reviews

Victor - Various Artists featuring Stone Gossard: Ballard, WA 8/6/04 @ Sunset Tavern for Youthcare Benefit

Nice line-up for a good cause (www.youthcare.org) at a small club.

Mark Pickerel (ex-Screaming trees) opened with a mostly acoustic set.

Steve Turner (Mudhoney/ex-Green River) was next, and was more punky -- short 3-minutes songs that were pretty catchy. Laid-back guy with a good sense of humor.

Stone Gossard (Pearl Jam/Brad/ex-Mother Love Bone/ex-Green River) was third and did a short (only ~30 minutes) but sweet set, switching off between acoustic and electric guitar almost every other song. He had a drummer and a bassist who used a big stand-up acoustic bass. Setlist included new songs, joints from his solo CD (I believe "Fits" was performed), and 2 versions of band songs: Pearl Jam's "Thin Air" and Brad's "Bless Me Father." "Thin Air" was bouncier than the Pearl Jam version, with jangly acoustic guitar and almost "Copa Cabana"-esque drumming. "Bless Me Father" was introduced as a song Stone wrote the music for and Shawn Smith wrote the lyrics for, and is one of Stone's favorite songs he's ever helped write.

Afterwards Stone was nice enough to autograph my copy of his solo release "Bayleaf." I jokingly told him that Matt Chamberlain (drummer from Pearl Jam's "Alive" video who also drummed a bit on "Bayleaf") had told me he was miffed at Stone because his name was spelled wrong in the "Bayleaf" liner notes...Stone denied all responsibility for that mistake ;)

Shawn Smith was also in the crowd watching the gig, and I spoke to him for a little bit too. He said his last gig on 7/31 was a good one. The usual suspects (Trent, Cody, Mike Clark) were rounded up as his band, and they did a cover tune by The Cure ("Out Of This World", I think).

Nice night with some real firsts from Stone!

[click here for pics - more to come!!]

[click here to visit Victor's site]