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Posts Tagged ‘The Egg’

LIVE: Jim Weider’s Project Percolator (featuring Garth Hudson) @ The Egg, 5/18/13

Tuesday, May 21st, 2013

Project Percolator

Review by J Hunter
Photographs by Rudy Lu

Nowadays, if you brought a set of killer instrumentals to your average record company, the first words out of the A&R troll’s mouth would be, “Where are the vocals?” But back in the day, stalwart souls like Jeff Beck, John McLaughlin and (to an extent) Carlos Santana used their razor-sharp axes to keep the world safe for people who were tired of hearing the same “Boy Meets Girl, etc.” lyrics for the thousandth Goddamn time! Jim Weider is a fellow axe-wielder from about the same generation, and Project Percolator’s incendiary show at The Egg’s Swyer Theatre showed he’s still fighting the good fight.

The opener “Flight” let us know that frills would not be on the menu this evening, as Weider and his regular partners – guitarist Avi Bortnick, bassist Steve Lucas and drummer Rodney Holmes – threw hot & nasty jazz-rock (with the emphasis on “rock”) right at our heads. Back in the day, Weider replaced Robbie Robertson in The Band, and he was certainly up to the task. There’s a delightful layer of fuzz on every lick and riff he plays, and the howling joy that runs through it all is that same motivator that makes you want to drive really fast and laugh for no apparent reason. By the end of that first number, you knew it was going to be a great night… and the guest of honor hadn’t even come onstage yet!

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Tags: Albany, J Hunter, Project Percolator, Rudy Lu, The Egg
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LIVE: Eric Burdon @ The Egg, 5/19/13

Tuesday, May 21st, 2013

Review by Don Wilcock

The biggest difference between most blues concerts and the average rock concert is that rock replaces the unblinking honesty of blues with bravado. Eric Burdon on Sunday night at The Egg gave us both. He turned half-century-old British Invasion hits with the Animals into four-color, 3-D juggernaut performances with a crack seven-piece band. He combined that with original new songs from the best album of his career, ’Til Your River Runs Dry, sprinkled in some electric blues standards and stood naked on the stage wearing well his 72 years of both soaring and crawling across the world, equal parts rock star and has-been.

Words like “venerable” and “gravitas” are not easily applied to aging rockers, especially British Invasion bands who served up refried American blues to a country that was ignoring artists like Nina Simone for pre-fab Philly pretty boys Fabian and Frankie Avalon in 1963, but when the Animals covered her “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,” they touched a nerve in America’s youth. When Burdon covered it this time, the song indeed did have gravitas, and the aging baby boomers in the crowd sat slack-jawed and propelled so far into Burdon’s world that when he held the microphone out, hardly anyone sang along until he bitch-slapped them. “Wake up,” he ordered and the crowd snapped to attention and sang along.

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Tags: Albany, Don Wilcock, Eric Burdon, The Egg
Posted in LIVE | 2 Comments »

LIVE: Graham Parker & the Rumour @ The Egg, 4/10/13

Wednesday, May 8th, 2013

Graham Parker and The Rumour (photo by Martin Benjamin)

Review by Bokonon
Photographs by Martin Benjamin

The E Street Band. The Attractions. The Caledonia Soul Orchestra. These are combos talked about in hushed, reverent tones. They hold keys to secret doors. They know the combination to the safe.

The Rumour, too.

Bruce Springsteen. Elvis Costello. Van Morrison. They hold keys. But Graham Parker has to knock.

True, the angry little ex-pat has written some remarkable songs. He has British soul to spare. And he can make an evening pop, especially in front of a band like the Figgs or the Rumour. But there’s a reason he’s never risen to the heights of his heavyweight peers. He’s just really, really good; not great.

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Tags: Albany, Bokonon, Graham Parker and The Rumour, Martin Benjamin, The Egg
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LIVE: UK @ The Egg, 4/25/13

Thursday, May 2nd, 2013

UK @ The Egg (photo by Timothy Reidy)

Review and photographs by Timothy Reidy

This promised to be a once in a lifetime concert, and it was. The members of UK played a full set at The Egg in Albany, and it was exceptional. The band met and exceeded all expectations.

Most of UK’s self-titled album was performed, and, as an added bonus, we were treated to some red-and-black numbers of King Crimson – “Starless and Bible Black” and “Red.”

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Tags: Albany, The Egg, Timothy Reidy, UK
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LIVE: Amy Schumer @ The Egg, 4/13/13

Tuesday, April 23rd, 2013

Review by Erin Harkes

I went to see Amy Schumer at The Egg not really knowing what to expect. My past experience watching her was limited yet impressive. I’ve seen a few of her clips; a minute here, a minute there. I saw her as a guest on other’s shows such as “The Burn with Jeff Ross” and “The Jesselnik Offensive.” Most notably I laughed uncontrollably when I saw her on the Comedy Central Roast of Roseanne Barr. So with that limited experience I guess I had no right to expect more from her full one-hour show … but I did.

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Tags: Albany, Amy Schumer, Erin Harkes, The Egg
Posted in LIVE | 1 Comment »

LIVE: Al Di Meola & Gonzalo Rubalcaba @ The Egg, 4/7/13

Monday, April 15th, 2013

Al Di Meola

Review by J Hunter
Photographs by Albert Brooks
A JazzApril story

There was only one real revelation to come from Al Di Meola and Gonzalo Rubalcaba’s duet show at The Egg: Until that night, Di Meola had never known why Greater Nippertown’s most recognizable concert venue was called “The Egg”! It’s not like Di Meola hadn’t played here before, but apparently the iconic guitarist had been asleep when the tour bus for World Sinfonia or Rite of Strings rolled up the North Arterial. Now that mystery had been cleared up, Di Meola and Rubalcaba got down to giving us exactly what we expected – sheer, unadulterated genius.

While this pair has never recorded as a unit, Rubalcaba guested on two Di Meola discs (2002’s Flesh on Flesh and 2011’s Pursuit of Radical Rhapsody), and Di Meola has been a fan of the Cuban keyboard wizard since he first heard Rubalcaba on a fusion date over 25 years ago. Maybe they haven’t logged a ton of playing time together, but you’d never know it by listening to their intricate interplay on the opener “Siberiana.” Rubalcaba worked a vamp as Di Meola’s fingers flew up the fret board at warp speed, finding a figure of their own to work as Rubalcaba seamlessly took the solo spot. If there were transitional points worked into the sheet music both players feverishly studied, those points were not discernable as the duo displayed an adamantine chemistry.

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Tags: Al Di Meola, Albany, Albert Brooks, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, J Hunter, The Egg
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Jazz Appreciation Month Returns to Nippertown

Monday, April 1st, 2013

Story by J Hunter
Video by Susan Brink
A JazzApril story

Okay, you know by now (or you ought to know, anyway) that I think EVERY month should be Jazz Appreciation Month! And in Greater Nippertown, that wouldn’t be hard to achieve. Between a local scene that’s extremely vibrant and major concerts by kick-ass artists like the Hot Club of Detroit, SFJAZZ Collective, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Joe Lovano’s Us Five and Brian Blade & the Fellowship Band, we’ve already reaped an abundance of musical riches this year.

But when someone at the Smithsonian Institute threw a dart at the office calendar, it landed on April: In the words the late, great gun nut Charlton Heston, “So let it be written; so let it be done!” Now UNESCO has gotten into the act, too, taking the idea global by promoting concerts all around the world on April 30th, otherwise known as International Jazz Day. Finally, there’s a worldwide conspiracy I can get behind!

And what do we get out of all this intercontinental musical goodness? Get out your Smart Phone, BlackBerry or crayons and start checking off the dates:

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Tags: Albany, Colonie Elks Lodge, Great Barrington, J Hunter, Latham, Proctors, SCCC Taylor Auditorium, Schenectady, Susan Brink, The Egg, The Mahawie Performing Arts Center, The Massry Center, The Van Dyck
Posted in Be Here Now: Previews, Music | 1 Comment »

LIVE: Kurt Elling @ The Egg, 3/24/13

Thursday, March 28th, 2013

Review by Greg Haymes

As he’s proven over the years with area concerts from the Van Dyck to Tanglewood, Kurt Elling is one helluva jazz singer. But if you needed a reminder, he was in concert at The Egg in Albany on Sunday, and it may very well have been his best Local 518 performance yet.

Really, who else is likely to slip a song with lyrics by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Theodore Roethke (“The Waking”) in between a couple of golden oldie pop gems like Carole King’s “So Far Away” and an oh-so-dramatic deconstruction of the Drifters’ “On Broadway”?

Who else opens their show with a subtle, understated glide through “Come Fly With Me” that completely undermines Sinatra’s bold, brassy, hard-hitting signature rendition?

And who else closes their show with a bossa nova love ballad – Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “Louisa” – sung in Portuguese?

Let’s not forget the Sammy Davis Jr. impersonation…

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Tags: Albany, Kurt Elling, The Egg
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