The fortitude (and luck) of the Parkish

Park is nothing if not open to give and take. Mark's become a huge Lindsey Buckingham fan (Buckface? Buckhead?) over the past month or so, and this weekend it was time for me to see one of his idols -- Joe Bonamassa.

It was a bit of a game of chance, as Joe B's NYC show at BB King's was sold out, but it took us about 10 minutes in front of the venue to score single tickets from two different individuals. We set up shop at the ledge about a booth to the right of where the quartet took in Chuck Berry, so that led to some fond memories.

Joe B is a guitarist/sponge. You can tell that everything he's heard has been ingested and is literally waiting there for future use. Hearing that he has previously discreetly played a riff from "Edge of Darkness," a BBC series Eric Clapton provided music for, only heightens the impression. And leaves you wondering what riffs like that you're missing out on just because you don't know someone else's catalog to their deepest depths.

He tore the place down with slow blues ... with fast blues, just every kind of blues blues. A great time and obviously someone it would be easy to see over and over and over again.

Going to JB/BB's on Friday meant missing out on a couple of things I probably would have otherwise been doing that day -- 1. a Devils game (Didn't miss anything there. They played like crap and got shellacked) and 2. opening night of the WFMU Record Fair (a convention I had been waiting to go to since about February).


We did the latter on Saturday. And wow, it's pretty daunting to walk into that room. Even charting a course and following it, there's no way you can see everything. The overwhelming feeling dissipated when 'Ark made his trademark vinyl jokes. (Insert eye-rolling maneuver here).

But I fared pretty well, picking up some Hendrix and Fleetwood Mac bootlegs. The thing I was looking for the most -- Peter Green playing with Otis Spann in Chicago -- I wound up getting for free as part of a Hendrix deal. Best of all was a table that changed from 25 percent off to 40 percent off as we started scouring their collections (pictured here). Lots of cool additions to my collection were made there (including a Chuck Berry picture disc). And with a human shopping cart at my beck and call, we worked our way through the huge rooms in about four hours.

Oh, almost forgot! The buy of the day had to be a DVD of the Lindsey Buckingham Nokia show we were at not a week before. When we got home and watched it, we cracked up when we saw 1. us high-10ing at the left side of the stage and 2. the sound of the ol' three-dollar harmonica tooting away during a break in the encore. I swear we could tell when LB was looking over at us too, just from his eye angle.

Another successful weekend in the life of Park!

Personal upgrades

It was pretty hard to top the previous weekend in terms of -- well everything -- so we won't even try. But Lindsey Buckingham and company ventured to New York to wrap up their small tour at the Nokia Theatre.

While the show can't hope to rival Atlantic City for soul and spirit, it did sound tremendously amazing. The acoustics in the building are -- as 'ark likes to point out -- built for recording and so every note was clear as a bell and ringing just as sharply.

The setlist and even much of the chitchat was the same, but between the two shows I think 'ark's bubble of Fleetwood Mac as pure pop has been ... well, popped. And Lindsey Buckingham's finesse as a soul artist both with the guitar and vocally are a whole different story.

As he explains it, he works for the giant corporate machine known as Fleetwood Mac. But that enables him to do his side work and, as a result, both sides now feed off each other instead of taking him on a more destructive path. He definitely seems, not at all mellow, but just grounded.

The big Park game plan was to leave the mezzanine seats and dart for the stage once "Go Your Own Way" started and everyone started to go their own way and that's what we did, in time for me to pogo along with GYOW once again. And I thought I was tired. Apparently 'ark was having a visual conversation behind my back with a guy not irritated but amused by my antics.

I would swear both Lindsey and especially "Jessie's Girl" Brett made eye contact during a couple of the songs. (This isn't our photo though, it's courtesy of Pattie at The Ledge.)

But the piece de resistance -- the final song. Now we hoped for something special for the final show of the tour. That didn't mean different material, it just meant the most stirring version of "Time Precious Time" one could imagine. The pointed guitar movements and perfectly toned voice and the final word "Rememmmmmber" fading out ... well, let's just say, it won't be hard to not forget!

So 'ark had to reMiata and return home the next day. That meant me and good friend Liam were on our own for Experience Hendrix on Tuesday. Last year, we saw the show at the Beacon Theatre. This one was at the Hammerstein Ballroom. Kinda cramped if you are in a seat, but we just moved back to the final few rows of empty chairs and basically stood and jammed all night. Much better!

Among those on the bill: Eric Gales (was at first show), Doyle Bramhall II (sigh, yep, he did "Angel" again -- my first near tearjerker of the night), Eric Johnson (never saw him before, he really caught fire), Billy Cox (just smashing in red), Jonny Lang (didn't pull out all the stops but was solid), Kenny Wayne Shepherd (DID pull out all the stops again on Voodoo Chile and Voodoo Child Slight Return), Brad Whitford and son Graham (not bad, son), the effervescent Mitch Mitchell (frankly I'd pay just to watch him walk on and off stage), a couple of Los Lobos dudes (righteous! and nice take on "Little Wing"), Hubert Sumlin (dude was ON!) and Buddy Guy (not liquored up... thankfully since the crowd was about one-eighth of the energy of his show in the same venue just a couple months ago).

Got to meet and get CDs/picture/ticket signed by Eric Gales and Billy Cox after the show. Funny EG moment... a 20something fan went up to him right before me and said "you gave me a whole new perspective." Then when I went up I said "I already had perspective, but you were really great." So Eric tells me that I rock. And I must have had a brain freeze cause I went "I rock? Eric Gales [editor's note: he had just played the s out of his guitar] is telling me that I rock?" So that was pretty righteous.

Of course it would have been righteouser with 'ark in tow. But he'll be back this weekend. We have Joe Bonamassa at BB's (hopefully seeing journeycouple again!) and the WFMU Record Fair the next day.

Law of appreciating returns

This weekend was one of those with potential for disappointment, which causes one (well me anyway) to temper my enthusiasm just in case. Now that it's over and in hindsight, I can enjoy how everything played out.

It wound up being one of those in which you have three hours total sleep over a three-day period and in pictures it kind of looks like zombie nation, but enjoyment-wise it'll be tough to top.

Enough of the vague-irities. First sis was coming in from Florida, first for the Devils season opener (which 'ark told everyone who would listen -- and a few that probably didn't want to -- that he was benched and unable to attend.) As sis and I have been doing the Devils thing together since Nov. 23, 2001 (in-joke: Ellyosh and seeeee-kora), and this being the first game of the new season we planned it that way for sis time.

So the Devils have two scoring lines and two power-play lines now (something we haven't had for a few seasons), so that's great to see. Zachariah Parise scored the first Devils' goal of the new season and my boy Patrik (Patty) Elias had the game-winner. All good and lots of fun.

Mere hours later we were up and heading for the bus to Atlantic City to see Lindsey Buckingham and 'ark ... not necessarily in that order. After dumping the bus voucher credit in about half an hour, we did a lot of shopping and some eating. AC has better Devils merchandise, than the freakin' Devils Den.

Funny moment when I was buying something on the boardwalk when both Pook and 'ark saw each other before I did. I believe sis' quote was "It's either Mark or some pervert." Hey she was doubly right! ;)

More shopping and lots of joking and general frivolity ensued. Not sure sis took it as a compliment when 'Ark said we not only look alike but have the same method of reasoning. We played the water gun balloon arcade game. 'Ark won twice and the girls took the prizes, haha.

Oh yeah, we still had Lindsey to see. It was a small venue, Xanadu at the Trump Taj Mahal, and there were a ton of empty front seats at the beginning, but the diehard fans started moving forward. It turned a staid early show into an incredibly vibrant meeting of the minds. The band (particularly Lindsey and guitarist/keyboardist Brett Tuggle) really seemed to appreciate it.



Here's a great vid of "Go Your Own Way." I don't know how 'Ark stood still, me personally, I was pogoing around not of my own free will. It doesn't have quite the energy level we experience, but I just love the fans playing the guitar with Lindsey near the end.

I made a small nuisance of myself during band intros with the ol' harmonica ... and by yelling "Play Jessie's Girl, Brett" to Mr. Tuggle -- two decades ago he used to play backup for Rick Springfield. The girls my age seemed to get it.

One of my fave parts was the encore "Second Hand News." I was standing on two front-row chairs by then and there was some kind of go-go dancing going on. This is not yet up to full go-go strength at the beginning of the song...


And akin to Pook's Clapton experience back in 1990 ... "Tusk" is the new "Cocaine"!

It took us forever and a day (plus a bus, two trains, a cab) to get back to Newark and another two trains (one broken) and a plane to get Pook home, but I'm still flying high on all of it. Thanks Pook and 'ark!