Neil Young - Psychedelic Pill (USA 2012)

An Uncle Roddus Album Review.

Neil has been a busy boy this year with this being his second release with Crazy Horse, after the earlier "Americana " set. This double CD set I picked up on my recent expedition to Auckland, seeing as it was only 20 bucks for a double set and it was high on my purchase list .

This set sounds like classic young and Crazyhorse, all the usual ingredients are present and any one familiar with Neil's previous work with the horse will feel right at home. The set opens with the mammoth 27 minute "Driftin' Back", one of three extended jams, and jams they are. At that length, it is difficult to maintain interest through out and the middle section of the song kinda stalls and sounds a bit insipid, before some classic Young/Horse guitar noodlings improves things somewhat.  "Ramada Inn" is the second of the extended tracks but far shorter at a more modest 17 minutes and is a better song than the opener. The final extended track is the superior "Walk Like a Giant" and is on par with Young's last great marathon track " Ordinary People" from the Chrome Dreams II album. The rest of the album is chock full of classic Crazyhorse and although none of it has really grabbed hold of me yet, I get a strong feeling that most of this album will grow in stature as familiarity takes hold. Rating 4/5.

Shearwater - Animal Life (USA 2012)

An Uncle Roddus Album Review.

Considering the range of music I listen to and the weirdness of some of my favourite artists, you still can't beat a top quality, well constructed album of straight ahead pop/rock. Since getting back into Uncut Magazine earlier this year, I have purchased some really great new albums and this one is very near the best of the lot(along with The Alabama Shakes debut album). Tinged with electronics and most numbers purring along at a steady moderate tempo are 11 impressive tracks of blissful indie pop that the Americans are so good at nowadays.  Jonathan Meiburg's vocals are very impressive and the best song here is the steamrolling " Immaculate" which is up there with Pearl Jam's "Rear View Mirror" as far as great songs go.I Haven't given this album as much attention as it deserves but I can safely award it a rating of 5/5.

Coldplay - 10th November 2012 Auckland, New Zealand

It's been a whirlwind weekend as Mrs. Roddus and myself got flown up to Auckland to attend Coldplay's only New Zealand concert on their "MYLO XYLOTO" world tour.

 Mrs. Roddus was dead keen to go see them play when she found about this concert several months ago, and although I have enjoyed Coldplay over they years and have their first three albums on CD, I had lost interest in them and wouldn't have bothered if Mrs. Roddus wasn't so excited about seeing them live.

 This was my first trip to Auckland itself, except several times through the airport onto more far flung destinations, and fortunately this whole expedition, concert included, was organised by my Electrical wholesalers, which meant accommodation and transportation was all arranged as well as corporate VIP passes to the concert itself. This meant that we had about 5 hours after arriving at our hotel to see a bit of Auckland before we were whisked off to Mt Smart Stadium for the gig. Our short time was spent on a short stroll up Queen St for Mrs. Roddus to check out  some shops and where I could pop into JB HIFI, as we had been told it was the biggest CD shop and Auckland and I was hoping to find some John Zorn CDs there(No chance, but did get some Sun Ra though). We jumped on the ferry and shot over to Devonport for lunch and a short ride on a horse drawn buggy before coming back across to prepare for the concert.  

Here are a few shots of central Auckland I took.

A hotel on the wharf 

Heading to catch the ferry.

On the ferry heading away from the terminal.

Hilton on Wharf.

A strange building on wharf.

A short ride round Devonport

The horse hogging the photo.

Bloody hell, it's nearly Xmas already.

Skytower near our hotel, next time I might even get to go up it.

Our nice suite at the Heritage.

We were picked up from our hotel by bus about 5:30PM and whizzed along the motorways to Mt Smart Stadium, getting to our box about 6:30 where we were presented with out VIP concert package of a tour book of art work and song lyrics in a cool bag and both a vinyl and CD copy of the New Coldplay Album "Mylo Xyloto" packaged in the book, very cool.We settled in with drinks and watched the crowd pour in while the first support band started their set very soon after.The stage set up and speaker systems were very impressive and no doubt state of the art for a stadium band of this calibre but as is usual for rock concerts the sound was very very loud. I don't mind loud but at this volume it makes it difficult to separate out the sounds of individual instruments and hear clearly what the singers are singing or saying, and for groups like both support groups, The female fronted The Pierces, from the USA and The Temper Trap from Australia, it makes it a bit more difficult to apprise their music when you are unfamiliar with it as I am. Neither group impressed me enough to want to explore their music any further but did give me time to acclimatise my ears ready for Coldplay. 

Coldplay came on at 9PM  and instantly dazzled  the 47000 strong crowd with one of the best light shows I have seen, especially with the LED light arm bands that we all wore lighting up an impressive site. With fire works and balloons and confetti snow storms and inflatable blobs rounding out the gimmicks  they certainly impressed and entertained me from that angle. The music, although almost overpoweringly loud was still mostly recognisable and the band played their hearts out and put on a magnificent show and had the crowd all worked up like the professionals they are. One part of the show, near the end, the group relocated to a small stage towards the back of the stadium quite near us and played a number from there. A good idea.

After playing most of our favourite songs and some good stuff from the latest album, which I am quite impressed with, they finished the show the  same way they started with a nice set of fireworks from behind the stage. It all went off very well with the crowd responding  the weather holding and  the music  booming. Overall a worthwhile experience and Mrs. Roddus loved it, and that's the main thing. I managed to bring my Panasonic Lumix camera with me and thought I'd try and video some short segments of the set to see what that looked like and the results were surprisingly better than expected, so enjoy three clips below of the opening song, the small stage song and the final song with fireworks after these photos.

The Pierces

The Pierces again.

The crowd building.

An Impressive setup.

Add caption

The Temper trap.

A shot of the crowd just before Coldplay came on.

 

The Pyramid - 5th November 2012

Uncle Roddus Tramping Diary: Tramp No 126

The Pyramid - 5th November 2012

After another good dump of snow on the Torlesse Range on the previous day, expectations were high that we would be encountering some of the white stuff up on The Pyramid and so 11 of us set off from the Hawdon Shelter loaded with crampons and ice axes as we couldn't quite see the conditions of the tops due to the patchy cloud cover, although indications suggested we probably wouldn't need them.

After a chilly crossing of the Hawdon river and Sudden Stream, we donned our boots and melted into the woods looking for the rough track that would take us up the nearest spur to the tops. The track is unmarked and patchy in places but was relatively easy to follow and we made good time to the bushline where we stopped for lunch in partial sun and a cold brisk breeze. Fortunately the cloud had lifted by this time, most of the fresh snow had melted and the crampons and ice axes never left our packs as we followed the ridgeline northwards, enjoying the great views up Sudden Valley and across the Hawdon etc. After hitting The Pyramid at point 1608, we continued along past point 1565, looking for the scree to take us down to Sudden Valley. Some of us popped up to what I believe may have been point 1594 where we encountered a lone Kea perched on a rock. After afternoon tea, we bounded down a very good scree slope where we undid hours of hard slog in a matter of minutes in an exhilarating downward plunge. The rest of the day was spent negotiating our way down Sudden Valley, which was more challenging than this scribe remembered from his last visit, although comment was made that the water level was quite higher than normal due to the recent rains and snowmelt. We arrived back at the cars by around 6PM.

Some random photos from the trip.