JAE in Danbury

[owtufuel@usa.nai.net]

Just came back from this show. I gotta say, this was an abusive aural
assault. It was the loudest, and one of the worst-sounding shows I've ever
heard. It was a shame because I could tell that John was playing all kinds
of great stuff. 
I loved every song he did, except `Boris...'. Of the stuff from "The Rock"
that I hadn't heard `Last Song' didn't sound too promising, but the others
did. I'm listening to the CD for the first time now and those others gave me
a better impression live, despite the horrible sound. Here's the list:
Heaven & Hell
Had Enough
Success Story
Trick of the Light     I could SEE the 8-string, but...
Bridges Under Water
The Real Me          what IS that effect you're using these days, John? 

Too Late the Hero    a great surprise. Wish the keyboardist had picked
up on a bit more of the arrangement. I think it was on this number that we
started looking back at the soundman thinking `are you on this planet'? John
was on mic and there was absolutely nothing audible from him over the din.

Love Doesn't Last
My Size
Boris
Life After Love
Love Is A Heart Attack
My Wife
Last Song

encore: Summertime Blues
2nd encore: Shakin' All Over

If only the sound had been reasonable. These are such GREAT songs. The man
has a huge catalog of great material and I liked these choices fine. 

If anyone wants to hear more sour grapes from an Entwistle fan, here goes:

As I said, the volume spoiled virtually all sense of dynamics and melody.
Steve's metal drumming was phenomenal and very busy. The pounding of the
double bass drums was there in force -- kind of the drumming sound and style
I heard a lot of in my club-going days before New Wave. NOT there was a
low-end to John's bass. Has he lost ALL high frequency hearing? He was
standing right in front of his stack for a solo during `Shakin' All Over'
which was spectacular but painful even from back at the soundboard. This was
the only time I could really hear what he was playing -- and being able to
watch what he was doing the rest of the time made it all the more frustrating. 

I liked how it seemed that whoever wanted to sing at any particular time
could go ahead and help out on the singing chores. It kept the focus off the
singing and on the playing, where the action was. The show seemed like `OK,
these are Entwistle songs. This guy's singing this one, that guy's singing
that one. They're great songs and we're gonna mash them into your cranium.'
I keep hoping that part of the sound problem was due to the zoned-out,
time-warp of a club it was at.