Sundermann

Jackson Browne w/ Sara Watkins
Beacon Theatre
Friday, August 3

Better than: Dad rock.

On Friday night, Jackson Browne, still looking youthful under his salt-and-pepper shag, took the stage at the Beacon Theatre for a "solo-acoustic performance" that opened a two-night run at the storied New York venue. Browne has made music for more than 40 years (let's not forget that this guy helped write and shape a good portion of Nico's Chelsea Girl); during that time, he's recorded 13 studio albums, five live records, and way too many singles for me to count. On top of all of that, he's actively been involved political movements like Occupy and a countless amount of charities, theoretically using his big pile of money for some greater good, beyond just purchasing a giant yacht (even if he does own one). Friday, he was joined by a backing guitarist and percussionist, as well as opener Sara Watkins on the fiddle. Browne and his band blew through a two-hour set full of classics—"Running on Empty," "These Days," "Take It Easy." He opened the night with a new song, "Standing on the Breach."

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Greg Campbell/Getty Images via Text100

When news broke that the Flaming Lips were going to play eight separate shows in 24 hours in an attempt to eclipse a Guinness World Record set by Jay-Z, the collective response was something along the lines of, "Well, of course they are."

The Lips have done so much bonkers shit up to this point in their long career—from releasing a live album on a USB drive encased in a bubblegum-flavored gummy fetus to the release of a 24-hour long song available for sale on a hard drive stuffed inside an actual human skull—that few things they do can really be seen as surprising.

But when I received a press release announcing the world record attempt and the fact that the whole thing was going to be livestreamed, I knew that this ridiculous and gimmicky thing deserved, nay begged for, a ridiculous, gimmicky response: I was going to watch the whole thing, livetweeting the whole way, and keeping notes on my thoughts and what was sure to be my mental collapse around hour 18.

What follows is culled from those notes and my tweets, and timestamped (in PT) for your entertainment and edification. You can surely find videos from the eight Lips shows and everything in between to, I guess, play along at home. I wouldn't recommend it, though. Even though it involved a band I generally admire, it was one hell of a slog.

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Bobby Bank/WireImage

David Johansen.

The Music of the Rolling Stones: Hot Rocks 1964-1971
Carnegie Hall
Tuesday, March 13

Better than: Paying $300 to see The Stones.

Okay, so maybe most of the audience was old enough to remember the first time they saw Mick Jagger shake his hips and lips on The Ed Sullivan Show. And a sea of salt-and-pepper hair, thick eyeglasses and bellies betraying too many Big Slam Breakfasts at Denny's was spread among the seats. But last night at Carnegie Hall, the years melted away as a slew of artists paid tribute to the Rolling Stones. Gone, briefly, were the horrors of adulthood (like the couple who told me, with a shudder, about taking their daughter to see Miley Cyrus). Instead, the mostly middle-aged crowd was able to relive the naughty kicks of "Let's Spend The Night Together" and "Honky Tonk Woman" for nearly two hours. They got to shout, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, Woo!" without their kids running from the room. And, finally, to really dig a wide array of Jagger and Richards's most brilliant songs.

And no, Justin Bieber did not come out and sing "Satisfaction."

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Third Eye Blind.

This afternoon at 12:30 or so, Zuccotti Park will host a concert starring activist/rocker Jackson Browne, the still-potent-to-the-kids Third Eye Blind, and the Los Angeles retro outfit Dawes. And this isn't one of those "omg Radiohead is on the way down there now" fake-outs, either; not only has the Third Eye Blind twitter semi-obliquely confirmed that they're going to be at the gig, but Browne and Third Eye Blind will appear on the forthcoming album Music For Occupy alongside Yo La Tengo, Toots and the Maytals, and Michael Moore. Third Eye Blind's rallying anthem for Occupy, the peppy "If There Ever Was A Time," after the jump.

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