Just found this. Very cool.

So much talent in the Byrds. Miss those days.

just saw this....

It was astounding.

If you want to know what it was like in '68, if you want to steep yourself in the concert experience from way back when, go to this show.

First and foremost it was in a theatre. Hard to believe, but the acts lamented the move to arenas at first, because of the SOUND! It was muddy, still is. Sit in the back and if you don't know the words by heart, you're in trouble. And with fewer people it felt more intimate.

And everybody sat.

I don't get the standing thing. I think it's just a way for promoters to make more money. But once they got rid of the chairs, the whole encounter changed. It used to be a religious experience, sitting in your seat, letting your mind drift. Then it became about a hang, a social scene.

But tonight was a trip to church, or synagogue, and even if you're not a believer, you would have bowed down to the music emanating from the stage.

On the surface, this is 1 + 1 + 1 = 4. That's right, Roger McGuinn's been singing the same old hits for eons, if you wanted to hear them live, you already have. And although Chris Hillman has experimented musically, he's in even less demand. But if you add in wild card Marty Stuart and his Fabulous Superlatives, you end up with something you didn't anticipate, the whole enterprise is lifted to another level. OF MUSIC!

We've gotten so far from the music it's crazy. If you make hits, it's about the trappings, your stardom, curating your social media feed is part of your act, what's on stage is often canned, on hard drive, it's just a celebration of the rest of your career. But the truth is recordings are dropping in influence. It's what's done on stage that counts. And when you get it right, like the assembled multitude did tonight, it's TRANSCENDENT!

I didn't expect it to be a Byrds concert, I didn't expect it to be a celebration of what once was and still can be.

The show started with "My Back Pages."

Wait, they weren't immediately going to go into "Sweetheart Of The Rodeo" and play a few hits and exit thereafter?

And there were stories before each number, they gave context, not too long, but just right. And the second song was a cover of Porter Wagoner's number "A Satisfied Mind," sung by Marty. I never heard it, never knew it, but instantly I loved it!

Marty Stuart, the guy with the big hair who never crossed over to rock. His locks are white these days, but he's younger than me. He's lived in a parallel universe, and our paths have not crossed. But tonight!

The thing about these country players is they're TIGHT! You get the idea they play every day, whether there's an audience or not, they're cohesive, and strong, the sound is AMAZING! It's so weird to hear what once was and now still is again. There was nothing on hard drive, plastic surgery was not a factor, these were old guys who were still young.

Chris Hillman had to sit in a chair at times. McGuinn never doffed his hat. But when the band fired up it was just as vital as way back when. But curiously, there was no nostalgia factor, at least not until they paid tribute to Tom Petty at the end of the show.

You know, you go to hear the oldies, to trigger your memories. Hell, Journey is not the only band with a faux singer. It's about the songs, they're now ours. But these players owned the material, it was as fresh as today, you reveled in the sound, you expected them to come back next year with a new album.

But they won't. Because no one wants to hear it, that's not how it works anymore. Used to be you had to go to hear the new stuff, otherwise you might never hear it again. But now its just old nuggets, again and again.

But "Sweetheart Of The Rodeo" never gets play on stage.

But before that, in the first half, they toured their career, it was an Evening With.

And it wasn't just hits. Sure, we heard "Mr. Tambourine Man," amazing how McGuinn can still pick those notes, but there were obscurities, like "Time Between" and "Old John Robertson" and exquisite takes on "Wasn't Born To Follow" and "Drug Store Truck Drivin' Man."

As for the second half...

That's what people came to hear.

The bass player switched to pedal steel, Marty picked a mandolin when he wasn't wailing on Clarence White's guitar, and after a couple of Marty and band songs, it was...

"You Ain't Goin' Nowhere."

I didn't buy "Sweetheart Of The Rodeo," at least not in '68, but in the fall of '70, I went to visit my high school buddy Marc at the first year of Hampshire College and he picked it out on his guitar, I was immediately hooked. Funny how the hits fade and the album cuts persevere.

"Life In Prison" had meaning beyond the original.

"Blue Canadian Rockies" had visions of mountains hovering in front of your eyes.

"The Christian Life" made you a believer.

And "I Am A Pilgrim" united the audience, we're all searching for song.

And then another take on "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere," with the audience singing along, half the melody, half the harmony, and...

Even if you were not a fan of "Sweetheart," even if you didn't know the material well, you got it tonight, that's the power of music, that's the power of sound, that's the power of playing, that's the power of BEING THERE!

After twenty three numbers I wasn't sure there'd be an encore. And then they played "So You Want To Be A Rock 'n' Roll Star," after McGuinn said most people think it's a Petty song...

They went into Petty. McGuinn played his cover of "American Girl," which just made me miss Tom.

But then Hillman performed his cover of "Wildflowers," the same, but different from the original, and you almost weeped, for the loss, that's when I got nostalgic, for what once was and forevermore will never be. Aren't your elders supposed to die first? Not that they shouldn't live, but in the natural order of things shouldn't Tom be paying tribute to the departed Byrds?

But then...

"It was a beautiful day, the sun beat down
I had the radio on, I was drivin'"

Whoa! What? That's right, Marty Stuart was singing RUNNIN' DOWN A DREAM! I thought back to buying "Full Moon Fever," that amazing run of songs on the first side, can those days ever come back? I'm not sure, as Tom is gone, but I'm still here and the band on stage was fully ALIVE!

The finale was "Turn! Turn! Turn!" and then they were gone.

To everything there is a season.

And we lived through it, the assembled multitude, no one under forty, most over sixty. When McGuinn wore his granny glasses on national TV, when we followed the personnel changes and stopped paying attention to sports, when there was a new exciting act on a regular basis, just like there was a new exciting app half a decade ago. We lived from one musical moment to the next, hopping along in ecstasy.

And then it ended. We loved that the young 'uns embraced Zeppelin and the Doors, but then melody went out the window and it became about melisma whereas subtlety used to have a place. And the oldsters sit around and bitch, wishing the old days would come back...

TONIGHT THEY DID!

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[Edited on 7/27/2018 by robslob]

Wow, I'm kinda jealous now after reading all that, a genuine rave review. Wasn't Born To Follow, Drugstore Truckdrivin Man, all of it and Marty Stuart too, sounds like you hit the motherlode of California Gold!

Although I saw your point re "younguns" into Doors and Zep, meaning the alienation generation teenage wasteland 70s hardrockers like myself, your timeline is right on the Zep - but the Doors were part of the same scene as the Byrds. We never saw the Doors, just had their records alongside the Byrds records - the Doors hit in 66, only a year after the Byrds broke thru with Tambourine Man, same era/generation, same venues, same audiences, hippy rock. To us 70s phosphorescent rats, those records were already The Ancient Wisdom Scrolls of Hidden Knowledge by 1973 and 74, those few years of the early 70s were a cataclysmic cultural faultline, we could only listen to the records and wonder wtf happened.

Your nostalgia for the intimate venues and bands playing for small audiences is a few years off as well. By the time Sweetheart of the Rodeo came out in 68 the huge outdoor festival scene was picking up - Byrds were megastars and were playing the huge festivals along with all the other big acts, unless you caught them at the Fillmore or some whistlestop gig.

During the 70s if you were into the newer bands like Skynyrd, Trower, Tuna, James Gang, Little Feat, early Kansas, or bands that never got huge, there were a zillion fantastic small venue shows where folks mostly sat and had that transcendent experience you describe.

I remember the real bummer was trying to plle in to crowded arenas to hear bands from your generation that were insanely successful.

So it wasn't us "younguns" that f*cked up the scene, we were having a fine time comfortably grooving to high quality sounds in small venues thru improved sound systems performed by musicians who had a far better grasp on rockcraft by then, while the poor old hippies crammed each other into bummerville trying to recapture their lost glory days. Or even more tragic, you "oldtimers" who were in your 20s and 30s in the 1970s bagged out of rock altogether and filled up your noses with coke and caught boogie fever at the discos.

You sixties folks had only yourselves to blame for the death of your scene. Music thrived in the 70s and 80s and thru to the present and it is GOOD!

Don't tell me this town ain't got no heart, you just gotta poke around . . .

Thanks for posting this thread and reminding me about this tour. I heard about it when they first announced a handful of dates and was planning to keep checking for any added dates but it slipped my mind. Looks like they added a show near me and there are still seats available. I'm really looking forward to seeing them when they play in Boston this September.

So, I was in the front row of the balcony in this beautiful venue on opening night. I can say that it was an incredible night of music. If you are anywhere near one of these shows, get to it. Those of you with tickets in hand, enjoy the show!

Nice interview with McQuinn talking about the tour, including his thoughts about a Byrds reunion.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/roger-mcguinn-talks-sweetheart-of-the-rodeo-gigs-rules-out-byrds-reunion-704131/

Thanks for the RS interview with McGuinn, Don. I know that Marty Stuart is opening for Chris Stapleton tonight @ Shoreline. From the RS write-up, here's why the Sweetheart tour couldn't book more shows:

You have three shows right now and then a long break. Why did you decide to schedule it that way?

Marty is on a tour with Chris Stapleton and it’s big hundred-thousand seaters. He can’t get out of it. He was signed onto it before we even pitched this Sweetheart thing. He’s got a contract.

This...

We've gotten so far from the music it's crazy. If you make hits, it's about the trappings, your stardom, curating your social media feed is part of your act, what's on stage is often canned, on hard drive, it's just a celebration of the rest of your career. But the truth is recordings are dropping in influence. It's what's done on stage that counts. And when you get it right, like the assembled multitude did tonight, it's TRANSCENDENT!

And then it ended. We loved that the young 'uns embraced Zeppelin and the Doors, but then melody went out the window and it became about melisma whereas subtlety used to have a place. And the oldsters sit around and bitch, wishing the old days would come back...

Becomes this?

So it wasn't us "younguns" that f*cked up the scene, we were having a fine time comfortably grooving to high quality sounds in small venues thru improved sound systems performed by musicians who had a far better grasp on rockcraft by then, while the poor old hippies crammed each other into bummerville trying to recapture their lost glory days. Or even more tragic, you "oldtimers" who were in your 20s and 30s in the 1970s bagged out of rock altogether and filled up your noses with coke and caught boogie fever at the discos.

Or to put it more clearly what we have here is a generational war of The Degenerative, Disco-loving hippies vs The Comfortably Grooving Young 'uns. Definitely a theme that R Crumb would have explored for its mind-bending silliness. Seems a bit defensive on the Comfortably Grooving ones part. Maybe wish they could of been there in the days before those hippies went disco mad? BTW, do you recall that Bill Graham still had a pretty good club scene (with comfortable atmosphere and a great sound system) still going in 1971? Yep, just about everyone in what unfortunately soon became an industry (i.e capitalistic enterprise) got lost in the money, media, big egos, and drugs after that. God damn those hippies for f*ing it up!

Don't take it serious at all, it was tongue in cheek, R. Crumbworthy for sure! Just a satirical pushback on the old "you shoulda been there it was so much cooler you can't possibly know how great the sixties were" tired old theme. Hear it a lot around here from folks who don't explore new sounds, and didn't move on from the sixties, their consumer band/brand loyaltywhich is what led to the corporate rock hegemony stranglehold on rock that the sixties artists are just now relinquishing because they are dying off.. That is what killed rock . Stop supporting new bands and the music dies.

Music has always been, and will be, excellent. It didn't begin and end in the sixties.

Sour grapes? Sure, I would have loved to see Hendrix, Duane, but those guys kicked in around the time the "Younguns" started standing at shows and the music turned into "melisma" whatever that is. You can see tbe change at Monterey Pop where folks are looking at Jimi like WTF is that? Or all the folks who blasted Dylan for going electric. Gotta say glad I wasn't four years older with a lottery ticket to get blown away in Vietnam, that's for sure. Or blown away by a sugarcube before anyone knew that ten thousand mikes was a hundredfold acid o.d.

[Edited on 7/28/2018 by BrerRabbit]

Music has always been, and will be, excellent. It didn't begin and end in the sixties.

Can't argue with that. However I don't think there will ever be another rock and roll creative explosion in one decade like there was in the 60's.

And no, rock and roll certainly didn't begin in the 60's. It began before that and the predominant kick-starters were two black men and two white men: Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis.

The Byrds were more amplified folk music. Rock and roll was a fad, one brief style, music changes, guitar ain't going anywhere that is for certain. There is a whole planet of music out there, an endless creative explosion . Sixties shmixties.

I'd like to be remembered as a keeper of the flame who kept traditional music alive, because I've been doing that twice as long as I was in the Byrds. - Roger McGuinn

[Edited on 7/28/2018 by BrerRabbit]

Can't disagree with you more Rabbit.

Despite the kick-start in the 50's by the foursome I already mentioned, let's look at where music went in the 60's.

In the early 60's rock and roll was in a major slump. What was popular was schmaltz: Teen idols like Fabian and Dion. Chubby Checkers said, "Let's do the twist."

By the end of the decade we had gone through creative forces like Cream and Hendrix and vast studio experimentation by the Beatles and The Beach Boys. Superb instrumentalists like The Allman Brothers, Santana, Deep Purple and Pink Floyd had formed influential bands.

No, I don't think music will ever again change so much within 10 years. Knock the 60's all you want. It's all there on disc man..........or vinyl if you prefer..........

't take it serious at all, it was tongue in cheek, R. Crumbworthy for sure!

Your "inner Crumb" is much appreciated, though you disguise it well. Do you draw too? 😉

Man if I could draw I would be in underground comix heaven!

Was I knocking the sixties? Guess I must have got my hairstyle just right, because you don't see my point.

Apologies for the thread hijack robslob, and as I stated in my first sentence on this thread, jealous and eatin my heart out that I will.miss this tour.

p.s. thx for the excellent breakdown of the show dove, even if I did overreact to being a youngun who turned rock into a melisma.

[Edited on 7/28/2018 by BrerRabbit]