By Steve Rhodes
Outgoing Sun-Times rock critic Jim DeRogatis listed on Sunday the top 15 concerts he covered for the paper over his tenure there. I’ll augment those choices here with some audio, some video, some comments of my own.
Band: Nirvana
Venue: Aragon
Date: Oct. 23, 1993
Comment: This is audio only.
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Band: The Jesus Lizard
Venue: The Vic
Date: Nov. 13, 1993
Comment: It may shock some, but I’ve never seen The Jesus Lizard live. I know. But this show apparently lives in infamy. Or famy, actually.
*
Band: The Flaming Lips
Venue: Metro
Date: Feb. 18, 1994
Comment: I was there, but I prefer the show they played just a few weeks or months previously at the Empty Bottle. Near the end, Wayne Coyne walked through a packed house to an old-stand up piano across from the bar and plunked out “Put The Waterbug In The Policeman’s Ear.” Here’s the version that appeared on the EP Due To High Expectations . . . The Flaming Lips Are Providing Needles For Your Balloons.
*
Band: Hole
Venue: UIC Pavilion
Date: Sept 3, 1994
Comment: I wasn’t there, but I saw Hole at Lollapalooza that year and Courtney Love was mesmerizing.
*
Band: Barry White
Venue: Chicago Theatre
Date: July 22, 1995
Comment: I never would have pegged DeRo for a Barry White guy – and maybe he isn’t, he just found himself covering the show – but squeezing people (or yourself) into narrow boxes musically is as bothersome in music as it is in politics. (I just had to break the news to someone – again – that I kind of hate The Who and that I’m planning to post a piece soon called Defending Styx.)
*
Band: Bob Dylan
Venue: Metro
Date: Dec. 13, 1997
Comment: I think I was at this show though I may be confusing it with a show at the Riv. But the best Dylan show I’ve seen was at Benedictine University in Lisle the month before.
*
Band: PJ Harvey
Venue: The Vic
Date: Oct. 28, 1998
Comment: I’m pretty sure I was at this show and I’m pretty sure it was pretty damn good. I’m pretty disturbed at how my memory is failing me, though. I thought I knew every show I’d ever been at, but some of them are merging into others in my mind.
*
Band: D’Angelo
Venue: The Arie Crown Theatre
Date: March 31, 2000
Comment: I don’t think I’ve ever heard a D’Angelo song, so I have no comment. But I trust DeRo, even though my tastes probably line up more with Kot.
*
Band: Screeching Weasel
Venue: House of Blues
Date: Oct. 28, 2000
Comment: This video is dated Oct. 29, but unless they did a two-night stand, this has gotta be the show.
*
Band: Wilco
Venue: Petrillo Band Shell
Date: July 4, 2001
Comment: I was at this show and from where I was sitting, middle to back, the sound was crappy. Plus, I’ve been a big Wilco fan from the beginning, though I haven’t listened to much of their post-Yankee Hotel Foxtrot stuff, but I never thought they were particularly good live. I’ve seen ’em at Lounge Ax and the Auditorium Theatre and even on some broadcast performances and something always seems to be missing to me. But I think I’m alone in that assessment.
*
Band: The Rolling Stones
Venue: The Aragon
Date: Sept. 16, 2002
Comment: I kind of hate the Rolling Stones so I can’t really say, but I saw them (unfortunately, and not really by choice) at Soldier Field and they were a joke. I heard a little of them from outside the Double Door that famed night and they sounded pretty good. DeRo says this show was better, so I’ll take his word for it. This is audio only.
*
Band: Kanye West
Venue: House of Blues
Date: Feb 11, 2004
Comment: I’ve read a fair amount about Kanye West but I’m not sure how much of his music I’ve actually heard, so again, I take DeRo’s word for it. I will say that I don’t know if it was so much that George W. Bush hated black people as that he never really thought about them . . . but West said what others should have been talking about. It would have been interesting to hear Bush talk about race for, say, an entire hour, including taking questions.
*
Band: Neil Young
Venue: Chicago Theatre
Date: Nov. 12, 2007
Comment: It’s not entirely clear, but I think this is from that show.
*
Band: Ida Marie
Venue: Lollapalooza
Date: Aug. 8, 2009
Comment: This video is comment enough. There are a couple others, too.
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Comments welcome.
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AMENDMENT: A Beachwood reader points out that I forgot to include Kraftwerk’s show at the Riv on June 10, 1998. Oops, just an oversight. I have nothing to say about Kraftwerk, though; I’ve never seen them and I’ve barely listened to them. So I’ll just add in DeRo’s own commentary about that show:
“The legendary ‘Beach Boys of Dusseldorf’ and progenitors of modern electronic dance music hadn’t performed in the United States for decades when they made this rare appearance outside the walls of Kling Klang Studio, which they actually packed up, brought with them and reconstructed onstage for a crowd so thrilled that it didn’t even care that it was missing one of the Bulls’ key championship games.”
Posted on May 11, 2010