Rockin' On The Stage- Roy Wood & Phil Lynott
A Certain Girl- Warren Zevon
A Gain- A Loss- The Plugz
Falling For You- Rose Maddox
The Same Thing Again- Billy Preston
(Si Si) Je Suis Un Rock Star- Bill Wyman
We Will Not- Bad Brains
Here is a nice mix for you nice people. You may like some. You may hate some. That's okay. We like what we like. We are all brothers and I appreciate everything. Lah-di-dah. Lah. Di. Dah.
👂
TRACKLIST:
I'm Waiting For The Man- Velvet Underground
Movin' Man- Dion & The Belmonts
Don't Make Promises- Tim Hardin
There She Goes Again- Velvet Underground
Loserville- Dion & The Belmonts
Green Rocky Road- Tim Hardin
Sunday Morning- Velvet Underground
All I Wanna Do- Dion & The Belmonts
How Long- Tim Hardin
Come To My Side- Dion & The Belmonts
Beginning To See The Light- Velvet Underground
While You're On Your Way- Tim Hardin
Here She Comes Now- Velvet Underground
My Girl The Month Of May- Dion & The Belmonts
I was listening to the Faces "A Nod Is As Good As A Wink..." as I often do, and after 50 plus years of what feels like regular rotation, I found yet one more thing to love.
Ronnie Lane's bass playing on "Love Lives Here" is gorgeous.
Two things hit me as if I was hearing the song for the first time instead of the 101st.
The first is just how lovely and fluid the bass line is under the verses. It reminded me of Macca's playing on "Something," giving the song a separate, subtle melody. The second is how Ronnie is basically playing the riff from "You're My Girl" (or "Plynth," if you will) on the instrumental transitions between the verses. You can hear that bit of genius begin at the 1:20 mark an then again at the 2:30 mark.
It's the little things, baby!
The following was posted on social media by a friend of a friend:
"Bad Bunny didn't say a political word, and that was the most political halftime show ever. They took a selection of things that are exuberantly gorgeous about Latinx life and they put them in a snow globe, and they put the snow globe down on the biggest stage in the world. And then they shook the hell out of it. I don't think I've ever seen anything like it."
That may be a hot take, but I like it.
Truth be told, I wasn't feeling that while I watched it taking place. The cynic in me was too preoccupied with other things, like the music itself, whether or not any of this was live, the elaborate sets and camera angles, the special guests, how long the breakdown of the sets would take before the start of the third quarter. It was a circus, for sure, and the 13 minutes of Bad Bunny music didn't send me flying to my nearest streaming service to binge on his records. The music always comes first and that halftime show was surely not the best way to be introduced to Bad Bunny, who I admit to never hearing a note before last night.
When all was said and done, and it clearly proved to be a success, I was elated. It was pure joy, given the circumstances surrounding it all. Just like Kendrick Lamarr's performance last year, I needed a day to process it all.
Sometimes I try so hard to be positive on social media, I can feel my ribs crack. It's not easy these days. It's hard enough to get out of bed in the morning, knowing that by the end of my first cup of coffee, I will have read about one more atrocity at the hands of this administration. And while I have no intention of burying my head in the sand, I think I need to appreciate distractions like last night's halftime show more than I do.
We all do.
