Some Recent Live Music Experiences
Phish at The Sphere, King’s X in Toronto, Todd Rundgren at the Riv, Matthew Sweet
Phish
The Sphere, Las Vegas, NV
Thursday, April 18; Friday, April 19; Saturday, April 20; Sunday, April 21
I knew going in that it was going to be good. What I didn’t know was that I’d be watching the world of live music shift radically on its axis from the comfort of my living room couch.
Phish performed four consecutive 3-plus hour gigs at the Sphere in Las Vegas on April 18, 19, 20, and 21, and I don’t exist within a tax bracket that would make attending the shows in person anything other than a complete pipe dream, so I purchased live streams for all 4 shows, through LivePhish.com.
I’m glad I did.
The whole experience was both mind-blowing and, in my view, game-changing. And in so many ways, it felt like these four nights represented Phish fulfilling its destiny as the world’s biggest, weirdest, and most fiercely idiosyncratic ‘underground’ band. A band that never had a radio hit, or a hit by any other name. A band that not only never made concessions to the mainstream, but in fact, has spent the last 40 years acting as if the mainstream doesn’t even exist.
Phish has created its own universe. And the Sphere shows welcomed all of us into that universe in a truly immersive way, one that married light, sound, true improvisation, virtuosity, playfulness, theatricality, and yeah, a whole lotta trippy ‘Oh my god, I’m freaking out!’ moments.
It’s true that the face-melting audio-visual capabilities of the Sphere were first explored by U2, who did a late 2023/early 2024 run of 40 shows at the Sphere, and the reaction from fans and critics seemed to be unanimously positive. However, U2 played the same show (or very close to it) on every one of those 40 nights, which meant that the visual cues remained consistent throughout their run. That’s more than understandable, when you’re taking on a venture of this magnitude, with so many potential train-wrecks waiting around every bend.
Phish had their own ideas, however. The band spent a year planning for the Sphere, after finally settling on a thematic thread that would carry throughout the 4-night run - a run that would include precisely zero repeated songs, and visual accompaniment that responded in real -time to the band’s improvisational sojourns. All four nights would be unique.
The theme ended up being a clever one. Playing on the name of the venue, and breaking down the thread of continuity to encompass complete shows riffing on land (lithosphere), water (hydrosphere), air (atmosphere), and life (biosphere), the band pulled off a high concept presentation without beating that concept into the ground. The visual accompaniment mirrored these themes, as did - believe it or not - the improvisational jams, in a vibey, impressionistic manner.
Abundant credit is due to the creative team, including co-creative directors Abigail Rosen Holmes and Jean-Baptise Hardoin of Moment Factory, who worked closely with veteran Phish lighting designer Chris Kuroda to create a visual environment that was stunningly imaginative and packed a visceral wallop - one that I felt even while streaming the shows from 2,500 miles away.
Phish could’ve extended this Sphere run to dozens of shows and sold them all out, quite likely. But that would’ve meant compromising the ethos, repeating songs, and turning the whole thing into something more ‘Vegas-y.’ It’s a testament to the band’d integrity that they didn’t.
What an audio-visual marvel this was. Thanks, guys.
Todd Rundgren
The Riviera Theatre, North Tonawanda, NY
Tuesday, April 30
Speaking of musicians hell-bent marching to the beat of their own drum, Todd Rundgren has spent his entire career doing exactly that. Along the way, he’s had some accidental hit singles, all of which urged him to perform drastic artistic pivots immediately thereafter, in his stubborn insistence on creating a moving target and avoiding being pigeon-holed.
This eclecticism has been a serious treat for his longest-serving fans, and has created many a head-scratching moment for the more casual observer.
Rundgren’s show at the beautiful Riviera Theatre in North Tonawanda was a perfect exemplar of this dichotomy. Rundgren and his stellar band - drummer Prairie Prince, bassist/vocalist Kasim Sulton, saxophonist/keyboardist/vocalist Bobby Strickland, keyboardist Gil Assayas, guitarist/vocalist Bruce McDaniel - wren’t exactly taking a victory lap for nostalgia’s sake, nor were they eager to “play the hits.” Instead, we were offered a brilliantly curated tour through Rundgren’s incredibly deep and stylistically diverse catalog, with plenty of emphasis on relatively recent fare.
I first experienced Rundgren in concert at the Ritz in New York City, on his Nearly Human tour of 1989. I’ve seen pretty much every tour since, and they’ve run the gamut from power trio to one-man electronic dance music shows, prog-rock ensemble pieces, and industrial-tinged psychedelia.
The one consistency in all of this has been the depth of Rundgren’s songwriting capabilities, regardless of the idiom. The man is simply never boring.
The Riviera Theatre show numbers among my favorites of the several dozen Rundgren shows I’ve been lucky enough to catch. At 75, Rundgren’s voice is not quite as elastic as it once was, but his soulfulness and commitment to the melodies remains undiminished, and the vocal blend with longtime collaborator Karim Sulton and backing singers Strickland and McDaniel served the material incredibly well. I was truly moved.
Here’s the setlist:
I Think You Know
Secret Society
Weakness
Stood Up
Lost Horizon
Buffalo Grass
Beloved Infidel
Hit Me Like A Train
Wouldn’t You Like To Know
Sweet
Kindness
Woman’s World
Afterlife
Down With the Ship
Flesh & Blood
Honest Work (A Capella, with Kasim Sulton and Bruce McDaniel)
Rock Love
God Said
Fascist Christ
Hawking
Worldwide Epiphany
Encore:
I Saw the Light/Can We Still Be Friends/Hello It’s Me
The Last Ride
A Dream Goes on Forever
King’s X
The Axis, Toronto, ON
Sunday, April 21
I’ve loved this band’s blend of progressive metal, Beatle-esque 3-part vocal harmonies, gospel, R&B and funk since I first heard their 1990 album Faith Hope Love. Sadly, the band hasn’t played Buffalo since 2005, and the strength of their most recent album, Three Sides of One suggested that a road-trip to Toronto was in order.
Unfortunately, this will be a somewhat short story.
The band was as awesome as ever, the setlist was smartly assembled, with a healthy dose of the excellent new album, and the place was packed to the brim with folks who were very obviously fellow King’s X maniacs.
However, the mix was so completely and bafflingly horrible that the show was almost ruined.
King’s X is a band that is revered for its vocal harmonies. Those harmonies were virtually unintelligible for more than half of the show. Virtuoso guitarist Ty Tabor was buried in the mix, for the most part. And Dug Pinnick’s bass was so loud that it became close to impossible to define the tonality of the notes he was playing.
This was not a question of the band’s stage volume being too loud - it wasn’t. It was all down to the front-of-house mix. Perhaps the Axis is a tough room to mix in. I’ve never seen another show there, so I have nothing to compare it to. Regardless, the whole thing was pretty inexcusable.
King’s X deserves better.
Matthew Sweet
Electric City, Buffalo, NY
Friday, April 12
This was my first trip to Electric City, the former site of the Tralf, for personal reasons revolving around a sense of loyalty I feel to long-serving music venues in the region and concerns over what the Buffalo concert market will bear.
Of course, like everyone else, I’m a bit of a hypocrite, and the chance to catch Matthew Sweet in concert - for the first time, believe it or not - pushed ideas of personal integrity to the side. I’m a power-pop fanatic, when push comes to shove.
Over the course of 90 minutes, Sweet and his band - guitarist John Moreland, rhythm guitarist Adrian Carter, bassist Paul Chastain and Bangles drummer Debbi Peterson - reminded me why I keep returning to now-classic albums like Girlfiriend, Altered Beast (my favorite) and 100% Fun, tunes from which comprised the majority of Sweet’s show. These are simply timeless slabs of sugar-sweet, deeply melodic power-pop, and at the Electric City show, they were augmented by more recent Sweet fare, including a stellar ‘Stars Explode,’ from 2021’s Catspaw, and ‘Pretty Please,’ from 2017’s Tomorrow Forever.
Throughout, Sweet was in strong voice, and his between-tune banter was often weird and funny, particularly a rather lengthy exegesis on the majesty of cats. (You had to be there.)
Of particular note was the playing of guitarist Moremen, who dazzled throughout with wonderfully angular, jagged solos that delighted in the unexpected - no small feat, when you consider the fact that the legendary likes of Robert Quine, Richard Lloyd and Ivan Julian have filled the lead guitarist’s role in Sweet’s bands of the past.
Yep. ‘100% Fun’ - that about covers it.