Zombyboy spent some time last night listening to various renditions of Lennon‘s Working Class Hero. I had no idea so many folks had covered this song.
Go read his thoughts about the song, the original recording, and some of the covers.
Yesterday the Modulator family spent the day together. First watching a fine performance of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town and then a post play dinner.
I’ll spend this evening with Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe and Stockholm Syndrome. Conflicts preclude any of the rest of the family from joining.
Karl Denson is a recent favorite and I’ve been a Jerry Joseph fan for several years and am looking forward to seeing him in this new grouping.
We spent the evening with the Yonder Mountain String Band and we are spent!
Some preferred the first set and others, including me, the second. Perhaps because they opened the second set with my t-shirt of the evening: Morning Dew. It was interesting to hear this in blue grass rendition except that, as through the rest of the show, Jeff Austin’s vocals were pretty buried in the sound. One of our group, one who can often listen to a Dark Star and tell you year and venue, said he didn’t recognize it until half way through.
They were all blue grass all night and the crowd of 8-900 loved it. And, except for the vocals, we did too.
Well, maybe there is a way to get back that old file that you can’t find. Especially if it was ever on the WWW. Kim’s story (shortened a bit):
I have a client with a site that’s been in operation since early 2000, and we recently discovered that a couple of archived issues of her newsletter from that time were missing. We’ve ported the site over to several new designs over the years, ….Yep, another great use of an already indispensible resource. I use the audio section of Archive.org to listen to and download great music on a regular basis. And there is much more.
I was convinced they were simply gone for good, but then I had a last ditch idea: the Wayback Machine. I went and put in her site, checked back to one of the 2000 versions, and sure enough, there were the missing archives. I recreated the pages on her site, and now I’m a hero.
The Wayback Machine definitely has practical applications.
What can I say? 90 minutes was way too short.
When was the last time you went to a movie and no one, no one left the theater until the credits were definitely all done.
Sure, it was a self selected crowd but any serious fan of late ’60s early ’70s music must see this. Oh, and any serious fan of rock, blues, folk, etc., will not want to miss this film. Oh yea, if you are a fan of Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead or The Band then you should go see Festival Express now.
I have money waiting for the extended version DVD.
And I have money waiting for the rest of the video material. This is some of the best concert video I have seen (and I have seen a bunch). It is raw, powerful, and it was like being face to face and mind to mind with the performers.
The Grateful Dead perform a beautiful New Speedway Boogie and the great shots of Pigpen blowin’ his harp will make any Deadhead want more.
The oddest scenes in the film came from the GD material. At Toronto, the first stop, during Don’t Ease Me In there are camera sweeps of the crowd showing nearly everyone sitting on their butts as if they were at the symphony. Those of you that have been to GD/Dead shows over the years know that this does not happen. Well, maybe sometimes during drumz/space. It was quite a jarring scene.
The Band’s performances of The Weight and I Shall be Released are very powerful. You could tell that they meant and felt every note and every word.
No words for Janis are worthy. Cry Baby and Tell Mama well simply knock you on your ass. Go ahead, try to get back up. She’ll just knock you down again. Worth triple the price of admission all by themselves.
Oh yea, the rest of the movie was great fun as well. I’d love to have a DVD just of jamming scenes from the train. The unscheduled stop in Saskatoon to replenish party fluids is a kick. And the side story about all the Canadian kids wanting to get in free is worth expanding a bit.
Update (9/2): The DVD with 50 additional minutes will be released November 2.