Pop Songs 07 - I’ll write about every R.E.M. song, eventually
R.E.M. was a seminal band of the eighties and nineties, and now the Pop Songs 07 blog is reviewing each song from their catalogue one-by-one. Some of the entries have links to free mp3 links of cover versions.
Cool concept.
Metafilter: "We gave our final concert, The Band's final concert. We called it The Last Waltz."
Thanks to YouTube, we can all watch The Band's final concert from San Francisco in 1976, filmed by Martin Scorsese. Epic live performances.
The list of tracks, with direct video links is here:
Don't Do It, Theme from The Last Waltz, Up on Cripple Creek, The Shape I'm In, Who Do You Love, It Makes No Difference, Such a Night, Helpless, Stage Fright, The Weight, The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, Dry Your Eyes, Coyote, Mystery Train, Mannish Boy, Further on up the Road, Evangeline, Ophelia, Caravan, Forever Young, Baby Let Me Follow You Down, and I Shall Be Released with a ton of guests.
First concerts: Thanks for the mezzanines (MSNBC)
Begging your mom to let you go, and rocking your first concert T-shirt
My first concert was Grapes of Wrath at the PNE in about 1990. I waited in line for hours to get into the free show, and ended up in the front row, crushed against the barrier to see this melodic, Canadian shoegazer band. Fantastic.
I saw the first show of the new comeback tour by The Police in Vancouver last night (May 28, 2007) at GM Place, and thought it was great!
The Police have sooo many great hits!
I don't think there were any covers or new material, but they played all the hits and a few lesser known songs. There were some re-interpretations of a few songs, but it helped inject new energy into them and keep everything fresh.
There were ads shown pre-concert to join the official Police Fanclub.
The show was not too flashy, and kept the emphasis on the music. Wide-open stage, with good views even from behind the stage. There were video screens around the stage, which mostly featured the band. Some nice surprises in the staging, which I won't reveal here, other than a percussion set that rose up behind the drum set, including tympanies and a giant gong.
There were just the three band members on stage, and I noticed extra instrumentation on only one song. Lots of energy from Sting and Stewart Copeland, and everyone seemed happy to be there. The band's musicianship was great, and is really underappreciated, especially drummer Stewart Copeland. Their music has incredible pop sensibility, but the song composition is really unique for a rock, pop or reggae band.
There were two encores, and Sting thanked Vancouver and the Squamish Nation for hosting their concert practices. Great show!!!
Ummm, how about Today's Blog Music/ The Hype Machine?
This site is AWESOME!!!
What's the deal? People have blogs, and they post links to free mp3 music files. Hype Machine aggregates the links together, and links to, and streams, music from a huge range of these music blogs. I've heard stuff recently on Hype Machine from the Arctic Monkeys, Klaxons, Bloc Party, Bjork, Timbaland, LCD Soundsystem, Chemical Brothers and more, so the music ranges from mainstream to obscure. There are some dj mixes as well.
Presumably, all the files are all legal, and are used by the labels and musicians to promote their work. Hype Machine offers you several ways to purchase more work by each artist if you like them, but otherwise it's gloriously free.
I subscribe their podcast feed, but they also do several streaming options and RSS feeds too.
It's not Napster, but at the moment, I think it's the best source of great new music for free on the web.
