Category: Music

Thief! Baggins! We hates it forever!

Tickets for The Two Towers seemed to have gone on sale today…everywhere but Manhattan. Grrr… As recompense, though, “Gollum‘s Song,” the very Bjork-like coda to the film (much like Enya’s “May it Be” for Fellowship), is now available for download here. And as for the rest of the soundtrack…well, I really have no recollection of downloading it from Kazaa, but I suppose I might have…(Don’t worry, I’ll buy it also.)

Carrying a Torch.

Bob Dylan’s second night at the Garden was as enjoyable as the first, with its own share of surprises. The bulk of the setlist remained the same – Although this time around Bob seemed a little more hopeful (with Forever Young and The Times They-Are-A Changin’ in the mix), he still made time for some Dylanesque zingers (such as One Too Many Mornings and You Ain’t Going Nowhere) To be honest, at the end of the show the little cynic inside my head was on the fence about whether going twice was justified…until the band closed the night with a special surprise. Bob said a few words about a friend who couldn’t be there tonight: “We were such good buddies, so I wanted to play this for him.” At which point they broke into The Beatles’ [George Harrison’s] “Something.” It was a beautiful moment to cap another great night.

It’s Alright, Ma (He’s only from Yemen.)


Caught the first of Bob Dylan’s two NYC shows last night, and as always it was a powerful experience. Dylan (who spent most of the night on piano) definitely had an agenda for the evening. For one, the war in Iraq weighed heavily on the early part of the set. A cover of Don Henley’s “End of the Innocence” (?!) at the 4-spot led into the always-excellent “Things Have Changed” (as in the The-Times-They-Are-NOT-A’-Changin’) and, after a surprisingly rockin’ version of the Stones’ “Brown Sugar,” (?!), Bob gave us the one-two punch of “Masters of War” (self-explanatory) and “It’s Alright Ma (I’m only Bleedin’)” (in which he yelled the line “And even the President of the United States must have to stand NAKED.”)

For another, Dylan spent an inordinate amount of time playing other peoples’ songs, with Neil Young (“Old Man“) and Warren Zevon (“Mutineer“) tunes at the back end of the set. Considering also that the encore was “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” and “All Along the Watchtower” – two songs noted for other peoples’ versions of them – and it seems like Bob felt like paying credit to his colleagues tonight.

All in all, a great show, with “Just Like a Woman” and “Shelter from the Storm” also deserving special attention (The really hardcore Dylan fans’ highlight seemed to be the second song, “Yea! Heavy and a Bottle of Bread,” from The Basement Tapes…but to be honest, I didn’t recognize it until I saw the setlist.) The night also featured the following misheard exchange between me and my sister during a very loud “Drifter’s Escape:” Her (pointing at guy a few rows over dancing like crazy): “He’s jamming!” Me: “He’s from Yemen?” Ah well, I guess you had to be there. (Picture courtesy of Jim Lawhead.)

Foundations of Stone.

With a little more than a month to go (better start boning up now), TTT news is coming fast and furious. The soundtrack listing is out, meaning beaucoup spoilers for how the movie starts and ends (don’t go if you don’t want to know), along with a number of new pics. (My friend on the inside told me Bjork was going to be on the soundtrack, but I suspect he confused her with fellow Icelander Emiliana Torrini.) If you’re getting annoyed with all the LOTR coverage here, by the way…I’m afraid it’s only going to get worse.

Trust Elvis.

The Elvis Costello show at the Beacon the other evening was superb (set list here)…I was surprised how good he sounds live. I expected his voice to be a little more off, but he could hit all the notes and wavers from the studio versions. If I could pick three Elvis songs I had to hear, they’d be “Man Out of Time,” “Indoor Fireworks,” and – most importantly – “I Want You,” so I was not disappointed. (Yeah, “Alison,” “Beyond Belief,” or “Everyday I Write the Book” would’ve been cool too, but I’ll take what I can get.) The third encore in particular, the blue-lit, NIN-esque version of “I Want You” paired with “Almost Blue,” was truly a thing of beauty. As for Underworld the other night, I was underwhelmed…mostly by the venue, which was way too small and overbooked for a dance show. In fact, I’ve pretty much given up on the Hammerstein as a venue by this point. (More on the Underworld show in the comments of this post at Do You Feel Loved.) Did I mention that Elvis is King?