Author: Mat Brewster

Welcome to the Midnight Cafe group of sites.

The Who – Landover, MD (12/13/79)

The Who
1979-12-13
Washington DC (Landover, MD) The Capitol Centre

Source: Audience
Lineage: Master Cassette>Nakamichi 670 azimuth-adjusted playback deck>Nakamichi outboard Dolby B>Wavelab 96/24 1ch mono>
Taping Gear: Teac M-100>Sony 153SD (mono, Dobly B on)
Taped and transferred by JEMS

  1. Substitute
  2. I Can’t Explain
  3. Baba O’Riley
  4. The Punk And The Godfather
  5. My Wife
  6. Sister Disco
  7. Behind Blue Eyes
  8. Music Must Change
  9. Drowned
  10. Who Are You
  11. 5:15
  12. Pinball Wizard >
  13. See Me Feel Me
  14. Long Live Rock
  15. My Generation
  16. I Can See For Miles
  17. Sparks
  18. Won’t Get Fooled Again
    encore:
  19. Summertime Blues
  20. Dancing In The Streets
  21. Dance It Away
  22. How Can You Do It Alone
  23. The Real Me

At the 10th show of the Winter ’79 tour Roger greets the audience with ‘It’s been along time’ to which Pete responds ‘Not fucking long enough!’ Despite that, Pete comes out swinging! This might be the best show of tour. Pete starts out the show in punk rock mode, wearing a leopard print t-shirt, which along with his Dr. Martins (from Robot on Chelsea Road, for the fashionable among you…)seems to put him in a more youthful/rebellious frame of mind. This is reflected in his playing, as he is at the top of his game for the entire show. After the first couple of songs, he traded the t-shirt for black jacket with no shirt.
This is the first of two nonconsecutive shows at the Capitol Centre. In response to the deaths at the show in Cincinnati, then-Providence Mayor Vincent ‘”Buddy” Cianci, who oversaw the Providence Civic Center auditorium, canceled the show that was to be held there on December 17th. The Who’s management looked at their options and decided to add a second show at the Capital Centre to make up for the canceled show.
Just as a side note, The Capital Centre, along with The Philadelphia Spectrum, the Chicago International Amphitheater, the Richfield Coliseum, and the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium, have all been torn down as well as the next two dates on this tour, The Veteran’s Memorial New Haven Coliseum and The Boston Garden, and the Pontiac Silverdome, while still there, is no longer in use…time marches on.

The encore here features some of my favorite improvised lyrics of the tour. ‘I listen to all the great thinkers, but I prefer to listen to the great drinkers. I was born in a trunk in Acton, and I like Eric Clapton…just got to be happy and dance it away!’. The version of ‘How Can You Do It Alone’ that follows is a very uptempo ‘punk’ take on it, including a ‘one-two-three-four’ count in.
The tape for this one came out particularly good as we were in the 8th row on the floor in front of Pete, which, were about the same seats we had three years earlier for the Who’s performance here. (Still on the tracker at:http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details.php?id=261431)
Thanks again to Andy for putting these shows up for us.
Others in this series are here:

Pink Floyd – Rotterdam, The Netherlands (02/19/77)

Pink Floyd
Oude Ahoy Hallen
Rotterdam, The Netherlands
February 19, 1977

Disc One:

  1. Sheep
  2. Pigs On The Wing (Part 1)
  3. Dogs
  4. Pigs On The Wing (Part 2)
  5. Pigs (3 Different Ones)

Disc Two:

  1. Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts 1-5)
  2. Welcome To The Machine
  3. Have A Cigar
  4. Wish You Were Here
  5. Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts 6-9)
  6. Money

Door-to-Door Maniac (1961)

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Johnny Cash was a huge country and western star in 1961 but he wanted to branch out. He wanted to more famous. Hollywood seemed like a good place to make that happen. But Hollywood wasn’t exactly foaming at the mouth for Cash as an actor so he found himself starring in this super low-budget thriller. He’s pretty good in it, though that might partially be because he was strung out from partying all night which fits the character well. The movie would have been completely forgotten were it not for Cash.

This Blu-ray also contains a film Right Hand of the Devil which is what makes it worth the price of admission. It isn’t that good either, but it is weird and fascinating. It was made by a hairdresser named Aram Katcher who desperately wanted to be an auteur. He put his savings into the film and it is full of his idiosyncracies, which makes it a great little midnight movie.

You can read my full review of both films at Cinema Sentries.

Into the Night By Cornell Woolrich & Lawrence Block

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It should come as no surprise that I like to read crime fiction. I watch enough of those movies to make me liking the books to be perfectly predictable.

I just recently started getting into Lawrence Block. He’s probably most famous for a series of novels starring Matthew Scudder a down-on-his-luck former New York police turned sort-of private eye. I’ve read a couple of those books and am currently reading a Block novel that doesn’t involve Scudder. I like his style very much.

I’ve never read anything by Cornell Woolrich, though I should probably rectify that, since he wrote the stories to some great movies including Rear Window, The Bride Wore Black, and Mississippi Mermaid.

Into the Night was found in Woolrich’s desk after he died, unfinished. Lawrence Block was hired to finish it. The end result is pretty good. You can read my full review of it here.

Bruce Springsteen – Dallas, TX (02/10/23)

Bruce Springsteen
Feb 10, 2023
American Airlines Center
Dallas, TX

Set One

  1. No Surrender
  2. Ghosts
  3. Prove It All Night
  4. Letter To You
  5. The Promised Land
  6. Out in the Street
  7. Candy’s Room
  8. Kitty’s Back
  9. Nightshift
  10. Encore
  11. Detroit Medley
  12. Born to Run
  13. Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)
  14. Glory Days
  15. Dancing in the Dark
  16. Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out
  17. I’ll See You in My Dreams

    Notes
    Bruce Springsteen – Lead vocal, electric and acoustic guitars, harmonica; Roy Bittan – Piano, keyboards; Nils Lofgren – Electric and acoustic guitars, lap steel, backing vocal; Garry Tallent – Bass; Max Weinberg – Drums; Jake Clemons – Tenor saxophone, percussion, backing vocal; Charlie Giordano – Organ, keyboards; Anthony Almonte – Percussion, backing vocal; Ada Dyer – Backing vocal; Curtis King – Backing vocal; Lisa Lowell – Backing vocal; Michelle Moore – Backing vocal; Barry Danielian – Trumpet; Ed Manion – Baritone and tenor saxophone;† Ozzie Melendez – Trombone; Curt Ramm – Trumpet
    Recorded by John Cooper
    Mixed by Jon Altschiller; additional engineering by Danielle Warman, Nic Coolidge, Allison Leah and Alex Bonyata
    Mix Advisor: Rob Lebret
    Post Production by Brad Serling and Arya Jha
    Art Design by Michelle Holme
    Cover Photo by Rob DeMartin
    Tour Director: George Travis
    Manager: Jon Landau
    HD files are 24 bit / 96 kHz; DSD Files are DSD64

song fifth night set
Tour premiere of ìDetroit Medleyî
Four songs from 2020ís Letter To You: ìGhosts,î ìLetter To You,î ìLast Man Standingî and ìIíll See You In My Dreamsî
ìLast Man Standingî features a new arrangement
ìIíll See You In My Dreamsî is performed solo acoustic to end the show
Two songs from 2022ís Only the Strong Survive: ìNightshiftî (written by Franne Golde, Dennis Lambert and Walter Orange, popularized by The Commodores) and ìDonít Play That Songî (written by Ahmet Ertegun and Betty Nelson, popularized by Ben E. King)
ìJohnny 99î is performed in the Wrecking Ball tour arrangement
Concert stalwarts like ìBecause The Night,î ìDancing in the Darkî and ìTenth Avenue Freeze-Outî are performed in tighter, shorter versions

Kingfish – Stonybrook, NY (11/09/75)

KINGFISH 1975-11-09
SUNY Gym
Stonybrook, NY

Jump Back Baby
CC Rider
Asia Minor
Little Bluebird
Goodbye Yer Honor
Shop Around
Jump For Joy
Juke
Promised Land
I Hear You Knockin’
Shake and Finger Pop
Bye and Bye
Hypnotize
Big Iron
Battle of New Orleans
Around and Around
Pack Up My Overnight Bag

SBD > cassette (?) > reel (?) > DAT >
CDR > EAC

Robbie Hoddinott-lead guitar
Matt Kelly-harmonica, guitar
Bob Weir-rhythm guitar, vocals
Dave Torbert-bass, vocals
Chris Herold-drums

Devil’s Doorway (1950)

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Obviously, I love a good Western. For the last two years, I’ve dedicated the month of March to the genre. A great Western is transcendent. Even a bad one can be a lot of fun. But there is no getting past the casual racism that is found in a great many Western. This is especially true in Westerns from the 1930s into the 1940s. Hollywood thought nothing of making Native Americans nameless, blood-thirsty savages who wanted nothing more than to rape the women, kidnap the children, and murder the men.

Slowly, Hollywood changed. By the 1950s they sometimes (but not always, not even all that often) made films that depicted Native Americans with an ounce of empathy. Devil’s Doorway is a film that points to the realities of how Native Americans were treated by white folk. Even ones who fought valiantly in the Civil War.

Unfortunately, the lead Native American is played by a decidedly white fella.

Were the film really good, I might be able to forgive that lapse in judgment. But as it is, the film isn’t great and so that bit of indiscretion stands out like a racist thumb.

You can read my full review here.

My Favorite Thing Is Monsters by Emil Ferris

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I wish this book had come out when I was a teenager. I think it is safe to say now that I was a weird kid. Especially in rural, conservative Oklahoma. I liked horror movies and heavy metal. I grew my hair long and wore Doc Martens everywhere, even with shorts.

My Favorite Thing is Monsters is about a precocious, weird little girl who likes horror movies and pretends to be a werewolf. When her neighbor dies she dons the hate of a hard-boiled detective. It all takes place in the turbulent 1960s in Chicago.

Emil Farris’ art is a wondrous mix of styles and genres. It is a two-volume book and I reviewed Book Two for Cinema Sentries. Both are highly worth picking up.

Animation in August: Princess Mononoke (1997)

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Like most kids, I suppose I grew up watching animation. I loved Disney films and the movies of Don Bluth. Every afternoon and Saturday morning I watched television series like G.I. Joe, Thundercats, The Smurfs, and Muppet Babies. Later I fell in love with the films from Pixar.

While these types of films told different stories and used somewhat different animation styles, they all held a certain familiarity. They were all distinctly American.

Princess Mononoke was the first Studio Ghibli film I’d ever seen. This was the late 1990s, maybe or possibly early 2000. I was just becoming a true cinephile. I’d heard rumblings about Studio Ghibli for a while but I think this was the first big breakout it had in the States. Or maybe just in my orbit. It definitely got a big American release because the English dub included folks like Billy Crudup, Billy Bob Thornton, Claire Danes, and Gillian Anderson.

Anyway, I sat down with Princess Mononoke with high hopes. All the critics loved it. Honestly, I was a little disappointed. No, disappointed isn’t really the right word. I just didn’t know what to make of it. It was like no movie I’d ever seen before.

The animation was strange. In the opening scene, a demon attacks a village. But it doesn’t look like any demon I’d ever seen before. It wasn’t full of fire and horns. It was an enormous boar covered in slithering black worms. Later we meet tree spirits with human bodies and rattle-like heads, and a Great Forest Spirit with a deer-like body and an almost human face.

The story wasn’t like typical American animation with clear-cut good and bad guys. The characters were murkier. Our hero sometimes brutally murdered his enemies. The villain, if you can even call her that, rescued young women from a life of prostitution.

I think on that first viewing I just didn’t know how to process what I was watching. It was so different than anything else I’d ever seen, I wasn’t sure of what to make of it.

I’ve seen it several more times since then (and many more Studio Ghibli films) and now I just love it. What was so strange on that first viewing is endearing to me now. I love that it is different from most animated films.

So, quickly, the story involves Ashitaka (Crudup) the last prince of a small village (the one that gets attacked by that demon). He kills the demon and in the process, his arm is infected by it. This gives him super strength, but also seems to possess him at times and ultimately will kill him. When he learns that an iron ball lodged inside its body is what turned the Boar God into a demon he sets off to find out how it got lodged there.

The iron ball was actually a bullet from the newly invented gun (the film is set vaguely in the time before modern warfare) and it came from Iron Town, which is run by Lady Iboshi (Minnie Driver). She’s ostensibly the villain. But she’s also the one I was talking about earlier who has rescued women from a life of prostitution and given them a certain amount of autonomy. She also uses old men, warn down by disease and injury in her town. In many ways, she’s a good person. But she also has no problem destroying nature (and the gods that protect it) to enrich herself.

Ashitaka is ostensibly our hero, and yet we see him cut the heads off of numerous soldiers (accidentally, sort of – his demon-possessed arm gives him super strength which does most of the brutal damage but he’s still out to kill them.)

It is a movie filled with morally ambiguous characters, people who aren’t fully good or fully evil. They are complex, just like real people. And those gods? They have no problem with destruction either. The Great Forest Spirit indiscriminately kills.

The titular Princess (Claire Danes) is a human girl, raised by a wolf goddess and she hates humans. She wants to destroy them.

I love that. It is a complex, beautifully drawn story. The animation, while strange to my American eyes at first is beautiful as well.

Hayao Miyazaki who founded Studio Ghibli, and wrote/directed this film is one of the greatest animators of all time. I won’t say Princess Mononoke is his greatest achievement, but I won’t deny it either.