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Gnarls Barkley Headline 150th MySpace Secret Show in NYC

“It is extremely hot,” said Cee-Lo Green from the stage of the Filmore at Irving Plaza in New York City last night. He wasn’t kidding. Show-goers who stumbled from the main floor into the hallway in search of precious fresh air looked like they’d just stepped out of a swimming pool — hair matted, clothes soaked straight through. The occasion was the 150th MySpace Secret Show, an event that — bizarrely — paired Green’s band Gnarls Barkley with brutal New York math rock outfit Battles. Like all MySpace Secret Shows, there was no way to purchase tickets for the event. Interested parties had to add the Secret Show profile to their MySpace “Top 8″ in order to receive instructions on where and when to pick up the wristbands that gained them complimentary admission to the show. “I want to give these kids memories,” explained MySpace music editor Isac Walter. “These shows are designed for me, as a kid. If my favorite band was playing for free, in a venue like Irving Plaza instead of Madison Square Garden, fuck yeah, I’d stand in line.” By the looks of the crowd — capped, Walter said, at 1,050 — a lot of people shared his sentiment. The larger question was how two headliners so musically polarized would appeal to the sweltering crowd. “I honestly don’t get it,” laughed Battles fan Nadia Standard, 26. “The bands are from two different worlds. I’m curious to see how the 16-year-old Gnarls fans and the musichead Battles fans interact.” Seth Dukes, 22, felt differently. “I think it totally fits,” he said. “Battles is ‘out there,’ Gnarls is ‘out there.’ Both bands are, musically, on the edge.” As it turned out, he was right. Though their initial squall of feedback may have disoriented some attendees, almost everyone was won over by the end of their manic set. Gnarls Barkley, needless to say, didn

Published: 2008-06-09
Provider: Rolling Stone
Keywords: Rock News, Live Shows

Megadeth, In Flames, High On Fire Ground and Pound at Gigantour in New York

The third installment of Gigantour, Dave Mustaine’s traveling metal circus, had its first of two sold-out shows at New York’s Hammerstein Ballroom last night. Never one to blow an entrance, Mustaine opened Megadeth’s set standing alone onstage, ripping into “Sleepwalker,” the first cut from last year’s United Abominations. From then on, the order of business was to thrash as hard as possible for ninety minutes, with items on the agenda including a blistering “Take No Prisoners” and a sneer-heavy “Symphony of Destruction.” Mustaine’s ginger mop doesn’t bob as much as it used to, but his chops were still there — impressive for a guy who had to essentially re-learn his instrument five years ago after suffering nerve damage. The big revelation of the night was newly added lead guitarist Chris Broderick, who made trading shred-heavy lines with Mustaine on “Hangar 18″ seem like child’s play. And speaking of children, the 1984 mullets several attendees forced upon their spawn likely qualify as a form of child abuse. Bouncing back from a pair of albums that were light on memorable moments, Sweden’s In Flames performed a handful of vicious songs from their latest, A Sense of Purpose. Diehard fans gnashed their teeth at the dearth of pre-2000 material, but new songs “The Mirror’s Truth” and “Disconnected” featured enough bite to grab newer ears and likely won back a few of the old ones. Most attendees in the massive line missed an impressive — if unpleasantly early — set from Oakland’s High on Fire, who conjure up as much blood and thunder as Mastodon and do it with only three guys. Phoenix-based youthful Internet buzz band (7 million MySpace views!) Job for a Cowboy followed by showing off solid technical proficiency and was the night’s most straightforwardly brutal act, suggesting the band could become pretty noteworth

Published: 2008-04-23
Provider: Rolling Stone
Keywords: Rock News, Live Shows

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Led Zeppelin: The Full Report From David Fricke

For the second encore of their first full concert in twenty-seven years, at London’s 02 arena last night, Led Zeppelin tore into “Rock and Roll,” from their untitled fourth album, with a joyful vengeance. As drummer Jason Bonham hammered with the ghostly precision and ferocity of his late father, guitarist Jimmy Page fired dirty chunks of Chuck Berry and bassist John Paul Jones kept iron time with familiar reserve, singer Robert Plant sang the most obvious words of the night: “Been a long time since I rock and rolled.” Overhead, images of a much younger Zeppelin, in concert during the early and mid-Seventies, flashed on a huge digital-video screen. In those films, Led Zeppelin were the biggest, loudest and most cocksure band in rock. Jimmy Page’s now snow-white hair was still jet black; Robert Plant was a golden god, not yet a Viking elder, and the late John Bonham — whose death in 1980 abruptly ended Zeppelin’s reign — still ruled the engine room. But the band that played underneath those memories last night was not the one that misfired at Live Aid in 1985 or again in New York in 1988. This one was rehearsed, ready and out to kill. This band was Led Zeppelin in every way. Page, Plant, Jones and Bonham the Younger opened their two-hour show with the confident wit and colossal nerve of “Good Times Bad Times,” the first song on Led Zeppelin’s 1969 debut album. Even before Plant opened his mouth, the original fury — a surprisingly lean, dub-like crossfire of cannonshot chords, frantic, gulping bass runs and polyrhythmic swagger — was in order and in force. “In the days of my youth/I was told what it means to be a man,” Plant sang, in the slightly lower register of someone who gives those lessons now. It was an appropriate effect, too — an admission of age delivered with feral pride — on a night dedicated to the memory of Zeppelin’s late friend and mentor, Atlantic Records’ co-founder

Published: 2007-12-12
Provider: Rolling Stone
Keywords: Rock News, Led Zeppelin Reunion

A Mostly Reunited Van Halen Hit Madison Square Garden

There were plenty of reasons to be skeptical walking into last night’s Van Halen concert at New York’s Madison Square Garden. In no particular order: founding bassist Michael Anthony has been kicked to the curb in favor of Eddie Van Halen’s sixteen-year-old son Wolfgang, David Lee Roth’s vocals have sounded more than a bit shaky in recent years and Ed has done little in these past few years except go to rehab and write scores for porn flicks. Yet when the curtain dropped and the band burst into a note-perfect “You Really Got Me” it became clear this was somehow going to work. It was hard to know where to look first when the show began: a shockingly well-preserved Ed ripping into his guitar, Dave frantically waving a red flag and grinning like a killer clown or Wolfgang, standing confidently on the side of the stage, playing a set consisting entirely of songs written at least seven years before he was born. Ultimately Dave — who reveled in every moment onstage — won out. His voice didn’t sound like it was still 1984, but his vocals were significantly stronger than we’d expected. His signature karate kicks weren’t as high as they used to be and he flubbed his share of lyrics (you’d think he’d at least remember “Pretty Woman”), but his boundless enthusiasm made up for everything. From 1985 until 2004 Van Halen fans had to wade through endless Sammy Hagar (or, worse, Gary Cherone) songs to get to a handful of Roth-era classics — and even when they came, some other guy was singing them. It was barely tolerable, but it was the only Van Halen we had. On this tour, the events from 1985 to the present have been erased. What remains are what Dave has called “favorites that you’ve been hearing tearing out of the back of a pick-up at the Burger King drive-thru for how many summertimes.” The only problem was that the arena sound system sounded like it was composed of 10,000 pick-up trucks taken from the Burger King drive-thru. Maybe it was just where we

Published: 2007-11-15
Provider: Rolling Stone
Keywords: Rock News, Live Shows, Van Halen Tour

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