It was a big week in the New York/Philly corridor this week as both Bruce Springsteen and The Dead played at The Spectrum, which is slated to be demolished later this year.
Bruce played the venerable arena Tuesday and Wednesday nights. You can catch the setlists here. Bruce played ‘The Wrestler’ on Tuesday and later played ‘London Calling’ by The Clash. If you haven’t seen Mickey Rourke in ‘The Wrestler’ — which was nominated for an Oscar — you really should.
***The Dead, who played a tremendous show at Madison Square Garden last week that featured ‘Sugaree,’ ‘St. Stephen, ‘Ship of Fools,’ and ‘Brokedown Palace,’ moved down to the Spectrum for shows Friday and Saturday nights.
No band has sold out the Spectrum more than The Dead, who played 53 shows while Jerry Garcia was alive and two more as The Other Ones in 2002.
***Warren Haynes, who doubles as a guitarist with The Allman Brothers Band, has been tremendous playing with The Dead. He sang on ‘New Speedway Boogie’ and ‘Comes a Time’ Friday in Philly.
***Meantime, the Allman Brothers are set to release 45 CDs from their recent 15-show run at the Beacon Theater.
The band dedicated this year’s Beacon run to the memory of its founder and namesake Duane Allman, and invited a slew of special guests to help celebrate his legacy, among them Eric Clapton, Levon Helm, Buddy Guy, Boz Scaggs, Johnny Winter, Sheryl Crow, Stanley Clarke, Kid Rock, Bonnie Bramlett, Robert Randolph, Billy Gibbons, David Hidalgo, Cesar Rosas, Trey Anastasio, Page McConnell, Chuck Leavell, Susan Tedeschi, Bob Weir, Phil Lesh and many others.
***Butch Trucks of The Allmans also told Rolling Stone the band planned to dramatically cut back in 2010, perhaps only playing a dozen or so shows.
***The summer concert dates are out and one of my favorite places to see a show is PNC Bank Theater in Holmdel, N.J. It’s an outdoor ampitheater only about an hour or so from NYC.
Among the acts coming this summer that I might have to check out are : Def Leppard/Poison/Cheap Trick (July 1); Kid Rock/Lynyrd Skynyrd (July 8); CSN (Aug. 11) and The Allmans (Aug. 19).
**Aerosmith will also tour this summer and is contemplating playing one of its first few albums in entirety.
“We know that there’s a big percentage of our fan base that would love that,” bassist Tom Hamilton told Rolling Stone. “And there’s a percentage of the fan base that might not love it — and we’re not the kind of band that likes to force material on the audience.”
***Neil Young’s first Archives set is due out in June and will include 10 CDS or DVDS covering 1963-72.
***If you haven’t seen ‘Anvil: The Story of Anvil,‘ I cannot recommend it highly enough. The documentary is one of the best of any kind you’ll ever see and has rejuvenated the careers of the 50-something Canadian heavy metalers.
“We have a manager now, we have a booking agent and we have record deals in a few plays,” drummer Robb Reiner said. “Things have changed.”
