The first was in September for Celtic Social Club at the Norwood Theater. This band includes members from Scotland and France and plays most of their shows on the European continent. For the last two years, they’ve gone on the strangest US tour I’ve seen by any band: Buffalo, Rochester…NORWOOD, MA (???)…and New York City. I don’t understand, really, but if they do come back next year, look for me in the audience (1).
A couple months later, I got to see Courtney Barnett perform at the Orpheum Theater with Kurt Vile. The two were touring together after collaborating on a recent album. I suspect most of the audience arrived with the same mentality I did - there to see Courtney, willing to tolerate Kurt. The result was, like the album, pretty good. Anytime you can get two talented guitarists on the same stage, I think you have to take it.
Those two were it for me this year. As I mentioned in my previous music post, in 2017 I skipped shows from bands I liked more often than I went to them.
My first skip was in January for Rubblebucket, an aptly named big brass mess of a band that I first became aware of when they opened for Lake Street Dive in October 2016. I was just starting up with them at the time and didn’t feel ready to pull the trigger on a show. I guess I didn’t realize they were on the verge of winning ‘band of the year’, or whatever, though I’m not sure if having this knowledge a year ago would have influenced my decision.
I strongly considered going to see Imelda May in the spring. In hindsight, there was just no good reason to go - I’d heard a couple of her songs, really, and that was about it. When another option for the day came up, I took it without reservation. Whether I would have enjoyed the show at all is an open question (but I suspect I would have). In any event, it does seem like I give Irish artists a tad more credit than I probably should and this is perhaps the best example of my favoritism.
Arcade Fire dropped by in September. Earlier in the year, I would have said this was a slam-dunk for me. But by the time the show rolled around, I was almost completely out on the band. Q: Arcade Fire - remember when they were good? A: I do, just. I guess sometimes the best way to learn that I am no longer a fan of a group is to have them play a concert ten minutes from my apartment - if I don’t even consider going, it’s probably no longer a band I’m very interested in.
The last show I decided against was U2 (ever heard of 'em?) Ultimately, the band’s stadium tour commemorating the 30th anniversary of The Joshua Tree felt a little too nostalgic for me, a relative latecomer into their hardcore fan group. I was born after the album came out! I was also a little skeptical of their ability to carry a stadium show at this stage in their careers. But I think the nail in the coffin came when I considered the logistics of going to Foxboro, a suburb some forty minutes away from Boston and completely inaccessible to me without a car (2).
The good news, reader, is that I am going when U2 comes back to town for an arena show in June! They will be at the TD Garden, just around the block from me, for at least two nights. At the moment, I only have tickets for one show. But who knows, reader, who knows what might happen between now and then? In the age of compulsive credit card purchasing, even I might not know until just seconds before.
Footnotes / fitting in is for things that don’t fit / Irish = Celtic? / obligatory Arrested Development reference
0. The annual shot of LSD
I failed to make it three years in a row for seeing a Lake Street Dive show...boo-hoo!
In other LSD news, I did cause a minor sensation over the summer when I included the group among the two I would bring to a hypothetical ‘desert island’ scenario. Suddenly, a number of others in the group were excitedly sharing their own love for the band and wondering if they could revise their ‘desert island’ picks. Surely, such a reaction speaks volumes to the passion of their fans. There might not be many of us but we all know the group is very good.
1. Isn’t Bono Celtic?
No.
Regarding Celtic Social Club, they have altered their sound over the past couple of years to bring a greater emphasis to the Irish-Celtic aspects of their sound. Their final song at the concert I attended was ‘Dirty Old Town’, a song I believe by law is required of every Irish performer to cover at least once during a concert performance. Here’s a link to a recent performance from a show in France.
2. Granted, having U2 in Foxboro did force a minor recalculation...
...but the verdict remains unchanged, reader - I'd rather be dead in Boston than alive in Foxboro.
