so, here we are. the last few days of the decade. it doesn’t feel like the end of a decade, but i suppose when the first decade-ending new years eve you celebrated was also a millennium/y2k/end of the world event, a simple decade seems kind of insignificant.

anyway. i’m about to list my favorite shows of the past year, but before i do, i realized that last year i forgot to add the tom petty & steve winwood show at the american airlines center in dallas to my list. i don’t know how this one got overlooked since it. was. awesome. but alas, it did. but now it hasn’t. on with the show…

it’s hard for me to put this show into words. they are quite possibly my favorite band. my friends and i used to see them at the small venues in tulsa and stillwater back in the day right as “calling you” was becoming a hit. they opened with “independently happy” which is one of my favorite songs. they didn’t play as many old songs as i’d like (though they did play “chameleon boy”) but they also didn’t play a ton off their newest album which made me happy (i don’t like it much. it’s lacking in the substance that their other albums have had).

there are so few bands anymore that can capture me and take me away from everything else and get me in that zone. you know where nothing matters, you feel like you’re connected to the band and you just want to scream “i know EXACTLY what you’re saying.” i just feel so….connected when i see blue october. i’ve been pretty depressed (in the past and in the present) and listing to them just does the trick. they have never failed to raise my spirits and make me feel better. so it’s already a great show and they’re totally on and they start playing “into the ocean” and when they get to the bridge and justin opens his arms and sings “let the rain come down”…

it starts POURING.

literally.

it was magical. that’s really all i can say. it gave me chills.

for the rest of the set i was basically in blue october euphoria. i only have two downsides: one, they didn’t play “a quiet mind” and two, during “hate me” (i think) when justin sang “i’ve been sober now for three whole months” he visibly crossed his fingers which made me kind of sad. i only met him once or twice back in the day, but i know that he’s been through a LOT of shit in his life and has and is battling lots of stuff, and the thought of him slipping back make me a little sad. i’m not completely sure why, but maybe when you put so much store in a person’s words and give those words healing power…it doesn’t make you feel like they were empty words, but…i don’t know.

if there was ever any doubt in my mind that music is the greatest thing in the world or that it wasn’t the best form of therapy, that doubt was eradicated after two songs. i just…i think a lot of it (as is the case with all of my “all time greatest concerts”) has to do with where you are at that moment. what’s been going on in your life, what state you’re in. in this case i was pretty down for a number of reasons, one of which was the looming $2,000 i was going to have to find since my transmission croaked the night before this show.

fleetwood mac just played amazing song after amazing song. “the chain” “tusk” “rhiannon” “sara” “landslide” “big love” “gold dust woman” “go your own way” they even played “oh well” which is circa the bob welch incarnation of fleetwood mac! that was probably the biggest surprise. you could not stop your foot from moving or your hands from tapping or your body from swaying. mick fleetwood and john mcvie are quite possibly the best rhythm section in rock and roll. i was inexplicably emotional for the first couple of songs. i don’t know if it was because i’d had such a string of bad news the past 24 hours or if it was because i was seeing one of my all time favorite bands, a band that is kind of in that category of “will i ever get to see them live before they stop playing for good?” i don’t know what it was, but it was an absolutely magical experience.

mick and john were absolutely solid. stevie sounded fantastic, especially for her age, and i rarely like female singers. (actually i can count the female singers i like on one hand: stevie, christine mcvie, chrissie hynde and tori amos). and lindsey buckingham… you know, he seems so full of himself and i remember how pissy he was before his solo show at the brady a few years ago. normally that conceitedness and gallivanting around the stage drawing out applause would annoy the hell out of me but you know what… he’s that fucking good.

so it definitely knocked someone out of my “top five greatest shows i’ve ever seen” i’m just not sure which yet. i might have to change it to a “top six.”

the feds are the best band you’ve never heard. they are so fucking good, but it just never clicked for them. their last show was a huge deal and it was even cooler that they had it in tulsa. i saw pretty much everyone i’ve ever known in the music scene there. they sounded so fantastic and had all the old members there, rotating in and out depending on the songs. at one point they did a justin/glen/ben triple drum solo. simply epic.

it didn’t really start to get emotional until aidan got up on stage and started talking about the feds and how they renewed his faith in music and made him believe in rock n roll again and how they’re all amazing, generous people on top of it all. they played a few more songs. played “a touch of panic” for the encore. and that was it. the end of the last great rock band of my (relative) youth.

yet another show whose impact has a lot to do with circumstances surrounding the event. i know i say this every time, but i absolutely cannot put into words how happy this band makes me when i see them live. just…pure joy. for the release show they had a full orchestra and shaun, the keyboard player from snarky puppy. sick. absolutely sick. they played pretty much, if not the, whole album plus “sheila” and “ruiner” from rest…and they played their chipotle song!!! (they entered a contest where the goal was to create commercial for chipotle. the jingle alone is catchy as fuck and the video is hilarious. they ended up winning the contest, receiving $10,000 and their own burrito (oso closo burrito) on the menu. they told us this news at the show.)

so the show was mind-blowingly fantastic. my brother, geoff, and i picked up our custom-painted cigar boxes and cds (and i finally got my oso closo pillow from the fabulous amy donaldson) and we left for home. on the way i was perusing the liner notes and saw that the boys thanked me. that on top of the show and the pillow and the cigar box and the show again pretty much made my night. so. happy.

i love the genuineness that emanates when a band plays a hometown show. they speak, they care, they play harder, their faces light up when the crowd sings their songs back to them. at one point, caleb caught himself getting too sappy and said, “sorry, i don’t mean to sound like bono.” the setlist was perfect. they played everything i wanted to hear and then some. however, the encore was the highlight. they opened with “closer” which is my favorite song. i was worried that they weren’t going to play it even though that song is absolutely built for a big arena show (the echoing guitar and the drums in the beginning!). but they played that and “use somebody” and a couple other old ones that i knew, but couldn’t name. the entire show was absolutely fantastic and invigorating. it made me happy.

our seats were good…for shitty seats, if you know what i mean. the show was good. it was definitely not the “eric clapton show” it was blind faith, 1970s blues rock at its best. it all felt very authentic. it didn’t connect with me as much as fleetwood mac and i was surprised by that, but it was still pretty amazing to not only get to see eric clapton live, but see him play and trade the lead back and forth with someone as talented and storied as steve winwood. the highlight was their cover of “voodoo chile,” the original track four from electric ladyland. not “slight return” but the full 15 minute jam. amazing, and dad and i checked wikipedia after and found out that steve winwood played the hammond on the original recording. so amazing.

yes, rent is a musical. but it’s a freaking ROCK musical so it counts. AND this tour featured adam pascal and anthony rapp! for those of you who don’t know, adam pascal and anthony rapp are THE ORIGINAL lead characters (roger and mark, respectively) in rent. they also reprised the roles in the 2005 movie. i mean, they ARE these characters. not only were they the first people to ever play these characters, the ones who performed rent for the first time days after jonathan larson died, but anthony was actually part of the workshop before the show was even cast. i mean, these guys are the closest you can get to the heart of rent without jonathan larson.

i mean, rent was such a huge part of my life in high school. i NEVER thought i’d get to see any of the original cast members perform. EVER. but to watch as adam and anthony sang “what you own” and to see them both on stage…it felt like what i imagine it would be like in new york at the nederlander in the ’90s. just…. $^&@#$

almost two years after i last saw him, i finally got to see dave and the boys play again. my friend alexis and i took a mini-roadtrip down to the tiny town of shawnee, oklahoma. despite the room (it was like a hotel ballroom) they sounded really good. i’m kinda bummed i didn’t hear “lie” since that’s by far my favorite song on his record, but i can’t complain. he played a couple old songs, threw in a verse from “hotel california” at one point, had an elvis impersonator jump on stage, and let andy sing lead on “til i’m blue.” the latter made me really miss the late nights at boston’s. all in all it was a great show. i still can’t really grasp the fan reaction that’s happening, it’s crazy. but congrats to him and the boys for all their success.

missed ra ra riot. saw cold war kids. they didn’t play “hang me out to dry” but they were good. just not really a band i’d want to see live again. i prefer them on the album. death cab came out and were AWESOME. played all my favorite songs except “what sara said,” but that doesn’t really surprise me. they didn’t play many piano-oriented songs, on most the piano parts were tracked. i can’t decide if the highlight was “i will possess your heart” or “i will follow you into the dark.” while the latter was beautiful, i think i have to go with “i will possess your heart.” after months of cranking up the volume in my car or getting lost in my headphone during that INCREDIBLE intro, hearing it live, having the sound encompass the whole room… it was amazing.

honestly, i was a little disappointed in the setlist at first. paul mccartney is one of those cases where, yes, i understand that there is so much more to you than just being a beatle. and you have recorded a ton of music since the beatle days, but let’s be honest, 99% of the crowd wants to hear you play beatles tunes. myself included. thankfully the show picked up by the second half and i had a good time. i’d also seen paul mccartney on his last tour in oklahoma city, so maybe the “OMG it’s paul-freaking-mccartney” shock had worn off and i was a little harder to impress. but a bunch of my friends ended up getting to sit right in front, and i was really happy for them. they are HUGE beatle fans and really deserved that treat.

hey. there’s this genre called wizard rock where bands write music about, inspired by, and sometimes from the point of view of harry potter. and this genre is AWESOME. i was entirely too excited about this, but you know what? i don’t care. i fucking love harry potter and i adore the fandom. it’s the way the music scene should be: fun, friendly, and unpretentious. it’s just a group of people sharing a common passion and there’s no hierarchy. there’s no, “i’m in/know the band, so i’m better than you.” really cool people.

i shot the show, but it was hard to not lose yourself in it. it’s so high-energy and fun. i won’t bore you with the details (like how toby played “hedwig’s theme” on the saxophone as the intro to the amazing song, “remember cedric”) but i had such a great time.

let me tell you, this was probably one of the worst weekends in my life. absolutely the lowest point of my year. BUT the three days i spent with these bands were also one of the highlights of my year. i went down to denton on a thursday for some birthday celebrations (belated and one big 2-1 party) and a kick ass rock show. the first night i was introduced to parachute musical. i missed a lot of their set, but what i did hear made me fall in love. this amazing jazz collective called snarky puppy also played in denton. this was also, i believe, my first time seeing oso play in their hometown. totally different (better) vibe than any other time i’d seen them.

i’d intended on spending the weekend in denton with friends, but when everything crashed down on me that night after the show at the boiler room, i decided to head back to oklahoma. i met up with my brother in oklahoma city (about half way home for me) and we had dinner and hung out. as it turned out i was getting ready to leave town about the same time that parachute musical was supposed to go on across town (but on my way home) so i made an impromptu stop by the speakeasy and caught their and oso’s sets and got to hang a little bit more.

the next night they played exit 6c in tulsa, i called everyone i knew to get them out and they didn’t disappoint. i had to get there really early to sneak my brother in (he’d come home for the weekend) so i hung out with the guys and got to know them more. they played. everyone loved them. and the new friends i made and the new music i discovered provided a really nice bright spot to an absolutely shitty past few days.

i was lucky to see this show. it was originally scheduled for last october and it ended up falling on the same night as one of my best friend’s bachelorette parties. seeing as how i was in the bridal party, there was no way i was going to be able to go to the show. then, by some luck that i’m not accustomed to, the show was postponed until february. when the time finally came, the show was fantastic. my seats were great. the sound was impeccable. and ryan even seemed to show a little personality during the second set. i also found a great recording from the soundboard a few weeks later.

alexis and i went out to LA to visit our friend jen for a week. we’d originally planned on going to vegas for the weekend, but when that fell through we hit up the sunset strip music festival. while i wish that my current favorite band, thenewno2, hadn’t canceled, it all turned out to be pretty fun. but the highlight was seeing ozzy freaking osbourne. i can’t say that i’ve ever really been a big fan of him or sabbath or anything. i know of a lot of his songs, but i never thought i’d get as into his show as i did. we were up a hill on a side road off the strip with this perfect view and a perfect breeze…i just got lost in it. he was simply fantastic.

this was a really last minute show, but i’m glad i went down for it. once i got there my friend beau and i realized it was sold out so we’d already made plans to hang out elsewhere when our wonderful friend lesley somehow procured not one, but two tickets and we all made it anyway. this was the first time i’d seen JTNL with their hometown crowd and, like i mentioned when talking about oso closo, that made for a totally different (better) vibe.

in protest of having to have the black eyed peas open instead of muse (and because i really can’t stand the black eyed peas anyway) geoff and i went to get dinner at freebirds (this amazing burrito place) instead. with our tummies full we walked across the OU campus and to the stadium. i hadn’t been in there since high school (when we’d sat in the empty stadium all afternoon and film random shorts instead of going to our OIPA classes). our seats were a thousand times better than i thought they’d be. they were behind the stage but practically dead center. we were just high enough that you could see the entire stage without having to turn your head back and forth. that was nice because we got to get the whole picture. and a small but very cool bonus, our row was the first row of actual seats (it was all benches in front of us) and divided from the row in front of us by a rail. the little bit of extra distance between the rows meant that, even with the people in front of us standing up, we could still see sitting down. totally made my day. haha.

the show was fantastic. i still don’t really like U2 (“i still haven’t found what i’m looking for” was awesome) but the spectacle of it all was pretty cool. the stage was mammoth and the video screen was really cool. i just don’t know how bands can perform on that big of a stage. you lose almost all the band member interaction that is, to me, one of the most important parts of a live show. it doesn’t feel like you’re watching a band but four individuals doing four different things to the same song. when i go to a show i want to see the band play together. interact. really become one entity, totally in a groove with one another. but that’s just my opinion. i really did have a much better time than i thought i would (i almost didn’t go).

and that’s that, kiddos. sixteen of my favorite shows from the past year. favorite albums coming in the next few days.

aforementioned blog. still in my head.

but sudden inspiration struck on the way home from the limbeck show just now and i just couldn’t wait ‘til morning.

BEST SHOWS OF 2008* **
*that i attended
**in chronological order

march 8 :: wilco @ cain’s, tulsa
sadly i’ve tried to block part of this show from my memory, but what i can and do allow myself to focus on is the brilliance of the song “impossible germany” and how it was 10,000 times better live. jeff tweedy seemed geniunely impressed at the turnout and enthusiasm of the tulsa crowd, which always makes me a little proud of tulsa. and his coat was FABULOUS.

march 21 :: admiral twin @ los cabos, broken arrow
the first outdoor show of the season always puts me in good spirits. and i love going to see admiral twin. it feels like family.

march 22 :: phantom planet @ diamond ballroom, okc
the bravery played too. and, going in, i was more excited to see them. but phantom planet absolutely stole the show. they know how to interact with the crowd and make you feel like you’re at a private show (though, to be honest, there weren’t that many people at this show). i hate that they’re breaking up.

march 25 :: dave cook - “billie jean”
ok, so i’m totally cheating on this one since i wasn’t actually in LA or hollywood or wherever they film the show. but come on, this was one of the best, most goosebump-inducing performances of the year. and it was on fucking american idol. i’m sorry, but i’m cheating and putting it on my list. after he sang that, i knew he was never coming back here.

may 18 :: black rebel motorcycle club @ the granada, dallas
the. best. show. of. the. year. period. it was a “private” jack daniels promo. no support, just BRMC. amazing sound. perfect view. not crowded. just….i can’t put into words how incredible this show was. they are absolutely amazing and i’m DYING to see them again.

july 17 :: oso closo @ exit 6c, tulsa
this is the night that oso won the hearts of pretty much everyone in tulsa. i remember being absolutely blown the fuck away by how GOOD they were (and by “GOOD” i mean, superlatives just don’t cut it, so i’ll just revert back to “good” but type it in all-caps for added emphasis). seriously. i’d heard a track and thought it was good (lowercase good) but oso’s forte is the live show. so much energy and talent and passion. i remember shawn from swampfox turning to me after oso’s set and saying, “well fuck. i don’t want to go on now!”

july 26 :: taddy porter @ dfest (mcnellie’s), tulsa
they rock. they packed the room. they gave away their music. they know what they’re doing.

july 26 :: jonathan tyler and the northern lights @ dfest (dirty’s tavern), tulsa
probably my favorite discovery of 2008. it’s close between them and oso closo. this band, jonathan tyler and the northern lights, stopped time at dfest. i planned to hear a few songs and move on. i was rooted to the spot for their entire set. there needs to be more bands like them in the world. take the best parts of kings of leon, the allman brothers… any of the good blues-rooted rock bands from the early ’70s. just…captivating.

august 2 :: oso closo, the feds, & fair to midland @ house of blues, dallas
i didn’t know how oso would fit with the feds and FTM, but they killed it. the feds made a shoutout to tulsa since there were a TON of us in town for the show and well, we were more awesome than that majority of the texans in the room. unfortunately i don’t remember much of FTM. we had a rule, no shots after fair to midland starts. or maybe it was the feds. either way, the rule was broken.

august 28 :: the feds @ belle isle brewery, okc
kind of an all-around awesome show. they sounded good (especially for belle isle). the crowd was such that the show was pretty much all-request. and afterward i got to hang with all the boys. i’ll admit i like being with “the guys” more than “the girls.” Conversation’s almost always better.

august 29 :: ludo @ the marquee, tulsa
the feds & my solstice (yes?) played too. i hadn’t seen ludo in AGES. i’d forgotten the lyrics to “good will hunting.” i love going to see bands like ludo. bands who spent a lot of time in tulsa and then scored some radio success or what have you. i love when they come back and the crowd is bigger and more into it and they get to turn more people on. love it love it love it.

september 23 :: the parlor mob @ diamond ballroom, okc
…should go here, but i suffer from chronic tardiness and missed all but two and a half of their songs.

october 24 :: dredg @ the marquee, tulsa
second best show of the year. dredg falls under the same category as blue october for me. blue october’s music/shows have always been extremely theraputic for me. there’s something about justin furstenfeld’s lyrics and/or writing style that just pulls me in. regardless of whether i’m listening to the cd or to him live, it’s like you’re sitting down with a good friend and having a one-on-one conversation. it’s just…music as it should be. but i digress. though not as much lyrically, dredg also makes me feel like that. it’s always been there on the cd, but i didn’t really notice that peaceful calm until i saw them live.

november 14 :: the feds @ dan’s silver leaf, denton
the feds are on here a lot. probably because they’re breaking up and i’m making up for the years that i kind of shrugged them off and didn’t go see them all that much. but this was a FANTASTIC show. not as good as tulsa will be, i’m sure, but the tulsa show isn’t for another month, so. the feds last texas show ever. on the list.

november 16 :: coldplay @ ford center, okc
better than the 2006 show. kind of peaked early at “fix you” but that’s ok. i hate going to arena shows, there’s no intimacy, but somehow coldplay seems to get to you.

december 6 :: taddy porter & jonathan tyler and the northern lights @ the colony, tulsa
i’ve already told you about these two. and they played TOGETHER. musical orgasm! of note: the northern lights covered “crosstown traffic,” making them even more awesome in my book.

and that’s all kiddos. i’m exhausted. this took longer than expected. it’s now 2:30am and i have to be at work in a few hours.

stay tuned for my (now) annual best albums of the year list very soon.