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One of the questions I’m asked most frequently
is, “Do you ever find it a chore to go to a concert when you’d rather stay
home and watch TV or read a good book?”
Honestly, there is [ital] nothing [ital] I’d
rather do than see live music and have that transcendent experience that
only comes from a great concert.
That isn’t to say that there aren’t times when
it does seem like work—say, having to review N ’Sync in the 110-degree heat
at Soldier Field at the end of an already long summer day. But I honestly
never approach any concert expecting (much less wanting) to have a bad time,
even when the artists’ albums and previous shows have left me cold.
For one thing, there is always the electric
jolt of anticipation that comes from several thousand people gathered as a
temporary community to share an artistic experience. For another, in live
performance, there is always the chance to be surprised. [ital] Anything
[ital] can happen, and that’s why it’s special. Some day, Britney Spears
might even actually sing!
Finally, I try to never lose sight of the fact
that I am one lucky S.O.B., being paid to have fun and search out those
moments of musical magic. Heck, no matter how egregious the assignment,
there are a million jobs worse than sitting through even the most dreadful
concert. I could be digging holes--and may well wind up doing so, the day
some review finally rubs my editors the wrong way.
With all of that in mind, here are my choices
for the Best and Worst concerts of 2002, culled from the 400 or so acts that
I saw this year. (I average two or three show, with at least two or three
bands, each and every week; I don’t have the exact tally handy this year,
since I switched calendars in the summer, but you get the idea: That’s a
whole lot of live music.)
THE 10 BEST CONCERTS OF 2002 (in chronological
order)
1. Paul McCartney at the United
Center, April 10
A few months before his 60th
birthday, Sir Paul justified both his status as a rock legend and his
top-dollar ticket prices by delivering a high-energy 2-1/2-hour set with a
young and fiery band, taking some real artistic chances (notably in the solo
acoustic part of the evening), and playing a satisfying mix of Beatles
classics, Wings’ best songs, and solo nuggets.
2. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds at the
Chicago Theatre, April 26
Touring with the Bad Seeds, one of the most
subtle bands in rock, in support of the stellar “No More Shall We Part,”
Cave transformed himself into the characters in his songs, acting out their
tales of murder and mayhem. There’s nothing like two hours of gore from the
master of dark mood music to leave you feeling giddy and cheerful.
3. Paul Westerberg at the Virgin
Megastore, May 2
Some performers would have phoned in an
instore performance like this, but the former leader of the Replacements has
never been the predictable type. Alone with his guitar, Westerberg delivered
18 songs spanning his career, taking requests from the crowd, and turning to
the fans to provide the lyrics he’d forgotten.
4. Rush at the Tweeter Center, July
20
During its first tour in five years, the
Canadian power trio proved that it is still one of the best live bands in
rock. The show had some low points (the “trippy” computer graphics and some
of the ’90s material), but for the most part, the propulsive energy of
“Vapor Trails” spilled over into everything the group played, from the
opening “Tom Sawyer” through a triumphant closing with the epic “By-Tor and
the Snow Dog.”
5. The Smokin’ Grooves Tour at the
Tweeter Center, July 24
Six hours that came as a welcome reminder that
hip-hop can still be a powerful and creative force onstage as well as in the
studio. The day belonged to Jurassic 5, but the Roots and Outkast followed
close behind, and Lauryn Hill was the only disappointing act. (Tragically,
the concert was also marred by something that happened after the crowd left,
when a young security guard, Dean Perozzi, Jr., was struck by a speaker as
the stage was being dismantled. He later died from his injuries.)
6. The Rolling Stones at the Aragon
Ballroom, Sept. 16
Only the self-proclaimed “world’s greatest
rock ’n’ roll band” would consider a 4,500-seat venue “an intimate
performance,” but the Stones treated their Aragon show as if it were a tiny
club gig, almost redeeming themselves for the last couple of mediocre tours
by digging deep into their songbook to show the range and depth of their
musical ambitions, from R&B to reggae, and from disco to country blues.
7. The Creation at the Beat Kitchen,
Sept. 18
A few days after their old mates the Who held
court at the House of Blues, two veterans of the legendary Creation (plus
two younger ringers) blew away their contemporaries from the English
psychedelic/mod scene. Eddie Phillips restaked his claim as one of the most
inventive guitarist British rock has ever produced, and the band underscored
just how many timeless tunes it produced in its short but fertile career.
8. Beck and the Flaming Lips at the
Chicago Theatre, Oct. 18
This was an unusual pairing in many ways:
Where alt-rock icon Beck has always shielded himself behind a cloak of irony
and an affected cloud of angst, the Flaming Lips celebrate their sincerity
in voicing the joys of being alive. The two brought out the best in each
other, with Beck providing the Lips a forum for showing the depth of their
talents as musicians, and the Lips giving Beck a welcome antidote to the
cathartic new material from his dark new album. For Generation X, the
combination was the equal of Neil Young pairing with Crazy Horse or Bob
Dylan joining forces with the Band.
9. Peter Gabriel at the United
Center, Nov. 12
In ads on the West Coast, the veteran
art-rocker’s record company took a line from my review of this show out of
context, trumpeting that it was “the best concert I’ve ever seen!” In fact,
I’d written something more complex, about the power of a great Gabriel show
(as with a great show by any performer) to make you feel as if you’ll never
see a better concert. O.K., it’s a subtle difference. I’m not backing away
from my praise, just underscoring that it filled me with the joy of
discovery, something all the more impressive when an artist is as familiar
as this one. And it wasn’t only the theatrics, but the power of the complex
new material. So while, no, it was NOT the best concert I’ve ever seen (I
could never choose just one!), it was certainly one of the 10 best this
year.
10. Mission of Burma at Metro, Nov.
22
Like the Creation, this reunion show by the
legendary ’80s art punks succeeded not on the strength of nostalgia, put on
the power of songs that were always ahead of their time, performed by a
group of musicians who seemed thrilled to be rocking together once more,
giving their all to the material for the benefit of an appreciative crowd.
THE FIVE WORST CONCERTS OF 2002
1. Creed at the Allstate Arena, Feb.
13
These mullet-headed new-millennial masters of
arena bombast seem constitutionally incapable of avoiding any rock cliché.
But for all of their religious proselytizing, the one ingredient they lack
is soul.
2. Ozzfest at the Tweeter Center,
Aug. 10
With the exception of System of a Down (which
is always great in concert), this seventh annual grind fest was an epic of
endurance, proving that are still countless variations of brutally ugly guys
standing onstage cranking out tuneless, formless churn while pointlessly
growling like Cookie Monster. And TV show or no, Ozzy Osbourne circa 2002 is
simply too sad for words.
3. OK Go and the Vines at Metro, July
13
Two of the more hyped acts of the year shared
a bill, and neither could prove that it deserved a tenth of the attention
it’s received. Mixing dream pop and regurgitated Nirvana, headliners the
Vines were even more contrived and formulaic than the last great Australian
hype, Silverchair, with added demerits for copping Kurt Cobain’s trashing of
their instruments. Meanwhile, Chicago popsters OK Go reveled in
“aren’t-we-clever?” shtick, outdoing the Barenaked Ladies and They Might Be
Giants in their cutesy smugness.
4. The Anger Management Tour at the
Allstate Arena, Aug. 2
A week after Smokin’ Grooves highlighted how
great live hip-hop could be, the summer’s other major multi-act hip-hop show
proved only that some mainstream stars know no limits in pandering to the
lowest common denominator. It’s a good thing that headliner Eminem has
launched a film career, because this show illustrated that he hasn’t grown a
bit as a live performer, relying on flashy stage tricks and gratuitous guest
spots from his pals to pad out a short and unsatisfying set of truncated
hits.
5. Guns N’ Roses at the Allstate
Arena, Nov. 18
It was a travesty for Axl Rose to call this
cover band Guns N’ Roses, but it wasn’t the new members’ fault that the show
was a flop--it was Axl’s. The set sank under the weight of the singer’s
pretensions (no grand piano power ballads, please!) and his fast-paced but
rote performance (it was hard to believe he needed monitors feeding him the
lyrics to the band’s classic tunes). Two weeks later, he paused onstage at
Madison Square Garden to denounce this reviewer for such observations. Two
nights after that, the tour fell apart amid a flurry of cancelled gigs, and
the reunited band may or may not have broken up again, depending on which
reports you choose to believe.
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