Blog
Some Kinda Wonderful
Written by Seattle - Winky
The other night I was dancing at 1am with my sister-in-law-to-be after my husband’s 50th bday party was more or less over (except for the dancing). Joss Stone was singing her heart out to Some Kind Of Wonderful and we just had to get up and appreciate it.
It wasn’t a live track but it felt like it could have been. I have rediscovered or recently bought a few live CDs and it is always kind of wonderful to hear what artists do live from the stage as opposed to in the studio. Counting crows is one band I have never seen live but have always wanted to. “Live at Heineken Music Hall 2003” is the closest I can come right now. They do a great folksy version of “Rain King” and the crowd singing along to “Goodnight Elisabeth” is really sweet.
The other discovery is “Jack Johnson En Concert”. Saw it on Amazon when I was buying the newest REM CD and had to check it out. We did get to hear him live in Reno, California of all places many years ago. This is a CD from a more recent world tour. Fun to hear him say thank you in several languages with several bad accents. Eddie Vedder sits in on one track and Jack has fun riffing in snippets of other songs (“Mother and Child Reunion?”) in the middle of his own songs. The French crowd in particular seemed into singing along.
Finally, probably my most favorite Live CD is from a much lesser known artist named Todd Snider. I first fell in love with him and his humor with “joe’s blues” and this seattle grunge ballad, written at the height of seattle grunge. Those are both on his cd called “songs for the daily planet” and the grunge one is the ghost track, I believe. 1994. The live CD is 2003 and is called “near truths and hotel rooms”. His hair is shorter but he is no less cute or witty. Several songs have incredibly funny introductions to them- the very best being track 11 “the story of the ballad of devil’s backbone tavern”. I challenge any of you to listen to that- and the song that follows- and not laugh almost to the point of wiping your eyes.