Category Archives: Music

new orleans music

Even without the music, New Orleans is a fascinating city, one that is easy to be in – restaurants, shops, a riverwalk along the Mississippi, art galleries, parks – all within walking distance, all filled with friendly folks who are genuinely pleased with life and glad to be spending a part of their day with you. Its narrow one-way streets demand you get out on foot to explore. It’s the only way to see New Orleans, and while you’re out there gawking at all there is on offer, your senses come alive … especially your auditory sense. New Orleans is many things, but paramount is the music. Live music. I daresay there isn’t a city anywhere else that keeps on giving music the way NOLA does. Continue reading

matisyahu 9/3/11

Another great night outdoors at Boarding House Park in Lowell; tonight it’s to see Matisyahu. If this is a new name for you, check out this video of One Day on YouTube. It’s one of those ear worm songs that I think everyone has heard by now. He performed it as the closer at tonight’s show, inviting all the kids in the audience to come up on stage to sing along. We all felt good. If we’d all had lighters, we’d have had them lit. Continue reading

great big sea 8/26/11

What an absolute hoot! I had no idea a Great Big Sea concert was a dancing party. But that’s what they do and that’s what their fans do. They’re so good that the fans are up dancing before the guys have even plugged in. And here I thought there’d be me and a couple hundred fans to see a band that most people never heard of. Boy was I wrong. It was the biggest crowd of the season for the Lowell Music Series at Boarding House Park. Continue reading

bob dylan 8/21/11

It took Bob to get me down to the House of Blues in Boston, the former Avalon, just behind Fenway Park, home to the Boston Red Sox. I never much liked the Avalon – tight security, difficult sight lines – so it seems much improved in its new incarnation, with three levels, the third level being stadium seating, which is where I sat with my eyes glued on Bob all night. Continue reading

mavis staples 8/19/11

Mavis is still belting it out, good and strong. A night of soul and gospel. My knowledge of Mavis is limited to say the least – her brilliant performance with the Staples Singers on The Weight with The Band for The Last Waltz, and not again until listening to her 2007 album, “We’ll Never Turn Back,” which I’d picked up on the strength of its producer, Ry Cooder. That was enough of a taste to get me down to the Lowell Summer Music Series to catch her set at Boarding House Park. Continue reading