Bringing the Hammer Down
Happy New Year to the readers of Wear & Tear! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday week and celebrated the arrival of 2008 with friends and family. Although the adage “Out with the Old, In with the New” is most appropriate at the outset of January, Wear & Tear would like to go back a few days and recap the final days of 2007 in New York and San Francisco, with a quick stopover in LA along the way.
The Disco Biscuits began their third annual two night stand at NYC’s Hammerstein Ballroom with a lengthy performance on December 28th that offered both surprises and the usual high-octane mayhem that is a “Bisco” concert. The unusual came during the first set with an appearance by Brothers Past guitarist Tom Hamilton, who joined in for “Caterpillar” and provided vocals on a limp cover of U2’s “Where the Streets Have No Name.” The second half proved to be better; a wholly enjoyable affair with classic Bisco material like “Helicopters” and “Basis for a Day”, Conspirator songs, and new tune “Mastermind” in the encore slot. Emerging at 2 AM onto 34th Street and into the pouring rain, our sights were set on the Brothers Past late night show at Highline Ballroom. Fellow jammers moe. set up residency there for five nights in May when it first opened, so my interest in visiting this music hall stemmed more from what I had heard about it than the band actually playing. BP did their thing for an hour with a nice “National Anthem” (Radiohead) jam somewhere near the end but the most memorable aspect were the walls of Highline which can change color in a subtle way to alter the room’s décor and feel. Hopes that the rain had subsided were quickly abandoned as the skies dumped gallons upon us as we scurried to the car and made our way in treacherous conditions up the Henry Hudson and Saw Mill River Parkways to the Tappan Zee Bridge and into Rockland County. Two nights in Manhattan were complete, with only one more to go for this vacation. My suspicions were confirmed the following night because the best was yet to come.
A final day visiting New York was a blur of running around trying to tie up any and all loose ends with the ultimate conclusion being that it is simply not possible to satisfy everyone in such a short time as four and a half days. One planned concert was thrown to the wayside: Soulive and the Greyboy Allstars at Nokia Theatre in Times Square. It had only been two weeks since seeing GBAs at West Hollywood’s Troubadour and I caught Soulive three times this summer, so I didn’t feel too bad about missing it. Unfortunately my choice to instead enjoy dinner and the Giants/Patriots game with family meant that there were a few friends I would not get to see as they attended the Nokia. And so it goes, the Giants’ chance to act as spoiler to a potential perfect season didn’t last for all four quarters as Big Blue stood tall in this heavyweight bout but eventually fell to the mythically undefeated 2007 New England Patriots by a score of 38-35. If by some chance this was a Super Bowl preview, you can expect a great contest in February. Some quick goodbyes and I was off to the East Side for my final New York City show at Blender Theater at Gramercy, the official Gov’t Mule afterparty with PBS and friends. Check back for a review of this funk throwdown and the following days shortly.
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