My FM Weekend - Nassau and Continental (Spoilers)

[cosar]

I was asked in another thread if I could post this here. Apologies again for its length.

My boys and I went to the shows at both the Nassau Coliseum and Continental Arena - best seats I've ever had for both - and we had an unbelievably awesome time! Best concert EVER? They both were! Those who are still going to shows in the future are in for a treat. And if they hit MSG on the second leg - well, as Joy puts it, I am SO there.

Starting with Friday night at the Coliseum. I hadn't planned to go to the Coliseum show, but when great seats popped up on Ticketmaster at the last minute, I couldn't pass them up. I let my older son and his friend take the two seats in the 2nd row left section, and my younger son and I took the two in the 8th row on the left aisle of the center section. SNicksed (Steve) is so right when he says get as close as you can. I would have enjoyed this show from the last row of the upper deck, but being up close makes you feel like you're part of the show, not part of the audience. It's a whole different experience - WOW!! They're right there on top of you, almost literally, and you can see them as real people rather than figures on the stage and screens.

The music, of course, was great. Same set list as they've been doing since the Cleveland show. I'm not going to do a song-by-song - Jackie and others have done that better than I could anyway - but it's clear that they've got the music working incredibly well. I’m just going mention a few things that really stood out for me.

First, Lindsey is totally into it. He was so interactive with the fans, pointing at them, singing to them, coming to the front of the stage and leaning down to them. During GYOW he came over to the front left side of the stage. There was a redhead standing right in front of the stage, directly in front of where we were, who was so excited throughout the whole concert (I remember thinking, Joy wasn't planning to be here, was she?). Well, when Lindsey came over, she reached both hands up to him. And he came all the way to the front of the stage, kneeled down, and leaned his head down so she could put her hands on either side of his head. She grabbed his head and gave him a big kiss on the cheek (please don’t read that obscenely). And he was continuing to play the guitar the whole time!

Lindsey was also playful on stage - whether snuggling up to Stevie, bashing on Mick's cymbals with his hands, smashing into John during Tusk, pawing his own guitar with both hands on Come and GYOW, swinging his guitar in back of his head. You can tell he is particularly happy to be playing some of his new stuff. I'll admit that Come is not one of my favorites on SYW, but with his enthusiasm and guitar playing on it at the concerts, you can't help but love it. Lindsey's guitar solos were worth the price of admission alone. He also had some good commentary, like his intro to Peacekeeper: “When love is gone, there’s always justice, and when justice is gone, there’s always force.” One other cute vignette - at the end of the show, someone threw a beat-up, floppy cowboy hat on stage. Lindsey picked it up, seemed like he wasn't sure if the owner had just dropped it so he offered it back, but when the owner motioned that it was for Lindsey, he smiled, shrugged, popped it on his head and walked off the stage wearing it.

As for Stevie - she was more subdued, but seemed genuinely happy to be there singing (and genuinely appreciative of the crowd energy). She looked and sounded great! She had bright (and I mean bright) red fingernail polish - I don't know if it was so noticeable from further back, but from where I was, her fingers really shone like a beacon. She was in her Reebok platforms from the start, and moved around a fair amount - though much less so than Lindsey. There was someone who helped her on and off the stage a few times - it was very dark and there were a lot of wires on stage, and it seemed that they were just guiding her so she wouldn't trip.

Her use of the shawls, particularly the black one for Rhiannon and the gold sparkling one for GDW, was VERY effective. And her twirls on Stand Back - at least six, it might have been seven - were wonderful. She kept thanking the crowd, which was going nuts through the whole show. At the end of the show, one of the fans held up a bouquet of flowers to her. She came to the front of the stage, knelt down to take the flowers and left the stage carrying them.

Mick was Mick, lots of facial expressions and bug-eyed smiles. He was definitely having a good time, and his drumming was excellent. On his World Turning solo - well, the whole drum vest thing is pretty gimmicky, but Mick managed to pull it off by sheer dint of enthusiasm. He had his best bug-eyed maniacal face on and kept asking “are you still with me?!” After the final encore Mick lingered on the stage after the others had left, as if he didn’t want to go, and told us all to “be good to each other.” And John - he stayed out of the spotlight as usual, but held a strong, steady bass line. He did manage a few smiles, particularly when Lindsey came over to ram into him on Tusk.

The crowd energy was very high from the start. The place was packed all the way up to the last rows of the upper deck, even around to the rear side of the stage. Only the few sections directly behind the stage were empty. Everyone in my section was standing for almost the entire show. People sat for a couple of Lindsey’s songs just to take a break, but were up again in each case for the next song. And people sang along on a number of songs, particularly Landslide - Stevie even stopped singing in the middle of the song at one point and let the audience finish the line on its own. The band seemed to feed off the audience energy, just as the audience fed off of Lindsey’s energy. It could not have been better - well maybe not until Sunday night.

For the Continental Arena show, my boys and I were all together, sort of. They were in the 12th row (dead center) - I was a row behind in the seat directly in back of my younger son. Enchanted (Eileen) and her husband and 11-year old daughter were in the three seats next to my boys - we had discovered a couple of days ago through our posts on the board that we’d be neighbors. Her daughter looked great in her tie-dyed FM shirt, clapping and singing along with the Mac. (Enchanted, hope you don’t mind my mentioning that - it was great to meet the three of you.) There were actually a number of kids in my vicinity, and they were all totally into the concert (including my two) - dancing, singing, clapping. I loved the intergenerational spirit - and it’s wonderful that these kids appreciate great music!

(As a side note, the people next to me were comped industry VIPs, and they confirmed what we’ve been seeing at a number of venues - namely that a large number of prime seats get held back and get released late if the VIP demand doesn’t claim them all. They said there are only a handful of artists - they mentioned Bruce Springsteen as one - who don’t do it this way and instead insist that the prime seat tickets get sold to fans right away.)

The concert was the same set list, and again it was fabulous. Obviously a lot of similarities to Friday night, but some differences that stood out. First, the sound seemed a little cleaner. I think the Coliseum acoustics are bad even as arenas go, and the sound Friday was occasionally a little muddy (particularly on Stand Back). You could hear the difference as early as John’s bass solo in The Chain. And Stevie’s voice was really on on Sunday. She sounded great Friday, but Sunday was close to perfection.

The crowd energy was high, but not as high at the start as it was at Nassau. Everyone actually sat down for Say You Will (what’s up with that?). They were back up for Never Going Back Again, though, particularly after Lindsey dedicated it to his two kids who were in the audience and who, Lindsey said, had never before seen him perform the song on stage. Lindsey did a great job with it, embellishing it a little more than the Nassau performance. But then they were sitting again for Come. Still, Lindsey supplied more than enough energy on that one, and it seemed to energize the crowd.

Landslide was phenomenal. Everyone singing along. Huge cheers when Stevie got to the line “I’m getting older too”, particularly when she started flashing five fingers twice (to indicate 55) and smiling at Lindsey. Someone was holding up a Happy Birthday Stevie sign near the front, and turned it around a couple of times to cue the audience to sing after Landslide ended. A number did sing, with Stevie smiling and waving her hands like a conductor. Then she said something like “what a great voice”, smiled, and said “happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me.” The crowd went totally nuts.

From that point, the energy level just kept building - it definitely peaked above the level on Friday. Stevie looked like she was having a GREAT time - relaxed, playful, definitely higher energy and more interactive than Friday. She was smiling a lot, waving to the crowd, giving thumbs up signs, blowing kisses a few times, vamping wonderfully on Gold Dust Woman (at the end of the song, when she poses with her back to the audience, I was in just the right spot to see her face reflected in the glass in front of Mick’s drum set - it was very surreal). On Stand Back, I couldn’t believe the energy she put into it (and I counted nine twirls, two or three more than on Friday).

Mick and John were pretty much the same as Friday, though it seemed that John pushed back a little harder when Lindsey rammed him on Tusk. Mick covered for the malfunction on the drum vest pretty well, though he looked a little disappointed that he had to cut his solo short. Still he came out to the microphone when the song ended and said something like “well we had a little malfunction, but - are you still with me?!” (His signature line from his vest solo on Friday.) I have to admit, I was just as happy not to get the drum vest solo on Sunday - he pulled it off entertainingly Friday, but for me once was enough. My 10-year old son, on the other hand, was truly disappointed that the drum vest failed - he said he thought the drum vest solo Friday was really “excellent”.

Stevie’s voice was so beautiful on Goodbye Baby. People were waving goodbye with their hands and lighters. It’s such a sad song, but it was a beautiful ending. Then the band lingered on the stage (all of them, not just Mick) while we all cheered. Stevie in particular looked very happy, very emotional. She was smiling, waving, blowing kisses. She gave John a huge hug. Mick said the final goodbyes while Stevie, Lindsey and John looked on. Then they walked off together. The best concert ever. Again!

[saradorna]

Thank you, Cosar. I glad you and your sons had so much fun.

Isabel

[Tango]

Thank you for posting your review. Now I want you to go a step further. Put it on the Official PENGUIN Review section. You can get it there by going to the main page of The Ledge, and clicking on that spot above the tour info.

Just a word to you- there are plenty of tickets in front for fans that are NOT in the fan club. I gave away my fan club seats to friends, and bought mine elsewhere. Trust me, I'm no "comped VIP" and I have seats with folks that aren't either. My worst seat out of 5 shows is now in the 6th row. My seats for the fan club? Row 30 and beyond. You weigh it. Come in out of the darkness. You were used. WE were all used. STOP BEING USED Cosar.

The few other good seats, those involved in the "top down sale", those that simonsays1 spoke about . . . a few of those "good seats" went after the fan club members' passwords were stolen and used. How many emails did you read saying a person's user name IS their password. Anyone that joined the fan club would know that. Anyone could borrow the name "cosar" if that is the name you used to sign onto the board and steal your heart away by taking your alottment of tickets. And Mr. Todd never fixed that.

The seats I was shown via Ticketmaster were not good as I was told to sign onto ticket master three hours after sales began. Mr. Todd never tried to mitigate that. He never tried to.

You think maybe by the second leg he'll care more? Don't bank on it.