Being a geek of a certain age, I of course went out to see Tron: Legacy as soon as it opened in the theaters. And being a geek of a certain type, and having listened to Wendy Carlos‘ ethereal soundtrack to the original Tron, I also purchased the soundtrack to this one as soon as it was available. This was my first introduction to Daft Punk, whom (I must admit) I first even heard of when their role was announced to much rejoicing. On receipt of the CD (yes, I still buy physical goods from time to time), I learned that they had worked on the orchestration with Hans Zimmer, a composer whose other cinematic work I do know and enjoy.

I say all this to make clear that I cannot evaluate the album as to its “Daft Punkness”. On my first listen through, I was underwhelmed. Wendy Carlos notwithstanding, I am not much of a fan of techno, and this album is certainly that. But having spent the cash I gave it a few good listens, and then I noticed that I was replaying the music in my head throughout the day. That’s just about the best recommendation you can give an album: it’s something you want to keep listening to. It evokes the movie (which I very much enjoyed) without being dogmatically tied to it. I’ve played these tracks for more than anything I’ve purchased in the past year or so.

That’s not to say the album is perfect. Again, bear in mind that all I know of techno is an outsider’s impression; it’s not my cup of tea. But the soundtrack encapsulates why it’s not my cup of tea. Daft Punk is very good at mood-setting and crafting almost subliminal music cues and then building them up. But this album is too much crescendo and too little climax: Too many tracks simply don’t pay off, dribbling away into subtle but ultimately disappointing whimpers. To be fair, this is a criticism applicable to most movie orchestration; after all, the music is fundamentally infrastructure on which a scene is hung. It’s not supposed to attract your attention and it isn’t telling the story itself. Especially in a visual medium such as movie-making, there tends to be an emphasis on crescendo: The scene wants to build tension which is generally then released abruptly with transition to the next scene. (Certainly the action genre, of which Tron: Legacy is an example, follows this pattern.) So the music builds for the big reveal, and then dashes to the next cue.

All of that said, it is this no-there-there quality of most tracks that I find most dissatisfying about the album. Daft Punk does a nice job with the rising action and are masters of the building overlay, where the same riff is repeated many times, but each repetition adds a new instrument or variation. By the tenth or so cycle, the output is quite complex and rich. But once the end of the scene comes, the payoff is usually just one abrupt transition to a fadeout; and that is unsatisfying, especially when encountered over and over.

Nonetheless the soundtrack worked its way into my brain and I found myself often putting it on when I needed instrumental music in the background. It turns out that this album is far more effective when heard out of the corner of your ear, rather than faced directly head-on. Once I got past the newness of the genre and made peace with the crescendo/climax issue, I was able to appreciate the subtleties. One surprise, for me, was that the bombastic big-picture stuff is not the album’s strengths. There are some quite gentle and quite beautiful pieces to be found, such as “Adagio for Tron” and “Father and Son“. They serve as nice counterpoints to the more driven mood music of the rest of the movie. They also allow the audience to come up for air and find the emotional core of the movie, which is always at risk of being lost among the neon action.

It is fair to say that the album succeeds in capturing (and creating) the mood of its progenitor film. After listening to the album for nearly a month, I went back to re-watch Tron: Legacy in the theater. My familiarity with the music definitely enhanced my experience of the film. Daft Punk does seem to have a cinematic intuition; the music evokes the action, as it should. Despite not knowing the soundtrack, it still did not drown out the film. It lies safely underneath what is happening on screen, the audio substrate but not a distraction, just as it should be. Perhaps the only place where that really fails is during the End of Line Club scenes, wherein Daft Punk appear as digital versions of themselves and their music on this album is closest to the club-thumping techno for which they’ve earned their fame. Maybe I’m just a oldster but this is the least engaging part of the movie and of the soundtrack.

Being versed in the released album also let me notice the musical cues that aren’t to be found on the CD. Clearly there are always artistic choices to be made and decisions to face. I did discover the haunting “Father and Son” interlude, cut from the album but happily available online via the Apple iTunes store. I wonder if the decision was artistic or commercial — perhaps they wanted to tap multiple revenue stream? In any case the omission lessens the official soundtrack. Likewise, there are apparently tracks available on an import CD but not in the States. I’m a big Tron fan but I’m not spending another $40 to get five tracks.

Daft Punk have said that Wendy Carlos was a major influence on their own style, and that comes through. No one would mistake this soundtrack for hers, but then, no one would mistake Tron: Legacy for Tron, so that’s OK. Much like the visuals of the movie, the soundtrack has been updated and evolved. I do wish that, perhaps, they had included just one or two more direct homages (all we get is a brief rendition of the iconic Tron motif by Kevin Flynn) but that is really more nitpicking than anything else.

Final verdict? This album was definitely worth the time to listen and the money to buy. It’s already worked its way into my rotation of instrumental/soundtrack playlists and I expect I’ll be replaying it for a long time.Православни икони

Last night, Annie and I attended a show by Marc Cohn with Suzanna Vega at the Town Hall NYC.

Playlist

• Ghost Train
• Perfect Love
• The Calling (Charlie Christian’s Tune)
• Dance Back From the Grave
• 29 Ways
• Listening to Levon
• My Sanctuary
• Walking in Memphis
• Into the Mystic
• Only Living Boy in New York

We stayed for most of Suzanne Vega’s act.  I don’t really know Ms. Vega’s work so I didn’t capture an accurate playlist and I can’t really comment on her performance.  I was reminded that for me (and I’ll apologize to any Vega fans out there), I like her songs on occasion but couldn’t really listen to a whole album of them.

Marc Cohn’s portion of the show was everything I’d hoped for, though.  (It was a little short for him, but that’s the result of the double-billing.)  I was a bit taken aback by the realization that this month marks the 20th anniversary of the release of Marc Cohn, his debut.  He’s probably getting a little tired of reciting the story about Muriel at the Hollywood.    His band was excellent, including as always the amazing Shane Fontayne on guitar.  I found the playlist interesting, as there were some rarer bits (“My Santuary”, for example) and some missing favorites (such as my personal one, “Dig Down Deep”).  He played surprisingly few from what he jokingly calls his “Greatest Hits album, released first”.

He did two from Listening Booth: 1970.  While I like the album well enough, I am less excited to hear other people’s songs than Cohn’s.  But he put a really nice spin on “Into the Mystic”.

It’s been too long since I’d been to a Marc Cohn show — this past summer, it seemed like he would play a city only after I’d left it — and it was a nice refresher.

This video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3jkUhG68wY&feature=player_embedded) is a hilarious take-down of the music publishing industry’s allegation that personal filesharing is “killing” music.  Part of the fun is figuring out the early 1980s references.  Also, I would totally buy a flag that had that cassette-and-crossbones logo…

Also, remember that according to former MPAA chief Jack Valenti,

[T]he VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone.

Not that the content cartels would ever condone the use of overblown and hyperbolic language to frighten lawmakers into writing into law special rights to protect their outmoded business models…

OK, this is another silly Facebook object trouve meme. Let’s see how this turns out.

INSTRUCTIONS::
1. Put your iPod or other music player on shuffle.
2. For each question, press the “next” button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS! (or stupid)
4. Tag friends who might enjoy doing this as well as the person you got this from

My list is below the fold; my conclusions are given right here: This is dumb. Although it’s supposed to yield deep insights or at least some humor, it really just generates noise. There is a disturbing trend in today’s society tho believe in the innate wisdom of randomness, as if throwing a patische of things together somehow tells us something important. That can happen but it rarely does.

More significantly, perhaps, the originator of this meme misunderstood iPods nearly as much as Apple does. I have 26 GB of songs. Most of them were on albums with other songs I like. Some were on albums I decided I didn’t like after hearing. Probably most have been listened to one or two times. Heck, some of them are just physics demonstrations. Picking songs at random from that collection is no more likely to reveal something interesting about me as, well, pulling Scrabble tiles from a bag is to reveal the Question to life, the universe, and everything.

I can see two ways to improve this and give it a fighting chance of being interesting. First, the songs should be picked from a Party Shuffle of songs you actually, you know, listen to. Second, I think it would be better to pull maybe 20 songs into a playlist but then choose which song matched which question. Utter randomness is, by definition, without meaning. But allow me to mediate consciously, and I just might reveal something.

WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY?
“The Beat Goes On” — Sonny & Cher

WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
“One More” — Greg Sell

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE?
“Me & Julio Down By the School Yard” — Simon & Garfunkel

WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?
“Pyjamarama” — Roxy Music

WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF You?
“New & Improved” — Michael Giacchino

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT OFTEN?
“House of the Rising Sun” — Shawn Mullins

WHAT IS 2+2?
“This River is Wild” — The Killers

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
“The Pinnacle” — Kansas

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
“Ending Titles” (Tron) — Wendy Carlos

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
“Welcome to Pylea” — Robert Kral

WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
“The Twelve Days of Christmas” — Boston Pops Orchestra

WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
“Flash Lightning” — Papa Fritas

WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
“Pistolero” — Juno Reactor

WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
“So I Built Myself a Shoulder” — Palivicinni

WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
“Looking Ahead: Governance and Democracy” — Larry Diamond, John McMillin, Paul Collier

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
“Influence of Masking Noise on Pitch” — Houtsma, Rossing, Wagennars

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
867-5309 — Tommy Tutone

WHAT’S THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN?
“The Wild Frontier” — Bruce Hornsby

HOW WILL YOU DIE?
“Stretched & Compressed Scales” — Houtsma, Rossing, Wagenaars

WHAT IS THE ONE THING YOU REGRET?
“The Long Race” — Bruce Hornsby

WHAT MAKES YOU LAUGH?
“The Trio (Main Title)” — Ennio Morricone

WHAT MAKES YOU CRY?
“Fire Down Below” — Nick Cave

WILL YOU EVER GET MARRIED?
“Be Here Now” — Ray LaMontagne

WHAT SCARES YOU THE MOST?
“King of Pain” — Alanis Morrisette

DOES ANYONE LIKE YOU?
“West Wing Main Title” — W.G. “Snuffy” Walden

IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME, WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE?
“It’s Just a TV Show” — The Be-Fives

WHAT HURTS RIGHT NOW?
“Mandatum Novo Do Vobis” — The Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo de Silos

WHAT WILL YOU POST THIS AS?
“Strip Polka” — Johnny Mercer

A stirring rendition, courtesy of Beyoncé at HBO’s “We Are One” Inauguration Concert.

More oddly-prescient musings of Jackson Browne.

“Lives in the Balance”
Jackson Browne
Lives in the Balance

I’ve been waiting for something to happen
For a week or a month or a year
With the blood in the ink of the headlines
And the sound of the crowd in my ear
You might ask what it takes to remember
When you know that you’ve seen it before
Where a government lies to its people
And a nation lies drifting to war
There’s a shadow on the faces
Of the men who send the guns
To the wars that are fought in places
Where their business interest runs…

On the radio talk shows and TV
You hear one thing again and again
That the USA stands for freedom
And we’ve come to the aid of a friend.
But who are the ones that we call our friends,
these governments killing its own?
Or the people who finally can’t take anymore
So they pick up a gun or a knife or a stone?

And there are lives in the balance
And there are people under fire
And there are children at the cannons
And there is blood on the wire…

There’s a shadow on the faces
Of the men who fan the flames
Of the wars that fought in the places
Where we can’t even say the names.
They sell us the President the same way
They sell us our clothes and our cars
They sell us everything from youth to religion
At the same time they sell us our wars.
I wanna know who the men in the shadows are
I wanna hear somebody asking them why
They can be counted on to tell us who our enemies are
But they’re never the ones to fight and to die.

And there are lives in the balance
And there are people under fire
And there are children at the cannons
And there is blood on the wire…

It’s still surprisingly hard to write about 9/11. It galls me to see, again, our national “leaders” exploit this tragedy for political ends. And it saddens me that we don’t seem to have learned any lessons. So it’s really not in me to pen something deep and insightful. Instead, I’ll fall back on the melodic musings of Jackson Browne, writing long before today but seeing, apparently, the same sickening game.

As if I really didn’t understand
That I was just another part of the plan
I went on looking for the promise, believing in of the motherland.
From the comfort of a dreamer’s bed
And the comfort of my own head
I went off speaking of the future while others fought and bled
The kid I was when I first left home
Was looking for his freedom and a life of his own
But the freedom wasn’t so sweet
When the truth was known.

I have prayed for America
I was made for America
It’s in my blood and in my bones
By the dawn’s early light
By all I know is right
We’re gonna reap what we have sown.

As if freedom was a question of might
As if loyalty was black and white
You hear people say it all the time “My country, wrong or right”.
I wanna know what that’s got to do
With what it takes to find out what’s true
With everyone from the President on down Trying to keep it from you.

The thing I wonder about the dads and moms
Who send their sons to the Viet Nams
Will they really think their way of life
Has been protected when the next war comes.

I have prayed for America
I was made for America
Her shining dream plays in my mind
By the rocket’s red glare
A generation’s blank stare
We’d better wake her up this time.

The kid I was when I first left home
Was looking for his freedom and a life of his own
But the freedom wasn’t so sweet
When the truth was known.

I have prayed for America
I was made for America
I can’t let go ’til she’s come ’round
Until the land of the free
Is awake and can see –
Until her conscience has been found.

Marc Cohn & band
Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center
Sunday 2008 August 24 8:30 PM

It’s my habit to see Marc Cohn every chance I get during the New York leg of his tours. This explains why, three days after my last Cohn concert, I schlepped all the way out along Long Island’s southern shore to Westhampton. Tonight he had no opener; it was just his band and him. The WHBPAC is an intimate space, acoustically rich and comfortable. It lacks the grandeur of St. George’s Theater but is quite nice for a modern building.

As before, the playlist is below the fold. I don’t have as many comments, as many of the songs are the same.

1. Live Out the String : Like before, Mr. Cohn opened with the “poppest” song from the latest album Join the Parade.
2. Girl of Mysterious Sorrow : Songs from Burning the Daze have been very rare for Mr. Cohn to play, for reasons I’ve not heard. This is one of the more haunting and beautiful tunes from that album, and this version was amazing. I suspect that he played this because he did not have the wonder-keyboard as mentioned at the last show and so couldn’t do “Ghost Train”. (He actually mentioned this explicitly.)
3. Perfect Love : Mr. Cohn mentioned that he had the good fortune of having James Taylor sing backup on this, despite it being Cohn’s debut album — possibly, he admitted, because he modeled the tune on Taylor’s “Shower the People You Love With Love”.
4. The Calling (Charlie Christian’s Tune)
5. Dance Back From the Grave: Mr. Cohn related again the tale of how he overheard a poet Rick Bragg speaking after the impact of Hurrican Katrina and knew he had to write a song based on the poet’s words. He also said it had particular resonance for him “because about ten days earlier, I’d been shot”. This refers to an incident after a show in Colorado(?), wherein someone tried to carjackMr. Cohn’s van.
6. 29 Ways
7. Listening to Levon
8. Healing Hands : A surprise second song from Burning the Daze, played with tenderness.
9. Walking in Memphis: I look forward to this song because it always brings out the storyteller in Mr. Cohn. Tonight he commented that he and his wife had been wandering around Westhampton Beach and seen all the posters for this concert, as well as ones for Chris Isaak. But Mr. Isaak’s posters had the tagline “Songs that will break your heart” while Mr. Cohn’s read “Returning to his musical roots”. Mock-indignant, Mr. Cohn asserted “I have a song or two to break your heart. And I don’t think I ever left my musical roots.” For the rest of the night, he played up an imagined rivalry with Mr. Isaak.
10. Miles Away:

That marked the end of the official set, as before. Tonight, when he returned, Mr. Cohn called out for requests and listened for quite some time sorting through the songs. As you’ll see, they ended up being many of the same as previously, leading me to suspect he waits until he hears people call the songs he wants to play anyway. But he did allow some variation. At first he dismissed all the requests as “Some very nice songs by Gordon Lightfoot” and then he sighed dramatically when someone called for “Wicked Games by Chris Isaak”.

1. Paper Walls
2. Silver Thunderbird
3. True Companion
4. Strangers in a Car
5. Let Me Be Your Witness: He played this even though, as he explicitly noticed, no one had gotten around to calling for it.
6. One Safe Place

There was only one encore set but as you can see, it was longer.

Marc Cohn with Toby Lightman
St. George Theater, Staten Island, NY
Thursday 2008 August 21

This is another in my ongoing series of reviews of Marc Cohn shows. See this earlier one and this one as well for comparison.

The St. George is a beautiful venue, an old vaudeville theater (I assume) which has been either renovated or maintained lovingly in its original state. Ornate and glitzy, it nonetheless provided excellent sound for an intimate concert. The opener was a bluesy singer/songwriter named Toby Lightman, who has been featured (apparently) on the Home Shopping Network as well as singing the opening for NASCAR on Fox. Unfortunately I don’t know any of Ms. Lightman’s work, so I can’t review it in depth. She seemed to have a nice range, though, and her songs aren’t bad at all. She does appear to be a bit nervous on a stage by herself.

After Ms. Lightman’s forty-minute set and a small break, Marc Cohn came on stage with his current touring band: Shane Fontayne on guitar; Joe Bobadillo (?) on drums; and John Ossman on bass. The set was high-energy and went on for more than an hour and a half, including two encores. The playlist is below the fold.

1. Live Out the String : A nice rendition, though somewhat marred by some equipment issues Mr. Fontayne had throughout the song.
2. Ghost Train : Mr. Cohn commented on how he has had to resort to bringing along his original, aging keyboard on tours now, as modern keyboards apparently can’t reproduce the signature sound of this track from his first album (which he humorously refers to as “my best-of”). Between this number and the next he introduced Mr. Fontayne (who had fully resolved whatever plagued him during the first song and was his usual, amazing, liquid self on this tune).
3. Perfect Love : A good version though I have to say, again, that I an not in love with this song. It is uncharacteristically cloying for Marc Cohn.
4. The Calling (Charlie Christian’s Tune): Appropriately haunting. After this song, Mr. Cohn introduced Joe Bobadillo on the drums and then called Ms. Lightman out to perform a couple of numbers with him.
5. Dance Back From the Grave: I will admit that I was not a fan of this song when I first heard it. I was put off a little by its rough-hewn lyrics and distorted guitar. Then I experienced a moment of fridge brilliance and realized how a propos these features are in a song about a city that’s been drowned. Anyway, in concert, the song packs quite an emotional wallop. Mr. Cohn also did some audio wizardry by employing two mics, one of which (used for the main verses) was driven to distortion.
6. 29 Ways : Another song from the first album, and another song I didn’t particularly like that nonetheless stands out in concert. For me, the success of a concert hinges entirely on whether the performer enjoys their work. I mean, if the singer can’t be bothered liking what he’s playing, why should I? Mr. Cohn never fails to convey his love of his work. But this song was over-the-top out-and-out fun, and that came through nicely. Its topic is a little bit goofy and that content-free quality allowed Mr. Cohn and the band to really cut loose. Also, Ms. Lightman’s contribution to this song was much stronger and integral than on “Dance Back From the Grave”. After this, she left the stage for a bit and Mr. Cohn introduced John Ossman on bass.
7. Listening to Levon: Mr. Cohn, introducing this song, described it as the eternal conflict of a 16 year old boy falling in love with a 16 year old girl and in love with music. It’s a sweet, funny little song (one of the best from Join the Parade, in my opinion) and it again brings across how essential Mr. Cohn’s music is to his entire life. Also, during the bridge (before “It’d serve me right”), he riffed a little and gave us a verse of “The Weight” by The Band, which includes drummer/singer Levon Helm, who is of course eponymous for the song.
8. Rainy Season: Every time I hear a concert rendition of the title song from Mr. Cohn’s second album, I am amazed how he has turned a so-so studio track into a lush and evocative cry of love and pain. Here the band really kicked in, tossing the sad-but-energetic motiffs from one to the other. Every once in a while a song can really paint an “aural picture” and this one really feels like a rainy evening. It’s also a unique blend of optimism and fatalism — the singer is clearly in love, clearly wants to make it work, clearly is going to try … and just as clearly, expects it all to smash up anyway. Something about that noble struggle even when faith is gone, tugs at me. During the extended fade-out, Mr. Cohn mixed in a verse or two from “Walking Man”, a song I’ve heard him perform only the once — which is regrettable, because it too was an awesome song.
9. Walking in Memphis: As he has done in the past few concerts I’ve seen, Mr. Cohn begins by sitting at the piano, fingering some keys idly, and telling a story of his early career. In this case, he told how he’d given LA a try, returned to New York burnt out, and had gone on a bit of a walkabout trying to figure out what he wanted from life. This took him to Memphis, Tennessee. (At this point, the crowd understood which song was coming and broke into applause, leading him to joke, “Nah, I’m not going to play that. You’ve heard it all so many times, I thought you would just want the story.”) The most moving and important experience was his encounter with Muriel Davis Wilkins. After a night of jamming with Mr. Cohn, she told him to go home, get his head on right, and write the songs he wanted to sing. Most of the eponymous Marc Cohn followed. A few months after, he returned to the Hollywood Cafe and played the songs for Ms. Wilkins. She said that they were all right but the best was “the one about me”. “Walking in Memphis” at a Marc Cohn concert is a little bit partaking of the divine, as everyone in the audience sings along. In a way that I don’t know how to describe, something flows between Marc and the audience then, something shared beyond a catchy refrain and some clever lyrics. Something about the emotion he invested in it, and the time it was released, and something more, approaches the transcendent. I’ve been to a dozen or so Marc Cohn concerts and that song has never been greeted with less than reverence by the audience … even when the audience was a drunken Atlantic City crowd that had been comped into the casino play space.
10. Miles Away: Yet another song that is enhanced in concert. For whatever reason this song has always resonated with me and the production last night was exemplary.

That marked the end of the set. Of course, Mr. Cohn almost always comes back for more, so we had an encore set:

1. Silver Thunderbird: The respect the audience always shows for this song indicates that Mr. Cohn captured something unspoken but universal about how we view our fathers. It’s poignant and sweet and one of the reasons that first album evokes such fan loyalty.
2. Paper Walls: He introduced this by saying that after you tour for long enough, you have to come up with a “road song” and this was his. He then strummed through the opening bars a couple of times and then admitted, in singsong, that he couldn’t remember the opening lines and we would have to wait for it to come around to him. Then he did recover the lyrics and launched into this tale of temptation and descent. This was another song where the band really cut loose and made it clear that they just love performing. The guitar work was impressive and the drums inspired.
3. Let Me Be Your Witness: This was the first song I’d heard off the long-rumored “new album” (Join the Parade) and it remains my favorite. Toby Lightman came back on stage for this one, to outstanding effect. “Witness” is a culmination song, something that just seems appropriate at a moment when you stand back and look at your life. I guess I’m also a sucker for the defiance in it, for the sheer doggedness of the singer that he will stand by (whomever) at their darkest moment when everyone is arrayed against them.

“Let Me Be Your Witness” is tailor-made to be the song that ushers out an evening. (Actually, Mr. Cohn has a number of these.) The soft beginning and the ending swell can carry you out into the night satisfied. But last night, we got a second encore (an encore encore?):

1. True Companion: After “Walking in Memphis”, this is the song Marc Cohn “has” to play. Too many fans have co-opted it for their weddings to allow it to slip away. I find that a little disappointing, because — much like “Perfect Love” — this is a bit cloying and heavy-handed. It feels like it was written to be co-opted into wedding playlists, the way the latest pop star’s Christmas album cynically gloms onto holiday spirit. I will admit that I’ve softened a little bit for it now that I’m in a relationship wherein the sentiment can be imagined. Still, it is simply never a high point of a Marc Cohn concert for me.
2. One Safe Place: This is a different logical “closer” song. It perhaps perfectly encapsulates the Marc Cohn experience: Gravelly voice plus tight lyrics plus that indefinable, indelible quiet yearning. It is a song that will carry you out into the night, and it did for us.

So, overall, another fantastic night. So far Mr. Cohn has never failed to render a moving, rousing, eminently enjoyable show. My personal thanks to my friend Angela Haberle, who came along and provided the ride that got me from Princeton to Staten Island and back with a minimum of fuss.

Counting Crows with Maroon 5
Also with Sara Bareilles
Thursday 2008 Aug 7
PNC Bank Arts Center
Holmdel, NJ

My usual way to review a show would be to give the playlist and say what I did or didn’t like about each. That’s not going to work this time for a host of reasons. First off, I don’t really know the body of work for either Sara Bareilles or Maroon 5. I wouldn’t be able to name almost any of their songs, and it wouldn’t be fair to give an in-depth review of material I was hearing for the first time, under concert conditions. I can say that I was impressed with both groups, enough that I’ll probably plunk down some cash and check out their studio work. Ms. Bareilles has tremendous range and an endearing quality to her voice. Maroon 5 also covered a lot of ground stylistically, from hard rock to something that sounded a bit like late Police work.

I do know most Counting Crows songs, and I will be posting their playlist. But it really isn’t meaningful to analyze each in detail, for reasons that will be made clear below the fold.

It got so bad that numerous people — perhaps up to a quarter of the concert-goers — gave up and departed before the set was done. I felt the same temptation, for the first time in my concert-going history. Simple said, the entire debacle was embarrassing to watch. I can’t imagine what it felt like to be a band member participating in this slow meltdown. It’s convinced me that I’m never going to attend another Counting Crows show. I love and respect their music too much to be a witness at its destruction.

OK, now the playlist.

1. Lean on Me
2. Sullivan Street
3. Hard Candy
4. (some song I didn’t recognize)
5. Washington Square
6. Daylight Fading
7. Mrs. Potter’s Lullaby
8. Mr. Jones
9. A Long December — including a particularly nice riff on “A Murder of One”
10. Goodnight, LA
11. Accidentally in Love
12. (a second song I didn’t recognize)
13. (a third song, by some other group in fact, that I didn’t recognize)
14. Big Yellow Taxi
15. Holiday in Spain

There was no encore set.