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Archive for the ‘WMMR 93.3 FM–Philadelphia, PA’ Category

[DID NOT ATTEND: November 15, 2023] Geddy Lee In Conversation

It’s crazy that I could have seen Jeff Tweedy and Geddy Lee read from their latest books and be interviewed in the same month.

Much like with Jeff, though, I didn’t really want to see Geddy read from his book.  I wasn’t even sure I cared enough about him anymore to read his book.  I mean, as a once die-hard Rush fan, I assume I knew everything about the band that I was devoted to.

But listening to the story in the video below, maybe I haven’t.

Also, I had no intention of going to New York to see this show, but seeing that Paul Rudd was his interviewer is pretty amazing.  I had no idea it would be in that format and how amazing would that have been?

I would have gone to the Philly event buy holy crap the tickets were so expensive!  So I decided to not bother.

The guest at the Met Philly was Pierre Robert who I have never heard of.  Apparently he is a DJ with WMMR, which I don’t really listen to.  So I guess he was probably a good choice for interviewing Geddy Lee.  Just not as interesting as Paul Rudd.

Here’s a clip from Philly, followed by a clip from New York

 

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[ATTENDED: November 13, 2019] The HU

The HU are from Mongolia.  I first heard about them when their video for “Wolf Totem” was getting some buzz.  I loved their heavy sound and their gorgeous instruments.  I wish these pictures did justice to the intricate detail and coloring of these traditional(ish?) instruments, but the lighting was just awful the whole night.

There are technically four guys in the band, but for the tour they had four extra guys supporting them.  It’s hard to know how “necessary” the other four guys were, but honestly, the songs are so percussion-heavy, there’s no way that they could have made these songs without at least one drummer (two were even better).

The band has only one album out (so its pretty amazing that they headliners)  They played the whole album and jammed out some of the songs longer than on record.

The most surprising thing though was that the DJ from WMMR came out and introduced them saying that they played their songs on the station.  Is that possible?  That’s pretty amazing if they do.  He also made a pretty funny comment about talking to them all day (they speak almost no English), although they posted a picture showing that they took them axe-throwing which is pretty hilarious).

The four guys stood at the front of the stage. (more…)

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[ATTENDED: August 7, 2016] Pearl Jam

2016-08-07 18.26.10After the excitement of seeing Pearl Jam at the Wells Fargo Center, we were psyched out of our minds to go to Fenway.  I didn’t realize that Fenway has a regular concert series.  I’d assumed that Pearl Jam were the first band to play there–they weren’t–but that didn’t detract in any way from the coolness of the venue.

Neither of us are baseball fans, although when I lived in Boston two decades ago, I did attend a couple of games at Fenway because it is a landmark (and when I was a kid I loved baseball, so duh).  But we knew that the venue would make the show even more special.

We’d have loved to have gone to both shows, but unlike some people, we couldn’t get tickets for both nights.  However, through a small piece of luck, I won tickets to a screening of Friday night’s show on Saturday night.  What?  Well, each night is filmed.  So the film crew filmed Friday night, then edited the footage together and had it ready on the next night as a really nicely edited package at the House of Blues (across the street from Fenway) on Saturday night.

It seemed kind of dumb to go to a music venue to watch a movie.  And Sarah and I were skeptical about going.  But we did and we had a  great time.  I’ve watched live DVDs and it’s always an okay thing to do–fun, but never like you were really there. But this was different. Having a group of some 600 people in a club–with bars and good lighting and excellent sound–it made it feel (almost) like a real concert.  And even though we laughed at the people who were clapping and cheering (as if the band were actually there), and taking videos of the screen (my battery died or I would have grabbed a few screen shots too), we were caught up in the excitement on several occasions as well. (more…)

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[ATTENDED: April 28, 2016] Pearl Jam

pjphilyWells Fargo Center is becoming one of my favorite venues.  Not because the acoustics are so good (although they are pretty good), but because now I’ve seen three of my favorite concerts there: Rush, Muse and now Pearl Jam.

I’ve been a fan of Pearl Jam for nearly their entire 25 years of existence.  I loved their first few albums, lost my way a bit in the late 1990s and then came back big time in 2001 when I enjoyed listening to their Live bootleg series.   Their live shows sounded amazing–super long, playing different songs every night–and making all of their songs sound more alive than on record.  They just sounded amazing.

And yet I had never seen them.  I should probably have gone on the 2003 tour but didn’t.  And then I met Sarah and Pearl Jam was one of her favorite bands, but she’d never seen them either.  Since we’ve been married they’ve toured near us 6 times.  We had some excuses of little babies for a couple of those tours, but we should have certainly gone in 2013.

Well, here it is, their 25th anniversary tour and Sarah and I finally got to see them.  And, although I do wish we’d gone before, was it ever worth the wait. (more…)

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SOUNDTRACK: Philadelphia Radio Stations (circa 1990 and 2010)

There’s a Dead Milkmen song called “The Big Sleazy” in which the chorus is

“I hate MMR I hate YSP/You know that classic rock/Does not interest me.”

I’ve always been amused by the song, especially when I travel to Philly and hear these stations.  That song is from 1990, so 20 years later I’m not sure what the band would think of their new playlists.

But one thing I never really noticed before is the middle verse which is about one of my favorite Philly stations WXPN.  The verse is:

I hate what they’ve done to XPN
Those folk Nazis ruined my favorite station
I hate what they’ve done to XPN
If you hear it now it’s just a pale imitation.

Now, I have no idea what XPN was like before, but, yea, I can see that he folk Nazis are in charge.  Of course, I rather like that.  However, XPN also plays a bunch of artists who are broader than the folk label, so I wonder if they have changed even more since 1990.

History is fascinating, innit?

[READ: April 3, 2010] Trinity

Collins Gibson is a patron at our library.  He has been working on this book for a few years now.  The first time I looked at a bit of it, it was a novel.  I hadn’t seen him for a while and now he has brought the book back as a screenplay.

I didn’t read enough of the original novel to know whether this works better as a novel or a screenplay, but given the very visual nature of the story, it seems like screenplay fits the story better. And so, since Collins is a good guy, I’m going to do my part to get the word out about the story. (more…)

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