Sunday, October 25, 2009

'Even better than the real thing...'

U2 bring their amazing and extravagant stage show to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena tonight, and the show will be streamed live on YouTube.

You can see it here.

So far, the quality of the stream is excellent. After the live show ends, YouTube will rebroadcast it at the U2 channel page.

Update: Apparently the show generated 10million live streams.

Tonight (Oct 30) the Foo Fighters will stream a show via Facebook. Details and links here.

These are the early days of what seems to be a groundbreaking new potential revenue model.

Thursday, October 1, 2009

'Bring on your wrecking ball..'



So, we make the trek out to the Meadowlands for the first two of the run of "final" shows at Giants Stadium. I thought last summer's shows here would take some beating, but the second night this time around turned out to be probably the best Springsteen stadium performance I've seen in the 28 years since my first show.

A big part of the reason for that was 'Darkness on the Edge of Town', the album Bruce and the band were playing in its entirety. The first night, they ran through 'Born To Run', but it's eight iconic songs are staples within the setlist in any case, so the novelty was hearing them in order.

With 'Darkness' though, there are tracks you rarely hear live, but which are among some of the most powerful and beautiful songs he's written. It was a wonderful timewarp. The songs sounded as fresh as ever and the band were clearly relaxed and into the show as much as the Friday night crowd.



The opener on the first night was brand new. 'Wrecking Ball' spoke to the unique connection between band, audience and place. It was great. And it was the first time in thirty-odd shows that I'd witnessed the debut of a new song. There was a bit of a glitch with the lyric teleprompter, which was displayed on the backdrop behind the band, but no-one minded.

The second night was perfect.

(There's a cool video - not the one below - on iTunes now, which strangely has edited in Bruce's wife Patti Scialfa, who didn't play at either night, and edited out Curt Ramm's trumpet solo).




Here's the first night's setlist, including 'Born To Run' straight through...

Wrecking Ball
Seeds
Johnny 99
Atlantic City
Outlaw Pete
Hungry Heart
Working on a Dream
Thunder Road
Tenth Avenue Freeze-out
Night
Backstreets
Born to Run
She's the One
Meeting Across the River
Jungleland
Waitin' on a Sunny Day
The Promised Land
Into the Fire
Lonesome Day
The Rising
Badlands
No Surrender

Encores:
Raise Your Hand
E Street Shuffle
Growin' Up
American Land
Dancing in the Dark
Hard Times
Rosalita


Here's the second night, with 'Darkness On The Edge Of Town' straight through...

Wrecking Ball
Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out
No Surrender
Outlaw Pete
Hungry Heart
Working on a Dream
Badlands
Adam Raised a Cain
Something in the Night
Candy's Room
Racing in the Street
The Promised Land
Factory
Streets of Fire
Prove It All Night
Darkness on the Edge of Town
Waitin' on a Sunny Day
Raise Your Hand
I'm Goin' Down
Be True
Jailhouse Rock
Thunder Road
Long Walk Home
The Rising
Born to Run

Encores:
Cadillac Ranch
Bobby Jean
American Land
Dancing in the Dark
Rosalita


And this - this - is simply the music of the Gods. Unsurpassable. It's one of my absolute favorite Bruce songs anyway, but tonight it was just magical.