video: rockforward faves

VIDEO: Bob Seger – "Travelin' Man/Beautiful Loser" – Live in Toledo 2013

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Bob Seger opened a new tour in Toledo late last week.  One guy, in the first five rows, recorded the songs from the night and posted them in a keenly neat and orderly fashion on YouTube.  Here’s my favorite.  Always a sucker for the combo, made famous on “Live Bullet.  The iconic voice still thrills me.  Detroit, baby.  And he will be 68 in May. Give it up for Bob.

VIDEO: Sugarland covers Springsteen's "Atlantic City"

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Rare chance to hear Kristian Bush (the guy in Sugarland) in concert with the band, doing an inspired take on Springsteen’s “Atlantic City”.  Great audio, and the version, especially the final third of the song, channels some of the Bruce magic.  The version is similar to how Springsteen and the E Street Band play it on their tour, with a bit of a quicker pace.  Bush says this was the first Springsteen song he ever learned, and Nebraska was his first Bruce album.

VIDEO: Rick Springfield with Dave Grohl and Sound City Players

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Highlight of the music weekend: Dave Grohl’s new movie Sound City debuted at the Sundance Film Festival and he had a concert featuring Rick Springfield, John Fogerty, Stevie Nicks and more…but it sounds like Springfield stole the show… (VIDEO BELOW)
from Movieline review: Rick Springfield’s set resonated even more with Sundancers judging from how violently their dancing and jumping shook the club’s floor.  It was an extended moment of pure rock bliss in which all the labels that get applied to music in terms of what’s cool (Foo Fighters) and what’s not (Rick Springfield) fell away and infectious, enduring pop music was celebrated for its essence. Grohl introduced the former General Hospital actor as “the one, the only, fucking Rick Springfield,” and the band played together on a number of the former pop star’s 1980s radio hits, “I’ve Done Everything For You,” “Love Is Alright Tonite” and “Jessie’s Girl.” And watching the beatific look on punk pioneer-turned-Foo-Fighter Pat Smear’s face as he played along to these Top 40 hits was indisputable proof that a good song is a good song.

As Grohl said archly between songs: “You’ve cracked the code, Rick Springfield. You’ve figured out how to write the perfect song. Goddamn you.”
Meanwhile, Springfield rose to the occasion of playing with one of the most balls-out rock bands in show business. In Sound City, he reveals somewhat sheepishly that Pat Benatar’s husband Neil Giraldo was pulled into the recording studio to lay down the famous guitar riff to “Jessie’s Girl” because the song’s producer didn’t think Springfield’s playing was up to snuff.”  But that humiliation was very much in the past at Friday’s concert. Onstage at Park City Live, Springfield behaved like a bona fide guitar god as he traded licks with Grohl.
FROM ROLLING STONE: The supergroup grew out of Grohl’s Sound City documentary, which goes inside the fabled Van Nuys recording studio where Fleetwood Mac, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Metallica and Nirvana recorded some of their most acclaimed albums.

 

Lost Video : Huey Lewis (circa 1984) solo with David Letterman’s orginal band

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One of the lost little video nuggets of 80’s rock. Huey Lewis (with just one member of the News in tow) plays “Heart of Rock and Roll” with Paul Shaffer and the first Late Show band -back in 1984 –  with Matt “Guitar Murphy” in for Hiram Bullock on guitar. And gotta love the raw look of the Letterman shows from the time.  Though the song is a piece of pop/rock that felt more like fluff than rock and roll from Lewis, this version is interesting for the setting, and the fact that the massive Sports album, which would be career-changer for the band, was just breaking out, and Lewis is essentially solo here.