Saturday, September 18, 2010

CAKE at Toad's


I've been to most major concert theaters in the state, but last night was the first time I'd set foot into New Haven's Toad's Place, "Where the Legends Play", according to its slogan.

When you look up at the walls and see the white and black placards of the many acts who have played there, you get a sense that the claim is valid. U2, Bob Dylan, Red Hot Chili Peppers, James Taylor, Billy Joel, Rolling Stones -- they've all played in the basement-like dungeon near Yale, where a string of green lights adorn the walls and bar. It is not a pretty place. There was no seats, really. Just a stage, three bars, and a giant floorspace.

CAKE played at Toad's last night; they rocked for a (barely) two-hour set. A kind of short, but solid show. The music was tight (and loud). My ears are still adjusting to the level of bass that pumped across the concert floor.

Besides Wilco, CAKE is one of the few bands I know that produce really good music, yet airplay has been generally minimal. Since the mid 1990s, CAKE has produced probably about 8 albums, yet the band was most popular when their hit, "The Distance" was atop the charts. Since then, CAKE has continued to churn out very good music and the band tours in places like Toad's Place or The Webster Theatre in Hartford, where faithful fans pack smaller venues. Tonight, they play Boston's Orpheum Theatre.

By 9:15 last night, Toad's Place was jammed with bodies, mostly people in their 20s and 30s. I was probably above the median age, which I would say was somewhere around 28, which felt weird, but strangely satisfying.

I was surprised with how crowded the place had become. At 8:15, when we arrived, the place was about 10 percent full. I thought there would be an embarrasingly small crowd. By the time the show began, there wasn't room to move. We stood for three hours in all, and once the show was going for a little while, you starting absorbing sweat from people (mostly dudes) around you. For a while, an air of claustrophobia settled among the crowd. Many may have been comforted by it. Elbows into elbows, feet touching feet, people stuck in their standing room only two foot by two foot space. When we moved at intermission to get something to drink, we gave up our "good spot." We were relegated to a back corner for the second set, which was not as good as the first.

It was good to go to Toad's, at least once, although I'd be careful about who to see there. The acoustics were good directly in the center of the stage, but the quality of sound dropped significantly at the edges of the room. But, for $42 a ticket, seeing CAKE play, and standing 25 feet from the stage, was a relative bargain.

Sunday, September 12, 2010

"The Names"

It's been a LONG time since I've posted to this blog, although I thought a bunch of times about writing on it since January, my last post. Anyway, with the ninth anniversary of 9/11 passing yesterday, I wanted to copy a poem here by former US Poet Laureate Billy Collins which was written some months after the terrorist attacks. It is the only poem I've ever read in the New York Times.

As people debate whether a mosque should be built two blocks from Ground Zero (talk about throwing gasoline on a still smoldering fire), I think it's important to remember "The Names."


"The Names" - Billy Collins

Yesterday, I lay awake in the palm of the night.
A soft rain stole in, unhelped by any breeze,
And when I saw the silver glaze on the windows,
I started with A, with Ackerman, as it happened,
Then Baxter and Calabro,
Davis and Eberling, names falling into place
As droplets fell through the dark.
Names printed on the ceiling of the night.
Names slipping around a watery bend.
Twenty-six willows on the banks of a stream.
In the morning, I walked out barefoot
Among thousands of flowers
Heavy with dew like the eyes of tears,
And each had a name --
Fiori inscribed on a yellow petal
Then Gonzalez and Han, Ishikawa and Jenkins.
Names written in the air
And stitched into the cloth of the day.
A name under a photograph taped to a mailbox.
Monogram on a torn shirt,
I see you spelled out on storefront windows
And on the bright unfurled awnings of this city.
I say the syllables as I turn a corner --
Kelly and Lee,
Medina, Nardella, and O'Connor.
When I peer into the woods,
I see a thick tangle where letters are hidden
As in a puzzle concocted for children.
Parker and Quigley in the twigs of an ash,
Rizzo, Schubert, Torres, and Upton,
Secrets in the boughs of an ancient maple.
Names written in the pale sky.
Names rising in the updraft amid buildings.
Names silent in stone
Or cried out behind a door.
Names blown over the earth and out to sea.
In the evening -- weakening light, the last swallows.
A boy on a lake lifts his oars.
A woman by a window puts a match to a candle,
And the names are outlined on the rose clouds --
Vanacore and Wallace,
(let X stand, if it can, for the ones unfound)
Then Young and Ziminsky, the final jolt of Z.
Names etched on the head of a pin.
One name spanning a bridge, another undergoing a tunnel.
A blue name needled into the skin.
Names of citizens, workers, mothers and fathers,
The bright-eyed daughter, the quick son.
Alphabet of names in a green field.
Names in the small tracks of birds.
Names lifted from a hat
Or balanced on the tip of the tongue.
Names wheeled into the dim warehouse of memory.
So many names, there is barely room on the walls of the heart.

Thursday, January 7, 2010