New York Town Hall

[bigmaclover]

Those must be the same idiots that went on 16 beer runs during the LB songs of the SYW tour...

[bucklind17]

I kind of agree with the RS review.

Don't get me wrong, I had a great time and I love seeing Lindsey live. But something is a little off when I find myself loving the Fleetwood Mac staples MORE than the solo songs. Some of the new songs sounded great live ("In Our Own Time" and "The Way Love Goes" especially) but the set is somewhat oddly paced and doesn't allow for the build that I personally would have liked to experience. It's great to end with a huge crowd pleaser and I'm a big fan of deep cuts, but I think it would have been better to throw in another known track into the encore to keep the energy up. Then again, of all the non-new solo material, I probably would have chosen ENTIRELY different songs.

Again, I had a great time. Lindsey sounded great, was energetic, put on a good show and his guitar work was sublime as always. But there's a precision to his live shows, a lack of spontaneity and clearly that's how he wants things to be but that combined with the set-in-stone chosen songs of this tour made it for a less exciting outing for me than the Gift of Screws tour shows I went to were. But I was on Cloud 9.5, so even that comparison is not a slight so much as maybe nothing ever will love up to those, in my book.

[WeepingWall]

I would hardly consider ending a Lindsey Buckingham concert with the gospel-like last track from Lindsey Buckingham's last album, released but three years ago to be a "deep cut" choice

[michelej1]

Music Review, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/29/ar...view.html?_r=1
Spiraling Guitar Solos to Pace or Stoke Songs By JON PARELES
Published: September 28, 2011

Lindsey Buckingham’s fingers started to race as soon as he’d basked in some applause at Town Hall on Tuesday night. A half-dozen songs later, all played solo with guitar, they had barely rested. His fingers had done dazzling things: fingerpicking that could be pristine and meditative or pointedly aggressive, counterpoints of staccato thumb-picked bass lines and gliding melodies, quasi-Baroque austerity leading into frenetic strumming.

The guitar was the full partner of his voice, and sometimes the senior partner, pacing the songs and stoking their dynamics, supporting the vocals or sparring with them, hinting at ragtime and raga, grabbing the melodic foreground. Mr. Buckingham’s guitar parts tore away the pop exteriors of songs he originally recorded on his solo albums and with Fleetwood Mac. They unveiled the desperation in songs like “Trouble” and “Never Going Back Again,” and they propelled him to howl, moan and shriek. Performing alone, he stretched pained moments into huge crescendos.

Mr. Buckingham’s songwriting, arrangements and playing were at the core of blockbuster 1970s and 1980s albums by Fleetwood Mac, the band he left in 1987 and rejoined a decade later. But he has also continued a career recording and performing on his own; he made his new album, “Seeds We Sow” (Buckingham/Eagle Rock Entertainment), almost entirely by himself: songwriting, producing, performing. In one of the little speeches he gave onstage — honoring his inner child, insisting on “the importance of change” — he described Fleetwood Mac as a “big machine” and his solo career as a small one, likening it to an independent film that gives a director a chance to “take risks” and “follow your heart.”

Yet Mr. Buckingham does almost exactly the same thing in both settings: writing verse-chorus-verse pop songs around finely worked guitar frameworks. The lyrics can be compelling or perfunctory — “Deep down there is freedom, deep down there will be a reason/At the end of the season we will rise from this treason” — but the guitar parts sparkle with invention. “In Our Own Time,” from the new album, has sudden outbursts of syncopated picking, leaping out like controlled ambushes.

To execute those structures, he brought a band, and that was a mixed blessing. Those musicians, who have long accompanied him, took no risks whatsoever, and the flexibility Mr. Buckingham had when he was playing alone was traded for neatly rehearsed, professional run-throughs that rose or fell solely on their advance planning. The version of “Tusk” was a keeper; it took away the marching-band jauntiness and lingered over the song’s suspicion and need: “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on?” And the somber Fleetwood Mac song “I’m So Afraid” showcased Mr. Buckingham’s spiraling guitar heroics. But for most of his time with the band, Mr. Buckingham merely presented his craftsmanship. Playing solo, as he did in a final encore, he was both a virtuoso and a man singing his heart out.

Lindsey Buckingham appears on Thursday at the Mayo Performing Arts Center in Morristown, N.J., and in conversation on Nov. 4 at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan.

[Regina]

I would add a few songs I just personally like, but...otherwise, the "feedback" I got while racing down 6th Avenue with people who just left was really positive except for one dude who called it "monotonous."
If I weren't running for my bus, I'd probably deck him (no, I wouldn't. I just like to babble when I write;-)
What I could very much do without? The canned speeches/"ad libs." I was kind of in amused mode when I heard them last night but I might enter p.o.'ed mode when I hear them all again in a few days. It's fine if you see one show and that's it, and...really...I guess that's who the show is geared to, but it's a bit...um...well, I'd say it's kind of like a glimpse behind the curtain. I know it's a performance but it's NOT a play. And, to Lindsey, it seems to be, in some ways. I understand he has something to say and wants people to GET it. I think he also desperately wants to be taken seriously as an artist and brainiac but...let go a little. Just plugging a town's name into the script doesn't quite make it. He HAS done that during some performances but, so far, not at all with this tour. And very little in the second half of the last one, IMO.
Still, it's just a small part of the whole (the little clog in the machine as opposed to a major clog, if you will) so...

[michelej1]

^Since Lindsey will definitely read the Rolling Stone review, he will notice what they said about his persistent use of "talking points". If more of the mainstream media mentioned it, he might back off of the scripts.

Michele

[macpai]

Here's my blog on the show (kinda heavy on the trials and tribulations of getting to the show) but still plenty of Lindsey. (The blog itself has YT links, plus one short iPhone shot vid at the end.)

http://maximumtuneage.blogspot.com/2...t-us-down.html

Sometime in the course of Park's attempt to get to the Lindsey Buckingham show at Town Hall in New York City, my sister mused about artists finding out what people went through to be at a show. In this case, they might never know why there were empty seats at a show that had been eagerly awaited since it was announced. Anyway, here's my tale.

Like a good mother's daughter, we dutifully left four hours before the show so we could meet up with another friend -- Jenna, who I met on the Stevie Nicks signing line a couple years back. And thanks to failed signals (in Newark) and a disabled train (in the tunnel just before Penn Station) that lengthened the one-hour trip, we didn't even see her before the show.

We spent a couple hours cooling our heels on the train because of all the "Trouble." We were about to "Go Insane," because they were trying to "Shut Us Down." They'd "Gone Too Far" and it felt like we were going to be there "In Our Own Time" and not Lindsey's. High "Treason," if you ask me. (OK, I'll stop now.)

As fortune would have it, a couple from Toronto had gotten on from Rahway and they were going to the show too. They were doing an ultimate road trip -- nine shows -- two of which they had seen so far. According to Bree, there was always something weird that happened en route to a show (so obviously this whole mess was HER fault), but she had not missed even the start of one yet.

In fact, the freelance filmmaker and traveling companion Rob have been making a tour diary to document the stories that others found unbelievable. Mark and I got to be part of this particular one. After one hour, everyone was still upbeat. Two hours, maybe the worry started to creep in a little. A half hour later and the unrealistic plans started to be hatched (Should we switch to the PATH? Should we try and get a cab?)

So with about 20 minutes before the show was set to start, we finally got sprung and made the quick trek over to Town Hall where ... the lights hadn't even gone down yet. We made it!

And although we rationalized on the walk over that we would survive if we missed the first few numbers, I'm sure glad we didn't. The first five were amazing acoustic performances just belted out one after the other by Lindsey. "Shut Us Down," "Go Insane," "Trouble," "Never Going Back Again" and "Big Love." One seemingly more powerful than the next.

Then we got the band, with the ever-affable and versatile Brett Tuggle (Brett Giggle, if you ever try to text his name to someone that comes up as the default even if you pick Tuggle), lean guitarist Neale Heywood and expressive drummer Walfredo Reyes. They delivered a lovely version of "Under the Skin," this song really stuck with me and was still resonating after the show ended as well as the very soothing "All My Sorrows."

Now thanks to Ticketbastard and its merchant, I didn't get the new CD (which was preordered when I bought the tickets for the show) until the day before the concert. And so I didn't get to get too comfortable with the new material, but Lindsey plucked some of the more choice titles from the effort for the show, including "In Our Own Time," "Illumination," "Stars Are Crazy" and "End of Time." My current favorite track "That's the Way Love Goes" sounded particularly strong.

My only sticking point is Lindsey's profession that the new material is the best work he's ever done and a large leap forward. I don't doubt him for believing it to be true -- he's a renowned perfectionist and there's a lot of fine guitar work in the songs. There's just got to be a better way to voice that sentiment without it coming at the expense of his other material, not just with the Mac but his other solo albums as well. There's a fire in many of those songs that has attracted the audience who came to Town Hall to see him. Many of whom, I'm sorry to say and which I would never do personally, took a lot of breaks during the new stuff.

But for me and Mark, the show seemed to go by super-fast and Lindsey was into "Second Hand News" and "Tusk" before we knew it. Mark kept saying "Already?" And special note for "I'm So Afraid," because seeing this live is Lindsey wielding a vacuum instead of a Turner guitar, he just turns it toward the audience and sucks everyone right in. It's a song of amazing power in concert and something you can't even get from the best recorded copy of the show.

Another "Already?" from Mark as the opening notes of "Go Your Own Way" were sounded. And then we went our own way ... all the way down the aisle to the stage where I stood (with Bree) as Lindsey's feet for the final three songs ("Turn It On," "Treason" and "Seeds We Sow.") Got eye contact too and kind of a "Am I supposed to know her?" look from Lindsey and a great thumbs-up from Brett.

So amazing to be standing at his feet -- and reminiscent of when Park did that for a whole Mac show at the Izod Center -- and to watch where he was looking and the way he plays the guitar. From Row P, it's all so intense and he just gives every song, every word, every note everything he has. Standing at his feet, completely exhausting -- in the best way possible.

After the show (and after finally meeting up with Jenna), I drew the comparison to the way the late great Stevie Ray Vaughan worked. An analogy Mark quickly took to. He later offered a description of Lindsey's writing style as drawing you in with the hook and then smashing you in the face with a brick with the lyrics. And it's both of these powers that seemingly will always bring us back until ... the "End of Time."

[michelej1]

^That's a great review. I especially liked the part about using his guitar like a vacuum and sucking the audience in during ISA.

Michele

[bucklind17]

Originally Posted by michelej1

^That's a great review. I especially liked the part about using his guitar like a vacuum and sucking the audience in during ISA.

Michele

It's true! And I don't think he moved from that spot for the majority of the solo! It was pretty amazing.

[macpai]

Originally Posted by michelej1

^That's a great review. I especially liked the part about using his guitar like a vacuum and sucking the audience in during ISA.

Michele

Thanks Michele!
I don't know how that visual popped in my head, but glad it did.

[Nico]

Originally Posted by macpai

I agree with you. Unfortunately the dozens of people who kept getting up when he played them might not. But that's their problem.

It is! Sad but true, people sometimes just come for the hits. I love to hear the obscure, "other" tracks from my fave artists but I imagine that if I went to a concert of a person I wasn't as familiar with I'd expect to hear the popular stuff. Although I would be open to hearing other stuff because that's how I roll...

With LB's show, though, I feel like all the energy sort of takes the show off. I know there are some complainers about song choices and all, but when you are there in the moment you just get drawn in.

Thanks for the great reviews everyone!

[macpai]

You would think at an LB show people would be more open to it... and I think the majority is. But there's gonna be a segment that wants to hear all hits. The eternal battle for any artist.

I never thought of it before, but do you think there are any people who go "why doesn't he play Trouble or Go Insane like the record?"

[Nico]

Originally Posted by macpai

I never thought of it before, but do you think there are any people who go "why doesn't he play Trouble or Go Insane like the record?"

Oh sure for the former. I don't know about the latter because a LOT of people are huge The Dance stans and that version has sort of become entwined with that era. It's absolutely gorgeous and I imagine a lot of fans of LB's playing are probably more impressed with this version. I do sort of, um, sometimes want him to play NGBA a little more like the record- or at least how he does it live with FM. But, like I said in my own review, that is my only VERY minute critique if I have one. Honestly.

[macpai]

Originally Posted by Nico

Oh sure for the former. I don't know about the latter because a LOT of people are huge The Dance stans and that version has sort of become entwined with that era. It's absolutely gorgeous and I imagine a lot of fans of LB's playing are probably more impressed with this version. I do sort of, um, sometimes want him to play NGBA a little more like the record- or at least how he does it live with FM. But, like I said in my own review, that is my only VERY minute critique if I have one. Honestly.

That's true. There's a whole segment of the audience that got into FM through "The Dance." Re: NGBA. I can see that. In fact, I would like to see that. It is very beautiful the way it is and I'll never ever complain about getting to see it live under any circumstances, but that would be pretty cool.

[bigmaclover]

It may sound cheesy, but I felt very lucky to be there and get to see such an awesome show.

I guess if Lindsey were doing a show for the mega-hit crowd it would be seven or eight songs long and maybe 45 minutes long. A little vanilla if you ask me...

I thought it was nice to see him have a little more freedom in his song choice, in working his set out, etc. I don't think there is a lot of wiggle room in a FM set.

Coming out acoustic and playing that many hit songs early was a huge risk. I mean could he have maybe played I Know I'm Not Wrong somewhere, sure. Maybe one of the hits could have been in the encore, maybe Tusk.

If Stevie's songs really are about Lindsey, then he's not like other people and he'll do what he wants to...