Warren Haynes 30th Anniversary Christmas Jam – First Night: 12/7/2018

The Christmas Jam has become a holiday tradition for me. Every year since I moved to Asheville, NC, I have attended the Jam, and it is always great. This year, Warren held the Jam over two nights, which was consistent with the 20th and 25th. I, of course, planned on going both nights.

Ticket purchasing has become a challenge, even in the small city of Asheville. Scalpers and bots scoop up tickets and resell them through TicketMaster and scalper sites like Stub Hub, making it tough for fans to acquire tickets. For that reason, I went down early in the morning to the box office and was first in line. This proved advantageous, since the box office opened the window 5 minutes prior to when TicketMaster opened the online sales. I got reserved seats for both nights, and then found to my dismay that many of my friends who tried to buy online got shut out, all reserved seats gone in less than 2 minutes. The bots strike again! Now for my quick PSA—Scalpers are scum. No matter how much you want to see a show, don’t ever buy from a “verified reseller” for more than face value. As long as you do, these bottom feeders will continue to ruin music for all of us.

OK, stepping down from the soapbox and getting on with the show.

First night I went with my wife and daughter. The lineup was pretty solid. The headliners included:

• Dark Side of the Mule
• Grace Potter
• Mike Gordon
• Jamey Johnson
• Marco Benevento

In addition, there were a bunch of guest musicians, including: Audley Freed, Jen Gunderman, Joanne Shaw Taylor, Jimmy Vivino, Kevn Kinney, Mike Barnes, Robert Kearns, Ron Holloway, and Tyler Ramsey. There were others who were not announced. Sorry, but don’t remember them all.

The show went on until after 2:00 am, and I think this was the first time my wife made it to the very end. While the entire show was great, Dark Side of the Mule was by far the highlight. Gov’t Mule performed a long Pink Floyd set, complete with lasers and an incredible light show. It was a great way to end a marathon night of music.

The only negative about this night was Jamey Johnson. He was good, and I liked the music he played, but he was painfully loud. Now I am not one to shy away from loud music, so if I consider a band to be too loud, they are probably too loud. He obviously missed the memo that when playing country music, you do not need to turn the amps up to 11. Leave that setting for Spinal Tap.

I could not find all the setlists, but I found a few. I will add others if I find them. Also, I’m including a few pictures that I snapped. And for those who are interested, here is a video of Dark Side of the Mule, with the full on lasers.

Rock on, and check back soon for my post on the second night.

Setlists:

Marco Benevento

• The Story Of Fred Short (Intro) >
• Seven Twenty Two >
• Walking With Tyrone
• Live A Certain Life
• Stay In Line
• I Can’t See The Light >
• Follow The Arrow
• Band Introductions/Banter
• Greenpoint
• Pepper

Mike Gordon

• Say Something
• Whirlwind
• Peel
• Victim > Sweet Emotion
• Pendulum
• Wild and Blue
• Do You Still Drink About Me
• Crazy Sometimes

Grace Potter

• Gold Dust Woman (w Warren Haynes and Jim James)
• Medicine
• Empty Heart
• Not Fade Away > Stars
• The Lion the Beast the Beat
• Paris (Ooh La La)
• I Shall Be Released

Dark Side of the Mule:

• Pigs on the Wing 2
• Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts I-V)
• Have a Cigar
• Breathe
• On the Run
• Time
• Breathe (Reprise)
• The Great Gig in the Sky
• Money
• Us and Them
• (with Jim James on lead vocals)
• Any Colour You Like
• Welcome to the Machine
• One of These Days
• Fearless
• Echoes, Part 1
• Comfortably Numb

Encore:

• Wish You Were Here

 

Warren kicking off the show

 

Mike Gordon

Grace Potter

Dark Side of the Mule

Elton John and Leon Russell: 11/16/2010

This was a real hard ticket to get. This show sold out at lightning speed and I almost was unable to get tickets (since our good friends at TicketMaster were not releasing all the tickets at once). Anyway, after getting a message that tickets were gone, my friend told me to try again, and like magic, tickets were available. I got tickets for my wife and two daughters.

I had seen Elton before, but this was my first time seeing Leon Russell, so I was pretty psyched.

Our seats were behind the stage, but that actually turned out to be a good thing. Both musicians had their pianos facing toward the center of the stage, so we had a great profile view of Elton and Leon was almost looking right at us. And we were close, which was nice.

Leon opened the show and played several songs of his own. Then Elton came out and kicked his set off with “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting,” which was the perfect opener, in my humble opinion.

Elton played a long set, during which Leon came out and the two performed together, playing songs from their collaborative album, “The Union.”

I really enjoyed taking my kids to this show. They both loved it and were thrilled to be seeing two rock and roll legends. There’s nothing like passing down a love of music to your children.

Here are the setlists from the show.

Leon’s Set

1. Tight Rope
2. Prince of Peace / Out in the Woods
3. A Song for You
4. Delta Lady
5. Roll in My Sweet Baby’s Arms / Stranger in a Strange Land

Elton’s Set

1. Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting
2. Philadelphia Freedom
3. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
4. Rocket Man (I Think It’s Going to Be a Long, Long Time)
5. Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me
6. Bennie and the Jets
7. I’m Still Standing
8. If It Wasn’t for Bad
9. Hey Ahab
10. Gone to Shiloh
11. Jimmie Rodgers’ Dream
12. Monkey Suit
13. The Best Part of the Day
14. A Dream Come True
15. When Love is Dying
16. Hearts Have Turned to Stone
17. Never Too Old (To Hold Somebody)
18. In The Hands of Angels
19. Burn Down the Mission
20. Levon
21. Tiny Dancer
22. I Guess That’s Why They Call It the Blues
23. Daniel
24. Candle in the Wind
25. Take Me to the Pilot
26. Sad Songs (Say So Much)
27. The Bitch Is Back
28. (encore) Your Song

Heart and Blue Oyster Cult: 4/19/1981

While the stub only lists Heart and Blue Oyster Cult, there were several other bands at this all-day rock fest:

• Firefall (don’t ask me how they managed to get on the bill)
• Motorhead (they were cool)
• Freewheel (a most forgettable act)

So a little bit about the Miami Baseball Stadium. Back then, Miami had no professional baseball team. The stadium was a dump that was used by northern teams for spring training. And occasionally, they would book a large show there. Since I was a huge BOC fan and I also really liked Heart a lot, going to this concert was a no-brainer.

As I mentioned, Freewheel was completely forgettable, and if it wasn’t for the wonders of the internet, I would never have even been able to tell you who was the first band that played. But Motorhead was very good. They rocked and got the crowd riled up. Unfortunately, Firefall sucked all the energy out of the crowd. It was kind of like being on a musical rollercoaster.

Finally, BOC came out. This was right before they released Fire of Unknown Origin, so they were still a powerful force in rock music. I had seen the Cult before, so I knew what to expect, and they delivered, tearing through a set of hits like “Cities on Flame,” “Don’t Fear the Reaper,” and “Godzilla.” During “Godzilla,” a huge Godzilla monster emerged from behind the stage, shooting menacing red lights from its eyes and breathing clouds of smoke. It was impressive.

Heart took the stage and proved that they deserved the headliner slot. They totally rocked! I was in the stands at that point, having spent most of the day on the open field and desperately needing a break. I remember feeling the stands trembling under the concerted stomping of feet as Ann and Nancy Wilson kept the crowd rockin’ after a long day of music.

It’s kind of weird to think back on this show, which was almost 35 years ago. Makes me feel old. But, one good thing about being old is that I was able to go to see great shows like this for less than what TicketMaster now charges as a “convenience fee.”

Thanks for stopping by, and be sure to go out and see some live music!

Phish: 6/9/2009

So I should start by saying I was never a big Phish phan. I could appreciate what they did musically, but I was much more of a Grateful Dead fan when it came to jam band music. But when a show was announced in Asheville, walking distance from my house, I figured I might as well check them out and mark them off the list of bands I had seen.

Usually, when bands would perform at the Asheville Civic Center (now renamed the US Cellular Center), I would go and buy tickets at the box office and avoid the TicketMaster service fees. But alas, all the Phish phreaks started camping out days in advance at the box office, and I for one had a life at that point and could not just check out and go sleep on the sidewalk for two or three days. So I decided to take my chances on the TicketMaster website and pay the fees.

Well, that was an epic fail. Tickets were gone within 5 minutes and I was “conveniently” redirected to TicketMaster’s partner site where scalper tickets were already being offered for $500. I was a little disappointed, since I had never seen Phish before and wanted to see what the fuss was all about, but figured it was not that big a deal, since I was not that into their music.

Then, out of the blue, my good friend Seth contacted me and said his friend had a couple extra tickets and wanted to know if I was interested in going with him. I said “Hell yeah!” So we got the tickets for face value (about $50) and went to the show. I have to admit, it was really fun. We danced, the music was good (much better live than on recordings I had heard), and it was just a really good time. And as a bonus, I got a really cool looking ticket stub to add to the collection.

Thanks for stopping by, and thanks again Seth for hooking me up!