Hot Stove Cool Music - 6/20/2014 Chicago Metro (Wilco content)

[nalafej]

I attended this benefit concert last night. The beneficiary was "A Foundation to be Named Later" which I understand to be Theo Epstein's baby. Theo is the GM of the Chicago Cubs. The bill was headlined by Tom Morello, John Stirrat, Jimmy Chamberlin, Peter Gammons, Scott Lucas and a ton of others. Len Kasper who is the Cubs play-by-play announcer also performed and put most of the music together.

 

There were some strange combinations and in general they stuck to Chicago related songs. The night opened with "The Chicago Allstars" doing a set of songs highlighted by two Urge Overkill songs. The next set was "The Boston Allstars" anchored by Gammons (of ESPN baseball commentary fame).

 

The Metro posts the schedule on their front door as you walk in. Listed on there from 11-?? was Cheap Trick. That was a surprise. Cheap Trick doesn't play 600 seat venues very often.

 

They were the first highlight of the night and came up after the Boston Allstars.. It ended up being Cheap Trick without Robin Zander and they came out and did 3-4 songs including I Want You to Want Me and ending with an allstar rendition of Surrender with Tom Morello on guitar and a host of guest backup singers including Stirrat. It was really cool to see Rick et al performing those songs at the Metro!

 

A birthday celebration for Tom and Jimmy was next. Apparently they share a birthday and this year was #50. Tom still looks 30.

 

Tom Morello play next. He started with a solo song on acoustic, played "Gimme All Your Lovin'" next followed by "The Ghost of Tom Joad", a solo song and then an allstar version of Woody's "This Land is your Land" with Stirratt again on guest backup vocals with many others including an inebriated Ike Reilly. In the middle of that cover Tom pulled off a very amusing speech about the Cubs lack of World Series success hitting on a 7 point/7 option plan to win the World Series again. What made it all the more amusing was that Theo Epstein was right next to him for most of it. If you saw Tom's induction of Kiss into the R&RHoF, this had that same kind of passion. I was sold on his plan.

 

After 3-4 hours of music they show wasn't done, and many did leave after Morello. The "Chicago Allstars" came out to do their second set of the night. John was much more involved at this point as was the horn section which included at least 2 Total Pros (as named by Wilco - I recognized Max as well as the trombone player from Wilco gigs back in the day). This set included covers of Cherub Rock with Scott Lucas (of Local H fame) on vocals, John on bass, Eddie "King" Roeser on guitar and Chamberlin (of Pumpkins fame of course) on drums, Local H's Bound for the Floor, a lead vocal take by John on a song from a Chicago band from the 60's - very physchadelic but I didn't catch the name. The last song of the entire night was Wilco's Monday with the Total Pros, Jimmy on drums, John on bass and Matt Spiegel on vocals.

 

Fun and memorable evening.

[Magnetized]

Wow, that sounds like an incredibly loose, fun evening.