The 63rd Monterey Jazz Festival will not be happening in 2020. Back in May, the California Roots Festival, with Ice Cube on the bill as one of the headliners, was postponed until 2021. HIPNIC XII also had been scheduled for May—it does have an ambitious new date set for Sept. 25-27, 2020, which is hopeful though it doesn't seem very likely.
Pretty much all Monterey County's live, in-person music events, both large-scale concert gatherings and small, intimate club dates, have been postponed or canceled since Covid hit.
It's been nearly six months since there's been any live music in the area. Just like all the other activities we were used to and took for granted, it sucks not being able to experience live music in person.
The past several months, during lengthy periods of SIP, have been ideal for reflection. While I have done a lot of personal self-reflection, I also revisited a lot of the amazing live music I was fortunate to see throughout my years as a music journalist.
Files upon files of unorganized photos and videos—many of which are blurry, crappy and captured using antiquated equipment—I took during many of these shows, have overtaken my computer. As I attempt to arrange and declutter, I've come across many of the shows I had forgotten about.
I'm probably not the only one who misses live music, which makes it a good time to revisit some of these great moments in Monterey County's recent live music history.
Arcade Fire at the Henry Miller Library, Big Sur - 2010
"It's beautiful here; I feel like a kid," Arcade Fire frontman Win Butler said after their Big Sur show. "Our first show was intimate like this." No stadium-sized crowd, just stadium-sized music for roughly 350 people under the redwoods.
Father John Misty at the Monterey County Fairgrounds, Monterey - 2013:
When Josh Tillman, aka Father John Misty, played the inaugural, short-lived First City Festival at the Monterey County Fairgrounds, his stage presence had an audience of several thousand hypnotized. As he unleashed his Jim Morrison-flavored baritone vocals the music roused his soul—visibly—as he slinked and gyrated, exposing glimpses of flesh as his undersized T-shirt rose up his torso with every movement. Next he fell to his knees, caressing the mic stand like a lover. It was impossible to take your eyes off him.
The Flaming Lips at the Henry Miller Library, Big Sur - 2012:
It could have been a dream: a Volkswagen-sized mirror ball dangling from the heavens, laser beams emitting from the palms of giant hands, a man inside a hamster globe and a downpour of confetti raining from the sky.
If there’s one thing Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne can do better than anyone, it’s make a barrage of surreal imagery, reality. The Oklahoma psych rockers delivered a grandiose show in front of 400 people, featuring old favorites alongside new tunes. And Coyne built the set, inspired by the Wizard of Oz's Emerald City, from scratch.
Deerhunter at the Monterey County Fairgrounds, Monterey - 2013:
The fog had just rolled in as Deerhunter took the stage. That only made the Atlanta rockers pop even more against a backdrop illuminated with purple lights. The tall, pencil-thin Bradford Cox's chop suey hair mostly covered his eyes. He's one of those frontmen you can't take your eyes off of. Deerhunter rocked through a steady diet of tunes off their recently released Monomania. These guys have a knack for erupting into mesmerizing orchestras of guitar-driven mayhem. Cox even took a request from a youngster in the audience, "Dream Captain."
"This is the story of a 12-year-old boy's relationship with an alien," announced Cox before they began playing.
Steve Earle Solo at the Henry Miller Library, Big Sur - 2012:
The prolific singer-songwriter intertwined tales about instruments washing up on the shores of Ireland, politics and philosophy into an evening of music spanning his entire catalog. Earle didn’t know what he was going to play until his feet touched the stage.
“Set lists take all the fun out of it,” he said. The Texan dusted off hits like “Copperhead Road” and played his masterpiece “Taneytown,” told from the perspective of a mentally challenged black guy living in the South. Earle might be the only person who could make that storyline work.
Stay tuned for more!
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