The Music of the Who at Carnegie Hall 3/2/10

The Who have been enjoying a career resurgence in the last few years, without really trying. They’ve been honored by Pres. Bush at the Kennedy Center and played the Super Bowl, all without putting out a new album or touring. Last night they were the inspiration for a 2.5-hour tribute concert at Carnegie Hall. Though Townshend apparently declined his invitation to appear (Roger Daltrey is off on tour with Eric Clapton) and the Pixies’ Frank Black canceled at the last minute, 21 artists picked up the slack, including a surprise performer who always seems to turn up at these things.

Sex Mob trumpet player Steven Bernstein opened the show with, appropriately enough for the venue, the Tommy Overture. He played very little though, turning the heavy lifting over to house band Rich Pagano & the Sugarcane Cups and the Music Unites Youth Choir. The subtlety of the Tommy score doesn’t exactly come through when belted by forty overly enthusiastic teenagers, who went so far as to sing the electric guitar part of “Pinball Wizard” (“dun-duuuuunnn”). Pagano’s bongo solo didn’t help.

Living Colour came out looking like an old episode of Family Matters, but the soul-funk veterans ripped into the lesser-known “Eminence Front” (off the Who’s decidedly non-classic It’s Hard) with a wall of guitar and seemingly nonstop bass soloing by Doug Wimbash. The Afro-pop sound suited the song’s many parts, as the band hopped and bopped around.

Norway’s Sondre Lerche came out with just an acoustic guitar – rarely a good sign. However, his guitar playing on “I’m a Boy” paid obvious homage to Who virtuoso…Keith Moon? Lerche’s guitar playing owed more to Moon’s drum attack than Townshend's windmills, attacking the chords with a stop-start rhythm that traded big chords for rhythmic fills, including an instrumental break that sounded like a drum solo plus melody.

Thanks to that youth choir, Kaki King performed only the second-worst “Pinball Wizard” of the evening, feebly approximating the guitar part as if she wasn’t entirely sure how it went. Reedeming the performance somewhat was a partner playing some sort of feedback machine, squalling out noises that filled Carnegie Hall and all but drowned out King. Not that that was a bad thing.

When I interviewed the Postelles a few weeks back, they spilled the beans that they would be performing “I Can’t Explain.” From a band that takes such obvious influence from the British Invasion, picturing this cover was not a challenge. Give them credit for being the first band of the evening to actually sound like the Who though, roaring through the band’s first single with obvious delight.

Israeli songwriter Asaf Avidan made the bold choice of ignoring the Who’s catalogue completely and instead imitating Melissa Etheridge strangling a cat. Wait...the program says that was “Naked Eye” off Who’s Next? Could’ve fooled me.

Mose Allison continued the one-two punch of awful, paying tribute to himself with “Young Man Blues.” Yes, I realize the Who covered your song countless times when they were younger, but if you’re not even going to play their version it’s just bragging. And following it up with a recent sequel “Old Man Blues”? Tacky.

Count on Bob Mould of Hüsker Dü to get things back on track. What the program listed as a The Who Sell Out medley was mainly just “I Can’t Reach You,” complete with a windmill or two on his roaring sky-blue guitar.

Nicole Atkins' gorgeous voice tried to soar on “The Song Is Over," but the Sugarcanes’ leaden backing kept dragging her back to earth. Throughout the evening they proved better on the early punkish Who than tackling the grander orchestral scope of the band’s later years, where it seemed to be all they could do to just hang on.

This made “Love Ain’t for Keeping,” also off Who’s Next, a particularly poor choice. Muddy sound didn’t help their case as, after an introductory speech comparing Keith Moon to Levon Helm, Pagano proved that unlike the legendary voice behind “The Weight” he could not competently drum and sing at the same time.

Judge Raul Madón’s performance by the applause: polite as he entered the stage, thunderous (and standing) as he exited. This blind guitarist turned “I Can See for Miles” into a flamenco rave up, tapping on his guitar like Rodrigo y Gabriela as his beautiful tenor reached the Carnegie rafters. The gorgeous faux-trumpet solo made people strain to see the instrument; no way a sound this pure was simply coming from his vocal chords. It was.

Bobby McFerrin, the man behind “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” continued the world-music vibe with an a cappella “My Generation.” Accompanied only by his hand thumping his chest, he half-scat, half-beatboxed his way through one of the most creative interpretations of the night. The song hit its peak as he riffed through John Entwhistle’s classic bass solos though, otherwise, it seemed this approach might have been better suited to a different tune, something off Quadrophenia perhaps.

The Who drew on the blues for much of the earlier work, but that side got little notice Wednesday night. Only college rock veterans the Smithereens hinted at the bloozier side of the band with their choice of “The Seeker.” Pat DiNizio roared through a punked-out version that tacked on the “Sparks” outro from Tommy after, blasting like a rocket.

Another unexpected high point came with Matt Nathanson’s “The Real Me,” delivered primarily on acoustic guitar, strummed spastically while a bass drum thumped away in the background. Nathanson attacked the microphone like a python, darting towards it and back away.

Pete Townshend has said soul legend Bettye LaVette brought him to tears with her version of “Love, Reign O’er Me” at the Kennedy Center Honors. Where there she had the benefit of a full band though, at Carnegie it was just her and pianist/arranger Rob Mathis performing an arrangement that the louder it got, the more fragile it became. The woman’s voice deserves a Carnegie Hall tribute itself and if she milked the vocal riffing a little, blame the lack of drums to keep things in time.

The Sugarcanes were back to support ex-Drive-By Trucker Jason Isbell on a pedestrian version of “Behind Blue Eyes.” As often happens with this tune, it didn’t really take off until the bridge (you know, the “When my fist clenches, crack it open” part).

A Beatles tribute band? Did the people scheduling this thing sink so low? Maybe they knew something the rest of us didn’t, because the Fab Faux (who, to their eternal credit, didn’t dress like or otherwise really try to imitate the Beatles) performed the hell out of the longest cover of the night, ripping through the entire “We’re Not Gonna Take It” from Tommy. The problem with these tribute shows is that only being on a couple minutes no band has time to establish a mood or repartee with the audience. Not a problem if you play for ten minutes, building the repetitive “Listening to you” bit at the end to a crescendo they rode all the way to the finish.

The energy continued with Willie Nile, an upstate rocker who never got the notice he deserves despite a long friendship with Bruce Springsteen. He hobbled onstage with a crutch, but his performance made it unclear whether it was a prop or he was defying doctors orders as he played air guitar on it, lashed out at the audience with it, and threw it across the stage on several occasions. Doing “The Kids Are Alright” with the Sugarcanes (the best they played all night), this seemed appropriate. Bonus points for a quick “Happy Jack” outro.

Harvey Danger frontman Sean Nelson and Patti Smith guitarist Lenny Kaye joined Robyn Hitchcock onstage where, after Robyn rambled for a few minutes about the “loser culture,” they began to sing: “Her man’s been gone nigh on a year…” Fantastic! Were they really going to do the entire ten-minute epic “A Quick One, While He’s Away”? Sadly, no they were not. This tease went into a take on “Substitute” that, while thoroughly competent, just came off as a disappointment. Don’t promise what you can’t (or won’t) deliver.

The Gaslight Anthem made no such pretensions. Guitarist Alex Rosamilia turned the synth intro of “Baba O’Riley” into a fast-and-furious guitar part before Brian Fallon Joe Strummer-ed his way through it. The band didn’t blow minds like they sometimes do, but it was still an excellent choice to close the show.

Except…who was this onstage now? All the scheduled performers had finished, but Carnegie had one more surprise in store: Patti Smith. “Carnegie Hall, forgive me for what I am about to do” she said before ripping through her punk-as-hell “My Generation,” a song she played in the early ‘70s, light on melody and heavy on feedback. “I don’t need their fucking shit!” she spat. “Hope I die because of it!” A beat poetry message about taking the world back from the corporations followed, delivered to the tune of her ripping the strings off her guitar.

The night ended, as these nights always do, with the inevitably all-star jam. The song was “Won’t Get Fooled Again," the only major hit not yet performed (no, "Boris the Spider" does not count). It sounded terrible, as these things always do, but was an absolute blast to watch. Willie Nile and Bettye LaVette took charge as most people just danced around or sang in the background. Nicole Atkins appeared for the Daltrey-worthy scream before disappearing in the background while Patti Smith decided she didn’t care about all this and just leapt into the audience and danced. A suitably irreverent way to end the evening.


SET LIST
Steven Bernstein & Music Unites Choir – Tommy Overture
Living Colour – Eminence Front
Sondre Lerche – I’m a Boy
Kaki King – Pinball Wizard
The Postelles – I Can’t Explain
Asaf Avidan – Naked Eye
Mose Allison – Young Man Blues
Bob Mould – I Can’t Reach You
Nicole Atkins – The Song Is Over
Rich Pagano & the Sugarcane Cups – Love Ain’t for Keeping
Raul Midón – I Can See for Miles
Bobby McFerrin – My Generation
The Smithereens – Sparks/The Seeker
Matt Nathanson – The Real Me
Bettye LaVette –Love Reign O’er Me
Jason Isbell – Behind Blue Eyes
Fab Faux – We’re Not Gonna Take It
Willie Nile – This Kids Are Alright
Robyn Hitchcock – Substitute
The Gaslight Anthem – Baba O’Riley
Patti Smith – My Generation
Everyone – Won’t Get Fooled Again

(photos by Saed Hindash, via the NJ Star-Ledger)

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 25th Anniversary 10/30/09

Normally the reviews on this site strive to be like a review you might read in a newspaper. Objective. Impartial. Unbiased. And, most of all, no first-person! This one’s going to break the mold. By virtue of necessity, it’s both a review of Friday night’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 25th Anniversary show and a review of my personal experience at said show.

The reason for this break from form is that I got a free ticket through the marvelous 1iota.com, a site that gave away obstructed view seats behind the stage. Given that some regular seats in Madison Square Garden went for $2500, this was a hell of a deal. However, throughout the night both the sound and sightlines for those of us behind the stage were so shaky I can’t justify trying to give an “objective” view of the concert. I can, however, talk about experiencing a one-in-a-lifetime show from the cheap seats.

Though we were behind the stage, and behind a partition that blocked some of the performers from sight (generally just the drummers), distance-wise the 750 1iota ticket-holders were closer to the bands than many people who paid for tickets. As an added bonus, we got to watch the musicians hanging out backstage when they weren’t performing, hugging, chatting, giving interviews, waving to us.

Having two stages on a rotating platform eliminated changeover time. A brilliant move for a show with a lot of artists. One artist finishes, the stage rotates, and the next is ready to go. Then the crew set up the other stage for the next one, out of sight of the audience (except for us, of course).

Tom Hanks introduced the proceedings, but as tended to happen whenever anyone spoke, we in the back could not understand a word he said. In fact, the sound was so crazy-muffled for many acts (Jeff Beck being an enjoyable exception) it took a while to recognize even the most familiar songs. Generally it seemed the larger the band, the harder it was to hear.

As he did the previous night (where Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder, Simon & Garfunkel and CSN headlined), Jerry Lee Lewis got the music going with “Great Balls of Fire.” As he did when I saw him at Farm Aid a year ago, the Killer killed it. He walks slower than he used to – he is 74 after all – but his fingers can still fly across the piano. And though a little rough around the edges, his voice still has the unmistakable rockabilly twang.

A Motown video montage led into Aretha Franklin taking the stage. With her enormous band, hers was the worst sound of the night, but from what we could tell it seemed like her voice was still excellent. The crowd who could hear certainly acted like it was. She brought out Annie Lennox of Eurythmics to duet on a blistering “Chain of Fools” and Lenny Kravitz for a sassy back-and-forth on “Think.” I look forward to viewing the video of this set more than any other, to see what I missed with the terrible sound.

Arriving with a three-piece band (including bass prodigy Tal Wilkenfeld), Jeff Beck provided a sound the backstage speakers could handle. His solos came through hot and pure, shredding out the proof that he was a worthy last-minute replacement for an ailing Eric Clapton. Not a singer himself, Beck stuck with instrumentals except with the guests came out. A heavily-bearded Sting first joined the Yardbird on stage, belting out “People Get Ready” with a vocal power unheard in his recent years with the reunited Police. The gospel cries coming out of this aging Brit shocked the crowd, many of whom declared it a highlight.

With Jimi Hendrix long gone, the only guitarist who could truly match the licks Beck was unleashing was the legendary Buddy Guy, who soon brought his axe out for a searing “Let Me Love You.” Guy’s underrated vocals almost stole the show from the dueling guitars though as he crooned and helped his way through the twelve-bar staple.

Guy was followed by Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, the man with the biggest beard in rock and roll. After barreling through ZZ Top’s “Rough Boy” he led the crowd through “Foxy Lady” while a large image of Hendrix lit up a recently-descended screen behind the band. While this blocked the view completely for us 1iota.com fans, it only came down rarely, and we still had monitors to watch. Beck’s jazz-rock improvisation through “A Day in the Life” capped things off.

The only band that could top Beck’s distortion-blare was on next: Metallica. The legendary metal quartet alternated their own tracks like “For Whom the Bell Tolls” and “Enter Sandman” with rolls as backing musicians. They roared through the Velvet Underground’s “Sweet Jane” and “White Light/White Heat” with Lou Reed. The heroin-hipster valiantly kept up, delivering a better performance than his abysmal live reputation would have predicted. Nothing stunning, but Kirk Hammett’s guitar solos were worth even the most average delivery. Reed agreed, delivering a rare treat from the cranky punk: a smile.

James Hetfield introduced the next singer as “the crazy guy who epitomizes the rock and roll singer.” It couldn’t be anyone but Ozzy Osbourne. The reality star roamed the stage performing Black Sabbath classics “Iron Man” and “Paranoid,” yelling at a complacent audience to get on their feet and participate. No bats were eaten after Ozzy’s family-man makeover, but the mystique remained strong.

Finally came the most unexpected guest of the set: Ray Davies of the Kinks, “one of the original punks.” Metallica faithfully performed a loud and fast “You Really Got Me” and “All Day and All Night,” resisting any urge to metal-fy these riff-heavy classics. Davies delivered a boho-cool performance, one hand in his pocket as he delivered some of the most famous lyrics in rock and roll. Which no one could hear anyway, as the crowd was yelling them even louder.

A Queen cover and “Enter Sandman” later, U2 took the stage. Things kicked off in high gear with “Vertigo,” and “Magnificent didn’t kill the momentum too badly. Any slow-song boredom was soon shed though when Bruce Springsteen and Patti Smith came out to perform “Because the Night” (a Smith hit they co-wrote) for only the second time ever (video). Since this review is first-person personal anyway, I’ll say this was the best concert moment I have ever witnessed. As Bruce soloed and Patti sung the bridge, they butted heads in a mini-duel while Bono laughed behind them.


As this once-in-a-lifetime performance rolled along (with Roy Bitten handling the piano part), many in the crowd hoped it would never end. So imagine the excitement when, for the only time the whole night, the band decided the first run-through had been too sloppy for TV. They had to do it again. Cue died-and-gone-to-heaven swooning.

Springsteen stuck around to duet with Bono on “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” bringing some much-needed passion to this lite-FM staple. Hugs all around and the Boss has left the building!

“Mysterious Ways” led into a cover of the Black Eyed Peas’ “Where Is the Love.” Except, oh wait, it was no longer a cover when the Peas themselves ran onstage. With this many mics the sound again turned questionable, but Will.I.Am dominated center stage while Fergie dirty-danced with the Edge. Quite a collaboration.

Will.I.Am moved over to the piano and Fergie strolled over to drummer Larry Mullin, Jr. while the lyrics to the Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter” came up on the teleprompter. Those of us behind the stage gave a collective intake of breath. There was a rumor of course, but…no. It couldn’t be... Surely he wouldn’t…

But yes, Sir Mick Jagger strolled onstage to applause like I’ve never heard. Perhaps the only man alive who Springsteen was an appropriate lead-in to (well, him and McCartney), Jagger belted out “Gimme Shelter” like it was Altamont all over again (video). Fergie took on Merry Clayton’s female part, belting out such fierce high notes I can’t have been the only one wondering if this was lip-synced. But her trills and scales seemed so spontaneous and idiosyncratic, perhaps Fergie is the most underrated vocalist in music. Either way though, she couldn't fake that stage presence. Fergie and Mick: best onstage chemistry I've ever seen. If those two ever tour together, go.

Mick stuck around for U2’s treacle-fest “Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of.” Like Springsteen before him, Jagger brought new vitality to this alt-contemporary dirge in a duet with Bono, his face glowing with excitement. Jagger strutted offstage with the quartet, who returned sans-Stone for the entirely appropriate “A Beautiful Day.”

Five hours after we entered, the dazed crowd stumbled out into the streets, numb to everything we had just witnessed. Aretha, Sting, Ozzy, Lou Reed, Springsteen, Patti Smith, Bono, Mick Effing Jagger. Even now, it’s hard to wrap your mind around.

SET LIST

Jerry Lee Lewis:

Great Balls of Fire

Aretha Franklin:

Baby, I Love You

Don’t Play That Song (You Lied)

Make Them Hear You

Chain of Fools (w/ Annie Lennox)

New York, New York
Think (w/ Lenny Kravitz)
Respect

Jeff Beck:

Drown in My Own Tears
People Get Ready (w/ Sting)
Freeway Boogie
Cause We’ve Ended as Lovers

Rock Me Baby (w/ Buddy Guy)
Big Block
Rice Pudding
Rough Boy (w/ Billy Gibbons)

Foxy Lady (w/ Billy Gibbons)

A Day in the Life

Metallica:
For Whom the Bell Tolls

One

Turn the Page

Sweet Jane (w/ Lou Reed)

White Light/White Heat (w/ Lou Reed)

Iron Man (w/ Ozzy Osbourne)

Paranoid (w/ Ozzy Osbourne)
You Really Got Me (w/ Ray Davies)

All Day and All of the Night (w/ Ray Davies)

Stone Cold Crazy

Enter Sandman

U2
:
Vertigo
Magnificent
Because the Night #1 (w/ Bruce Springsteen, Patti Smith)
Because the Night #2 (w/ Bruce Springsteen, Patti Smith)

I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For (w/ Bruce Springsteen)
Mysterious Ways
Where Is the Love (w/ Black Eyed Peas)
Gimme Shelter (w/ Mick Jagger, Fergie, Will.I.Am)
Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of (w/ Mick Jagger)
Beautiful Day

Patti Smith's "A Salute to Robert Frank" 10/17/09

Robert Frank’s The Americans ushered in a new era for photography, focusing on the daily trials and triumphs of everyday people. He took 28,000 snapshots in his two-year trip across the United States in the mid-‘50s, selecting just 83 for the final book. Each shot invokes a uniquely American loneliness, whites and blacks separate in stature but equal in isolation. In the book’s introduction, Jack Kerouac wrote, “Anybody doesnt like these pitchers dont like potry, see?”

Decades later, art buffs worldwide do see. In September, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art opened an exhibition of original prints of all 83 photos, arranged in the same meticulously thought-out order just in the book. To help honor the occasion, Patti Smith and her daughter Jesse organized “A Salute to Robert Frank, Artist and Friend.”

Patti Smith first collaborated with Frank when he directed the video for her 1996 single “Summer Cannibals.” As the evening progressed she shared many amusing anecdotes about the quiet shuffling man. She described humbly showing him her own photographs and the elation she felt when he told her, “I see what you’re doing.” “When Robert says that,” she asked aloud, “Who the fuck cares what anyone else thinks?”

Mostly though, her musings on Frank came through recitation and song. On the poetry side, Jesse Smith selected a broad spectrum of material from the well known (Walt Whitman’s “I Hear America Singing”) to the obscure (Patti Smith’s own “combe”). Throughout, the images of old-time America echoed the photos. The first onstage words, in fact, were Smith’s herself, coming from a personal notebook written in April 1971. Printed in the advertisements leading up to the show and the bulletin during, it framed the event around the point where Smith and Frank meet.

I keep trying to figure out what it means to be American. When I look in myself I see Abyssinia, nineteenth-century France, but I can’t recognize what makes me American. I think about Robert Frank’s photographs—broke down jukeboxes in Gallup, New Mexico, swaying hips and spurs, ponytails and syphilitic cowpokes, hash slingers, the glowing black tarp of US 285 and the Hoboken stars and stripes.

I think about a red, white and blue rag
I wrap around my head.
Maybe it’s nothing material; maybe it’s just being free.

Freedom is a waterfall, is pacing linoleum till dawn,
the right to write the wrong words.
And I done plenty of that...

Smith tackled her own American history with poems about her birthplace of Chicago (Carl Sandburg’s “Mag”) and her adopted home of New York (an excerpt from E.B. White’s “Here Is New York”). She never veered into the self-indulgent though, interspersing all her selections with messages from Robert, who had been forced to abandon his planned appearance. Before reading a section of William S. Burroughs’ The Western Lands, she commented that this was the piece Frank requested she read at the event. She shrugged her shoulders as she said it, saying she wasn’t sure why he chose it. The connections between the words and images didn’t need to be clear though; the feeling tied the two in a way specificity never could.

The songs Smith chose to perform veered away from her own material. She only performed four original songs (“Trampin’,” “Beneath the Southern Cross,” “Ghost Dance” and “People Have the Power”), instead imagining what Frank might have heard coming over the AM as he drove across the country in the mid-‘50s. She has never publicly performed before many of these songs before, and may never again.

The first cover came halfway through the evening with Smith’s take on “Tumbling Tumbleweeds.” Originally written in 1934 for Roy Rogers’ band the Sons of the Pioneers, singer Kate Smith had a hit with the tune in the ‘50s. The tune evoked a wide-open America, the sort of James Dean lone-ranger imagery both terribly beautiful and terribly sad. “I’ll keep rolling along / Deep in my heart is a song,” Smith slowly sang. “Here on the range I belong / Drifting along with the tumbling tumbleweeds.”

“The Wayward Wind” continued the home-on-the-range vibe. Gogi Grant had a number-one hit with the tune in 1956. As on most of the songs, Smith was accompanied by Jesse on piano, Michael Campbell on xylophone and her longtime compatriot Lenny Kaye on guitar. The latter two came together for a cowboy solo before Kaye took center stage (figuratively) on a cover of Paul Simon’s “American Tune.”

Patti sat cross-legged on the wooden stage while Kaye plucked the childlike folk melody with Jesse and Campbell accompanying. “High up above my eyes could clearly see / The Statue of Liberty / Sailing away to sea / And I dreamed I was crying,” he sang at the end of the song. Then, with a few nods of his head he masterfully segued into a bare-bones rhythm over which Smith projected Emma Lazarus’ “The New Colossus,” a poem about Lady Liberty herself.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles.

After the night’s only rock and roll moment (a “Power to the People” sing-along), Smith opened the encore by reading Ginsberg’s “Footnote to Howl.” “Holy! Holy! Holy!” she chanted. “The world is holy! The soul is holy! The skin is holy! The nose is holy! The tongue and cock and hand and asshole holy!” As one “holy” built to another, the cascade of images ushered in the evening’s most powerful moment. Like a good rock singer, Smith built the poem to a shouted crescendo before winding it down with the one final line: “Holy the supernatural extra brilliant intelligent kindness of the soul! “

It would have been a powerful way to end the night, but Smith had one more cover to get out of her system. The foursome on stage took on the Everly Brothers with a grinning “Bye Bye Love.” If Frank did in fact hear that song as he drove across the country, he couldn’t have smiled wider than the crowd at the Met. He couldn’t have smiled wider than Patti Smith.

SET LIST
Reading: notebook, April 1971
Reading: Events of ’55 and ’56 [Jesse Smith on piano]
Song: “Trampin’” [Jesse on piano]
Reading: “I Hear America Singing,” by Walt Whitman [Jesse on piano, Michael Campbell on xylophone]
Reading: “A Blessing,” by James Wright
Reading: “combe,” by Patti Smith [Jesse on piano, Campbell on xylophone]
Song: “Beneath the Southern Cross”
Reading: Excerpt from Here Is New York, by E.B. White
Reading: Excerpt from The Western Lands, by William S. Burroughs
Song: “Tumbling Tumbleweeds” (Kate Smith cover) [Jesse on piano, Campbell on xylophone, Lenny Kaye on guitar]
Recitation: “Mag,” by Carl Sandburg
Song: “The Wayward Wind” (Gogi Grant cover) [Jesse on piano, Campbell on xylophone, Kaye on guitar]
Song: “An American Tune” (Paul Simon cover) [Kaye on vocals and guitar, Jesse on piano, Campbell on xylophone]
Reading: “The New Colossus,” by Emma Lazarus
Song: “Ghost Dance” [Jesse on piano, Campbell on guitar, Kaye on guitar]
Song: “People Have the Power” [Jesse on piano, Campbell on guitar, Kaye on guitar]
------------------------
Reading: “Footnote to Howl,” by Allen Ginsberg
Song: “Bye Bye Love” (Everly Brothers cover) [Jesse on piano, Campbell on guitar, Kaye on guitar]