As a fan of a wide variety of popular (and not-so-popular) music from the 1950s (and sometimes even earlier) up through the present, one of my bucket list projects for years has been to put together a list of my 100 favorite songs of all time. At some point I decided that, once I got around to figuring that out, I could put it out on a blog, for the infinitesimally small proportion of the Internet world that might be interested. So, here we are. While the Top 100 will be a major focus, I also plan to post on a variety of other musical (and occasionally non-musical) topics, in which you may or may not be interested. (If a particular posting doesn’t ring your bell, you’re only a few clicks away from a dancing cat video on YouTube.)

Saturday, March 19, 2016

Marshall Crenshaw & The Bottle Rockets – The Birchmere, 3/18/2016


Table 317 – close to the center, one of the tables that are parallel to the stage and just in front of the divider. One of the best seats I’ve had there. Arrived around 4:30 to find a couple dozen or so people ahead of me in line waiting to get in (and was able to watch the last half-minute of the Michigan State upset on the iPad of the guy standing in back of me). Wound up with number H29 to get in (starting point was H17).
 
There was no crying at the Birchmere, although (probably by coincidence) Crenshaw opened with “Calling Out for Love (at Crying Time)” and closed the main set 70 minutes later with Buddy Holly’s “Crying, Wishing, Hoping” (which he performed when he portrayed Holly in the 1987 Ritchie Valens biopic La Bamba). When they came back, they started their 3-song encore by honoring the crowd’s request for his only top-40 hit, “Someday, Someway”, joking that he would make it a special performance by using the Bernie Sanders guitar pick he had recently been given. He then sent everyone home happy by doing two more favorites, “Something’s Gonna Happen” (the demo that got him his initial record deal) and “Mary Anne” from his classic debut album.
 
As I remembered from the last time I had seen him (which I found was January 25, 2002, thanks to the wonders of the Internet), Crenshaw and his band play pretty loud (let’s say a 9). This doesn’t always serve his catchy, melodic material all that well; I’d suggest dialing the volume back to 7 or thereabouts. At times he sounded as if he was straining to be heard over the band, and they also slowed “There She Goes Again” down a little, which removed even more bounce. For me, the show really caught fire about halfway through, when he performed some later, less-familiar (to me at least) material: “Passing Through”, “Move Now”, “Red Wine”, and a great cover of Richard Thompson’s “Valerie”. Four of the songs in his set that I hadn’t heard before were co-written with Dan Bern, who also wrote and performed one of the best baseball songs of all time.
 
As is frequently the case these days with Marshall Crenshaw shows, his four-man backing band, the Bottle Rockets, also served as the opening act, playing for almost a full hour (including all 11 tracks from their latest CD). Good cowpunk sound (two guitars, bass, drums), with some interesting material, notably “Dog” and “Building Chryslers” (which I suspect they don’t perform in their Michigan gigs) from the new CD, plus “Radar Gun” and “1000 Dollar Car” (don’t ever buy one). They joked that one of their new songs was written with Tom Jones in mind; oddly enough, Jones’s “Help Yourself” was featured on the playlist during intermission. And be warned that if Crenshaw’s set was at a volume level of 9, the Bottle Rockets by themselves pushed the knob to 11 – definitely the loudest set I’ve heard in my years of Birchmere shows.
 
By the way, all three of us at my table were surprised (and not in a good way) that the Birchmere no longer provides pitchers of water. Instead, they’d be happy to sell you water in plastic bottles. What is this, Flint?
 

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