Summer Shows

[Lisa]

Because that show is on Ringo's birthday you just know a shitload of other famous people are going to come out to jam with him. That's going to be awesome.

Well, yeah, he usually does these days - he's traveling with another incarnation of his "All Star Band." George said a couple of years ago, he had Jeff Beck and Jack Bruce from Cream with him. Ringo left the stage for a while and let them jam out, and he said it was amazing! We don't know who he'll have with him this tour. There's no way Jack Bruce would be able to make it out on the road again - word is his health is seriously in decline, worse than before. That's the whole reason Clapton did the 2005 Cream reunion tour - Jack Bruce needed the money for his medical bills. Ginger Baker needed the bucks too, but Jack isn't going to be around much longer, I don't think. He looked really bad during the 2005 tour, I was surprised he made it out for that.

At any rate, off to see Ringo in an hour! I'll let you know tomorrow how it was and who jammed with him.

EDIT: My boss just came by and asked me if I was psyched to be heading out soon. Then he mentioned he saw Ringo a few years ago too, and that on THAT tour, Edgar Winter came out and did "Frankenstein"!!! How freaking cool, I can't wait to see who's there!

[Nathan]

(Eric Clapton was in Cream, not Jeff Beck)

Should be a fun show!

[Lisa]

(Eric Clapton was in Cream, not Jeff Beck)

Should be a fun show!

I know - I said Jeff Beck (meaning singularly), and Jack Bruce from Cream were at that show. Meaning Jack Bruce was in Cream, not Jeff Beck. And that both of them jammed with Ringo at that show. And I know Clapton was in Cream, because he organized their 2005 tour, because Jack and Ginger needed dough. You can't trick me with your rock trivia, Nathan! But I am confused at my sentence structure!

[Nathan]

I was being a butt head. Please ignore. Long day. Almost quttin' time!

[Lisa]

I know, for me too! And don't worry about it, you weren't being a butt head. George texts me rock trivia out of the blue all the time!

[I_Cassini]

Well, yeah, he usually does these days - he's traveling with another incarnation of his "All Star Band." George said a couple of years ago, he had Jeff Beck and Jack Bruce from Cream with him. Ringo left the stage for a while and let them jam out, and he said it was amazing! We don't know who he'll have with him this tour. There's no way Jack Bruce would be able to make it out on the road again - word is his health is seriously in decline, worse than before. That's the whole reason Clapton did the 2005 Cream reunion tour - Jack Bruce needed the money for his medical bills. Ginger Baker needed the bucks too, but Jack isn't going to be around much longer, I don't think. He looked really bad during the 2005 tour, I was surprised he made it out for that.

At any rate, off to see Ringo in an hour! I'll let you know tomorrow how it was and who jammed with him.

EDIT: My boss just came by and asked me if I was psyched to be heading out soon. Then he mentioned he saw Ringo a few years ago too, and that on THAT tour, Edgar Winter came out and did "Frankenstein"!!! How freaking cool, I can't wait to see who's there!

Cant wait to hear about it tomorrow!

[Matt]

should be an awesome show, Lisa. have fun!

[Lisa]

The system just ate my entire fucking post - MY WHOLE FUCKING POST. It's gonna have to wait until later, folks - it was a great time last night, but I can't retype all that again. Sorry.

[Lisa]

And when I say "the system" ate my post, I mean our crappy system here at work, not BDR! Our computers suck!

Okay, now that my rage stroke is over, last night was AWESOME!!!!

Ringo travels with his All Star Band, which is a rotating line-up from year to year, so here's who he had with him last night:

Edgar freaking Winter! Rick freaking Derringer (the guitar solo on "Rock and Roll Hootchie Koo was incredible)! Gary "Dream Weaver" Wright, Wally Palmer (lead singer for The Romantics - WOO HOO!!!). And the only one I was totally indifferent to was Richard Page, lead singer from Mister Mister. I hated them in the 80s and I still hate them now.

Music - now, when we saw Paul last year, it was just him (except for a quick, one song guest appearance by Billy Joel on "I Saw Her Standing There"), and the man delivered. He played for three hours outside, in July, which at 68 years old (67 then, but still) is no mean feat.

The difference here with Ringo is that he unfortunately allows his ASB to hog way too much of the spotlight. Ringo still looks fabulous at 70, and his voice is still good - he's who we were there to see. All those other guests are very cool, but they only played for two hours, and he let the ASB have two songs each - which is 10 songs that aren't sung by Ringo.

Ringo himself - AWESOME! He sang three of his new songs which were meh, but with the time allotted, he did cover his basic string of Beatles and solo hits. We just wanted more of the old fart, that's all!

However - here's the difference. The stuff that happened at the end was A-MA-ZING!!! So they're wrapping it up, they're doing the last song. Ringo comes to the mike and says, "Okay, we're going to do this one last song. It hasn't been very well received, so if you guys don't like it, we're just gonna cut it from the show." Of course, he was pulling our collective legs, because it was "With a Little Help From My Friends", and the crowd went wild.

THEN, all these other rock stars join the stage to sing the song with him! Honestly, there were so many I couldn't figure everyone out, and many of them were so old, we didn't recognize them. But we picked out Steve Van Zandt and Dave Stewart.

Hang on for the rest in a minute, I want to do this in pieces so I don't lose the post...

Okay, so then, the crowd on stage parts a little, and YOKO COMES OUT TO JOIN THEM!!! SQUEEEEEE!!! I freaked out! I had a feeling she might show, since they're close, and she's in NY, plus it's his 70th, so why not? But I didn't know she actually would! So the crowd cheered her on, which was good to see, and I jumped up and down like a 12 year old!

They wrap it up, Ringo thanks the crowd, says good night, and everybody clears off the stage. So we're waiting to see about an encore.

We see the roadies sneaking instruments back onto the stage, and we're like, "Sweet! Encore!" Then we see Ringo walk back on, we all go nuts, and he climbs back up onto the drum kit. A few more of the musicians come out, and then all of a sudden we see this guy come running onto the stage from the opposite wing - "that guy" happens to be none other than PAUL MCCARTNEY!!! In tow, Mr. McCartney has TOM PETTY along for the ride!! They hit the stage, and hand up to god, it was like the roof came off of Radio City Music Hall. To say we all went motherfucking nuts would be an understatement! And they sang, what else, but "Birthday" from The White Album. Just fabulous - the two surviving Beatles up on stage jamming together. After the song, Ringo came down from the drums, he and Paul hugged each other, and Paul kissed him on the side of the head - that's when I started to cry, it was just so cool to see! My eyes are filling up right now just typing this!

After that, one of Ringo's sons and his three grandkids wheeled out a HUGE cake in the shape of a drum set (like one of those "Ace of Cakes" jobs), and the whole crowd sang Happy Birthday to Ringo. Then it all wrapped up, and that was it. It was so fucking awesome, you wouldn't believe it!

[Nathan]

That kind of thing happens often at NY area shows does it not?

[Lisa]

Yeah, bands often guest with each other, but not THE LAST TWO SURVIVING BEATLES, no, not in that respect it doesn't. That was freaking incredible!

[Matt]

FUCKING AWESOME!!!!! You win, Lisa...I won't top that, ever.

[Nathan]

So so cool. Lucky you!!

[Timothy225]

Sounds like you had the mother of all blasts, Lisa! Wait ago!

[Lisa]

Here we go! MTV News listed many more who were on stage that we lost count of:

http://http://www.mtv.com/news/artic...rr_ringo.jhtml

The Macca/Starr duet occurred just moments after an entire army of Starr's famous friends — including Ono, Joe Walsh, Steve Van Zandt, Angus Young and Max Weinberg — joined him for another rather appropriate song, "With a Little Help From My Friends." It was, in theory, the de facto finale, until McCartney sprinted onstage, much to the delight of everyone in the house.

NY Post also mentioned that Jeff Lynn was in the crowd up on stage as well. It was quite a bunch to keep track of!