Live tweeting a concert is one of the great functions of Twitter. For those not in attendance, following along on Twitter is, short of a webcast, the next best thing to being there. I’ve live tweeted for @Hidden_Track and for @YEMblog and while I don’t claim to be an expert, I thought I’d compile some tips to serve as a guide to live tweeting a concert. Some of this is admittedly somewhat basic stuff, and most of it boils down to: be smart and don’t be an annoying jerk. This list is also most certainly not exhaustive so please add your tips for anything I missed in the comments.
10. Announce: Before the show give your followers a heads up that you’re going to be flooding their timeline with live tweets. It also doesn’t hurt to send a tweet to the band – they might help promote you with a retweet.
9. Hashtags: Do some research before you head out to the show so your tweets will be easily searchable among other similar ones. Try and find commonly used hashtags and add them to your phone’s dictionary for faster typing during the concert.
8. Battery Life: Set your phone’s display to dim to avoid annoying others around you with an overly bright screen and to save battery power. It’s dark enough in during the show that a dimmer screen shouldn’t hamper your tweeting.
7. Pictures: Have your phone’s camera settings ready for maximum quality in dark lighting and prepared for instant tweeting through whatever image sharing service you prefer.
6. Dictionary: Like with hashtags, enter the names of song titles, band members or any other associated but uncommon words to your phone’s dictionary ahead of time so you don’t get embarrassingly auto-corrected during the concert.
5. Timing: If you plan to shoot pictures, be courteous to those near you who paid to see the show too. Discreetly take a couple shots at the very beginning of the concert and (if you must) at the very end. Don’t snap pictures from your seat all show long, that’s annoying to everyone around you. If something of particular note takes place during the show go ahead and snap a quick shot (if you must).
Last weekend I walked into my local Berkeley coffee shop and Bob Dylan’s Desolation Row was playing on the stereo. I turned to my friend and asked if he had any way of identifying what verse we were at – but neither of us could place how far into the song we were, or how likely it was the song would still be playing when we left. It was, in fact, still playing when we left. Later that night, I saw Wilco at The Greek Theatre open with One Sunday Morning (Song For Jane Smiley’s Boyfriend) – yet another song with numerous (albeit short) verses, and thus was born this week’s B List. Interestingly, both of those songs, and many listed below, share the characteristic of also not having a chorus.
Hurricane – Bob Dylan
There was a time in high school where I could recite all eleven verses from Dylan’s protest song for boxer and accused murdered Rubin “Hurricane” Carter. If I had time to dig through enough songs, we could probably make a B List of only Bob Dylan songs that have eight or more verses. In addition to the mention of Desolation Row in the intro, Tangled Up In Blue, Lily, Rosemary and The Jack of Hearts, the list goes on and on.
Back on October 10th Phish fan Myke “LawnMemo” Menio started a project called The Daily Ghost in which he would listen to and the write about every version of Ghost Phish has played since its debut on June 13th, 1997. Recently, Menio completed his project after detailing all 112 Ghosts the quartet performed up until this past New Year’s Eve at Madison Square Garden.
Myke’s passion came through in each of his posts and we were impressed at how he methodically analyzed the Phish fan-favorite as he seemed to learn from each previous article. We asked LawnMemo to share some thoughts about what he learned, not only about the song but also from the process of listening to and writing about 112 Ghosts. He put together this list detailing 10 of those things.
1. Ghost is an incredible jam vehicle. The sheer amount of fantastic jams blew me away. There is a lot to take away from just about every version. When the song Ghost starts up during a show, chances are it is going to be memorable. My top 10 list has to be a top 12 because there are just too many outstanding versions.
We’d like to wish our readers a very Happy Easter in the best way we know how. We’ve compiled a list of ten easter eggs representing ten of our favorite bands. Enjoy the holiday!
Bob Weir did something he’s never done before in his 50+ year career on Monday night, when he walked off stage in the middle of a song thanks to a bunch of annoying talkers who wouldn’t keep quiet during his acoustic set. Weir had issues all night and couldn’t stop himself from yelling “shut the fuck up” towards the end of the show.
Bobby isn’t the only musician who’s had issues with talkative crowds. We’ve compiled ten instances of musicians openly showing their frustration at concerts. Watch as a wide variety of musicians ranging from Barbra Streisand to Lil Wayne to Kimock tell members of their audiences to shut the fuck up…
1. Jeff Tweedy has engaged obnoxious talkers on multiple occasions and here’s out favorite instance where he actually levels with the crowd by explaining the issue…
2. Neil Young took aim at some audience members at a recent Bridgeport shows who not only talked, but spent the majority of the set texting…
According to NPR, four out of five of the people who buy gym memberships stop going within a couple of months. In order to help you avoid a similar fate, I’m giving you a list of the 10 songs that you absolutely must not put on your iPod as you prepare to head to the elliptical.
10. What Became of the Baby – Grateful Dead: Your mind will be too completely blown to workout. Not to mention that at this tempo, you might crack a 168-minute-mile.
9. Chushingura – Jefferson Airplane: You will spend the whole time trying to figure out whats wrong with your iPod and why it’s emitting that high-pitch noise.
Years ago, it became fashionable to host Allmans pre-parties and aftershow concerts at smaller clubs throughout the city. Not only can the shows extend the excitement of seeing hot nights at the Beacon, they’re also a way for savvy promoters to showcase like-minded bands and, in some cases, pieces of the extended Allmans family to fans who are guaranteed to be out and about already.
The add-on show action waned a bit after the band’s epic 2009 40th anniversary run, but this year seems to have returned full-on, with a number of tasty-looking parties in Manhattan and Brooklyn dotting this year’s 11-show ABB residency. Here’s a look at 10 shows to hit as before- or after-parties for Beacon evenings – including the six shows at Lucille’s branded as the “Brothers Midnight Concert Series” — and also five suggestions for shows to hit if you’re visiting NYC and want to see great music on a night you’re not with the Allmans.
When Conan O’Brien took over as host of NBC’s Late Night in September of 1993, he wanted to take advantage of the wide popularity enjoyed by alt-rock bands of the era leading the New York Times to declare, “Alternative rock doesn’t seem so alternative anymore.” Over the course of the first few months of Conan-hosted Late Night’s, O’Brien welcomed an array of alt-rock acts to the Studio 6A stage including They Might Be Giants, The Breeders, The Lemonheads and Bad Religion.
Thanks to YouTube we can look back at a number of these alt-rock performances from the first few months of Late Night with Conan O’Brien. This week’s B List brings together 10 such clips, though we do warn we took liberties with the “alt-rock” tag.
Kim and Kelley Deal brought The Breeders to Late Night for a performance of the second-best known song from their Last Splash LP – the super-catchy Divine Hammer.
On Saturday night at Higher Ground [2013 ed. note - this took place on October 1, 2011], Trey Anastasio and his solo band debuted a song written by Trey and Tom Marshall for which there’s been some confusion about the song title. At first, it was thought that the name of the song was Winter Queen before LivePhish.com’s official recording labeled the track as Glacier. Yesterday, Glacier was renamed Winterqueen on LivePhish.com bringing us back towards where we started [2013 ed. note - Surprisingly, Winterqueen/Glacier has yet to be performed a second time]
The reason we mentioned that anecdote is that sometimes Phish or Trey debuts a song with one name only to change the title later to something else. For this week’s B List, we look at nine cases where that happened. Keep in mind, we shied away from cases where wholesale changes were made to the song that led to the name change, such as Black Eyed Katy becoming Moma Dance and Taste becoming Fog That Surrounds (before becoming Taste again). With that in mind, let’s look at ten song title changes in Phish history (with lots of help from Phish.net Song Histories)…
The first two entries on our list were debuted at the Portsmouth Music Hall at Phish’s first show of 1992 on March 6. At that performance, Phish debuted six (if you include the “fast” Rift) songs, some of which would go on to be released as part of the Rift LP one year later. Trey Anastasio mentioned the titles of most of the debuts that night and referred to what we now know as My Friend, My Friend and NICU as Knife and In an Intensive Care Unit respectively.
Earlier today Jim James participated in an Ask Me Anything session on Reddit and reeled off dozens of answers to fans’ questions. You can read the whole thing here, but we’ve distilled the session down to 11 of the My Morning Jacket front man’s responses for this week’s B List.
1. Jim and a band he’s putting together will play at Bonnaroo
yes i will be at THE ROO with the new band i am putting together to perform the solo record. they are old pals i have known a long time. its going to be a fun new adventure with some old pals!
2. Jim and MMJ were a “little scared” about how their appearance on American Dad would turn out
mike barker from the show approached us with some really funny and crazy ideas. we were flattered and honored and also a little scared- cuz you are kind of helpless in a situation like that not knowing how it will turn out- but in the end they were really kind and did a really amazing job and we were beyond stoked and flattered!
3. Love is the secret ingredient in Peanut Butter Pudding Surprise (see Highly Suspicious)
I love watching great performances or well-made documentaries featuring my favorite artists from the comfort of my couch. At the end of each year since we started Hidden Track in 2006, I devote a B List towards what I can consider the best music DVDs/Blu-Rays of the year. 2011 was such a good year for concert films that I expanded the list from its usual 10 to 15. Can’t say the same about this year’s batch, so I cut it back down to 10. However, those that made the cut are all worthy of your time.
Filmmaker Jonathan Demme’s third Neil Young documentary/concert film finds the rocker travelling to some of the important places that made an impression on him during his youth. Young drives his 1956 Crown Victoria while regaling Demme with tales of his childhood. Included within are performance clips of ol’ Neil performing classics such as Ohio and Down By The River plus tunes from 2010′s Le Noise.
A few years back we created an extremely popular B List featuring our ten favorite “Kiddie Phish Videos” in which toddlers and infants groove to the likes of Bouncin’, Contact and more. As promised, we’ve put together another list containing ten more incredibly cute clips.
1. Three-and-a-half-year-old Sophie Cassels gives us an a capella Fee…
2. Luke G. is a Phish fan like all of us. Despite his young age he still wakes up in the morning and wants to see what Phish played the night before. Here’s Luke examining the previous night’s setlist… READ ON
South Florida music videographer Adam Firtel and his krewe at CHeeSeHeaDPRoDuCTioNS were on hand for this past week’s Bear Creek Music & Art Festival at Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park in Live Oak, Florida. The veteran videographer offers up his TOP 10 moments, on video, from the 5th annual, funk-filled, North Florida fall festival. For more information and highlight videos, check out CHeeSeHeaDPRoDuCTioNS on Facebook or adfirtel on YouTube.
1. From Day #1, Thursday, November 8th, New Haven, Conn. based Kung Fu on the Amphitheater Stage performing God Made Me Funky…
2. With a buzz still in the air from the Kung Fu set, NOLA based Khris Royal & Dark Matter performed up the hill from the Amphitheater Stage on Uncle Charlie’s Porch Stage…
[We put this list together back in 2008 and we're currently putting together a second volume which we hope to post next Thursday. If you have any recommendations leave us a comment.]
Now that many Phish fans are old enough to have kids of their own, they are teaching their children all about the fantastic music of the Vermont Quartet. If you look on YouTube there are tons of videos of toddlers and infants grooving to Bouncin’, Contact and more. We’ll save you the trouble by compiling a list of our favorite kiddie Phish video on the ‘nets.
10. Two-year-old Gracie loves to noodle dance even if her friends aren’t as into the PH. In this video Gracie gets down to Gotta Jibboo…
The Grateful Dead established the genre of rock improvisation and have always been innovators, establishing trends both good and bad. Over the band’s 30-year history they went through many changes in their sound and personnel. Fans have very different opinions on which years they love and which years they hate, and now I present my list of the five best years in Grateful Dead history.
Read on for my comprehensive look at the Dead’s five best years, including links to what I think are the five best of each year and some analysis on why I think the things I think. Make sure to jump into the deep end at the end and tell me why I’m dead-on-balls accurate or so horribly wrong I should cut myself at night…
5. 1979: Nineteen seventy-nine was a year of major change for the Grateful Dead. Keith and Donna Godchaux left the band and Brent Mydland entered. Keith was no doubt an amazing player, but he seemed to be allergic to any keyboard that wasn’t a piano. Brent revitalized the band with his dynamic organ and synthesiser tones. May 1979 itself is severely underrated, but the band really hit its stride towards the end of the year.
New Songs: Althea, Saint of Circumstance, Alabama Getaway, and Lost Sailor
Most Played: Minglewood (42), Good Lovin’ (37), and Deal (32)
