Rolling Cef Concert Reviews

Another excellent guitarist, Jim Campilongo opened up. He head an instrumental band that also has bass, drums and a wicked accordion. It was very entertaining and I wish this guy could play at every Italian wedding I'm at for the rest of my life.

More than half of the material was new, while the songs from Jagged Little Pill had a different twist to them. Her lyrics are still as open as ever, but maybe not as angry. The crowd was a lot older than I expected, with more thirty-something's than teeny-bopper's. The Catalyst was a great place to see her, since I was close enough to make eye contact.

The opener, Chris Whitley never looked into the crowd until about the second verse of the third song. His guitar playing was rather conservative to start as well, but later in the set, he showed some real talent.

Most of the material was from their first three studio albums. Songs like Gypsy Road, Push Push, and Somebody Save Me kicked ass. The acoustic interlude of Heartbreak Station, The Last Mile, and the intro to Coming Home was excellent. The only song they didn't play which I wanted to hear was Once Around The Ride. But it didn't matter. When they came out for the encore and played the beefy Shake Me, it was awesome.

Floodland started their set with some heavier material than usual, but later played some of the more familiar material. They had a new drummer and the guitarist had a new look - signs of a record deal maybe? The guitarist was asking for more volume out of the monitors for the entire set, but everything out front sounded great.

Various other artists performed, including Tony Furtado, who showed the crowd some great guitar work.

Vinyl also played. They've got good musicianship, but no lyrics. I thought that the prominent horn section wasn't suited for the outdoor festival, especially one with the Hip headlining.

The Shelly Doty X-tet opened up. I missed her set, but she came to play lead guitar with Vinyl for one song, and I thought she stole the show.

The eels followed, who sounded ok. They played five songs including the radio-friendly single "Novocaine For The Soul".

Being an all-acoustic show, it was cool to hear a different sound from the Wallflowers, whose set list consisted of "Three Marlenas", "One Headlight", a Neil Young cover, "Don't Cry No Tears", "6th Ave Heartache", and the David Bowie cover, "Heroes".

Sarah McLachlan sounded as depressing as usual, but at least she admitted it. Fortunately, she played the upbeat Ice Cream as I was almost ready to fall asleep.

REM's musicianship was solid, but Micheal Stipe was straining to get the lyrics out.

Neil Young came back out and played a bunch of songs on guitar and piano, none of which I could name.

Bare Jr. gave a dose of some Nashville hard rock. They had a pretty good sound, and if the singer would have kept his mouth shut in between the songs, I would have really enjoyed them.

She played a short, but delightful, solo set, accompanying herself on either acoustic guitar or piano. For her traditional cover song, she gave the crowd a choice of Paul Weller, which got minimal response, The Clash, which got a pretty good response, and Ozzy Ozbourne, which got a little better response than The Clash. She said Metal always wins, and it's coming back, so she played the Ozzy song, "Crazy Train". What a great take on it! I never heard her play it before.

I didn't get a chance to talk to her myself, but another guy I was talking to met her at the bar during the second act. I had briefed him on her history, so he mentioned he had been talking to me. He told me later she seemed surprised that someone else from Toronto was there. I think my reputation is still intact.

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