What are you listening to?

[Löwenherz]

Waited a few days so I could listen to Fiona Apple’s Pretrial (Let Her Go Home) - her first new music in 5 years - on my birthday.

Harkens back to 60s rhythmic drum circle and protest chant music with a theme that reminds me of Bob Dylan’s Hurricane - all with Apple’s The Idler Wheel / Fetch the Bolt Cutters common object percussion and layered vocals flair.

Thanks for dropping by Fiona. Hope to hear from you again soon.

 

[Warhawk]

Just got back from a quick overnight jaunt with my wife to Las Vegas to go catch a couple of icons in concert together that we had never seen live before - Billy Joel and Sting. Billy Joel was one of my wife's "bucket list" performers to see (and Sting is obviously great too) so we celebrated our anniversary a bit late with the trip to catch this.

They were fantastic. I couldn't believe how good they sounded, especially in a football stadium. They had that place dialed in. It sounded great. And they both did some medleys or had a little fun with their songs while playing most of their hits. For instance, Billy Joel worked in a little Elvis (Viva Las Vegas) and had Crystal Taliefero (who is also freaking great) splice in a little River Deep - Mountain High in a song - just awesome. Sting mixed up Roxanne with some new rhythm in the middle (pretty cool) and kicked it up a bit on some other songs (more drums, great guitar work). Just a whole lot of fun! A little article on it:

Billy Joel, Sting performed during packed Las Vegas show | Kats | Entertainment | Entertainment Columns

As you know, these two would not be in my top 10 artists or anything but they put on a heck of a show.

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Wow, glad we got to see him (Billy Joel) when we did! Hope he heals up!

https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/23/entertainment/billy-joel-tour-canceled-nph-brain-disorder

 

[Warhawk]

Also, my wife and I went to go see Simple Minds on Tuesday night in Concord. They put on a very entertaining show and sounded pretty darn good themselves. Very cool.

Was not really impressed with Soft Cell (opener). Pretty meh.

I was bummed we missed Modern English as the first opener. There was a 6-car pile-up as we got close to the amphitheater and the diversion around the back side of the facility was about 3/4 of an hour.