice and Vinnie Appice with their Drum Wars show, but the show was postponed. Fortunately, that didn't leave me Appice-free, because I had tix for a quadruple-postponed Vanilla Fudge show, which finally happened Wednesday night. First time for seeing VF, at least the second time for Carmine (saw him during his brief Ozzy tenure). Got to meet the man before the show at the merch table and got a signed pair of drum sticks (used, even) and a picture. Very cool show - had a really good time. Another band that I wasn't overly familiar with, but still enjoyed the music.

The opener? Well, they had potential, but the show was kind of brought down by the lead singer's posturing and showmanship. At the end of the very first song, he started going into this super fast jive-talking bit, and my buddy looked at me and said, "Guess who owns J. Geils Band's live album?"

Big news, everyone!!!

Ontario just removed the seating only restriction at concerts, which means that all of the concert venue bars can go back to full capacity. Still have to mask (there's gonna be some beer soaked, sweaty masks), but it's a big, big step forward for us. And hopefully, that means that Nita Strauss can get more people to her show.

Sounds like a good time, though. Without knowing the opening band, I can't say if it was nerves, coke, or a combination of the two.

Vanilla Fudge would be an interesting get, although they haven't crossed the border in more than 15 years.

Saw Kingfish Ingram tonight, the excellent young guitarist. I got a special IMWAN chuckle when he introduced his band and said...

“On bass, Mr. Paul Rogers.”

Time to close out the 2021 Concert thread for my adventures. The year started really slowly with the pandemic still affecting NYC so nothing really happened till July and then pow! Lots of action for me after that.

Started with the Paul Gilbert Guitar Camp here on LI which was 5 days of fun in July and guitars guitars guitars. Loved hanging with Bumblefoot, George Lynch, Eric Gales and all the others, you really do get to hang out with them during the day and then the jam in the evening up in the Pub. It’s like school and they are your teachers.

After that I saw in the next 4 months:

PAKT (new supergroup with Percy Jones and Alex Skolnick)
NJ Progcamp (an outdoor afternoon of progressive music at a camp in NJ)
King Crimson
Metal Allegiance
Close To The Edge Symphonic with Wonderous Stories
Primus
PROGSTOCK (a 3 day prog extravaganza in NJ)
Todd Rundgren
Rick Wakeman
Eric Gales
The Musical Box
Alex Skolnick (his latest new band Code Red Quintet)

Here is me and Eric Gales at the City Winery in NYC this past October. We of course first met at the Paul Gilbert Guitar Camp and he remembered me. He said love your shirt. Good people!

Also check out Gales' brother the late, great Little Jimmy King if you've never heard. Quite a player and performer and sadly missed.

My calendar won't end for a couple weeks. One more road trip, everything else is very local. Two of the shows are requiring vaccination, which means my wife will be with me (one she had planned anyway, the other is because my buddy won't get the shot). I think there are five more shows for me, very guitar heavy - Yngwie (was supposed to have John 5 open, but he canceled), Joe Bonamassa, Nita Strauss, and Tommy Emmanuel. Nita and Tommy are back-to-back nights. The other show is REO.

Probably close to half of my shows this year were reschedules from the pandemic - I'd have to look at the list. There are still rescheduled shows that haven't happened - I go into at least next summer with those.

Because the iridium was closed for renovations longer than anticipated, almost all of the shows were pushed to 2022. I’m also seeing Joe B in 2022.

My Wife and I saw Dylan at the Beacon last night. IMHO it's the best he has sounded in years. His band is fantastic. The 2 year break did him well. He was behind the Piano most of the night but stepped out front a few times. Came on at 8PM sharp, played right through and ended the show with "Every Grain Of Sand" at 9:45PM. No encore. We where back home up North by 10:30PM! Gettin' old!

One thing I’ve noticed about COVID is artists aren’t screwing around and playing early or on time and getting the show done.

Also Alan brings up an interesting point about vaccinations. In the NY/NJ region you need to be vaccinated to enter and it doesn’t seem to be a problem. But what if your favorite concert buddy isn’t vaccinated? Now that is a problem going forward.

As stubborn as he is, my buddy is actually pretty good about this. He offered to pay for the REO ticket for my wife, but I told him no. I won't buy him a ticket if it's for a venue that has the requirement. So unless there's a change after we have tix - like REO - it's not an issue between us. And I have no issue going alone - I've done that for years. It's just been the past 6-7 years that we've been going mostly together again.

That said, I did have a bit of an issue w/the change in the REO status. Not so much that they (REO - this is not a blanket venue requirement) changed to a vax requirement, but the timing was very poorly handled. I don't remember exactly when tix went on sale, but it was months ago. Then they announced the vax requirement about 6.5 weeks before the show. So, if you do the math, to get fully vaxxed in time to go to the show, you need five weeks for Pfizer or six for Moderna. So you had about three days to get the first shot. I didn't think it was totally fair to the people who'd already invested to leave them such a tight window for this. I have zero issue w/the vax requirement (I wish we were more like NY in that regard, to be honest), but give people a reasonable amount of time to be compliant.

One of my local venues, the Paramount offers on the spot testing if you are a non-vaxer but it’s $40. I guess you could also bring the results from your own test. On LI the rules aren’t as tough as NYC.

I haven’t been to the Garden yet but I believe those venues demand proof of vax. In NYC you even need to show proof is you are seeing a movie or eating dinner.

I’m done with concerts for 2021 unless a cheap Genesis ticket falls into my lap. But in 2022 I have a few Iridium tickets on tap and that place is pretty tight even with a 60% crowd. But they will require vaccinations to enter.

Btw got my booster over a week ago so we are all good here.

Up to date on all my shots as well. Haven’t been to a show requiring shots or tests yet, but I’ll have that two of my last three.

The Robin Trower tour, originally set for 2020 but ultimately postponed to 2022 is now cancelled.



I'm a bit disappointed, but I understand. Especially when it strikes someone close to you who does things the way you do.

I saw Tommy James And The Shondells with The Box Tops opening earlier tonight at the Genessee Theater in Waukegan.........good show only negative was the Shondells portion of the show was too loud......the Box Tops part was just right[bought the new Box Tops cd at the show it's called Box Tops Now it's basically their greatest his rerecorded with a few covers added]

double post.