Holy crap - Mott the Hoople touring US

[tinyurl.com]

Ian Hunter, Morgan Fisher and Ariel Bender, anyway. Too bad they couldn't get Mick Ralphs or Verden Allen to tag along.

EDIT: Ah, apparently Ralphs had a stroke a few years back and is retired from performing. Sorry to learn that.



Post Edited (01-22-19 13:38)

Mott -- one of those bands i'd like to think everyone knows, yet i NEVER hear them on any classic rock stations. Not even 'all the young dudes'. (Brain Capers probably my favorite by them).

The movie "Alice Doesn't live Here Anymore" was on the old movie channel awhile back and i started watching it...the movie opens with Mott the Hoople and they even get mentioned in the opening dialogue. That was kind of surprising to me. Were they really that popular here in the US in the early 70's?

Bip - They were very popular among the "Bowie Crowd." My wife was from the Akron/Cle area where Ian Hunter/Mott were rock royalty. Ian Hunter is always rock royalty with me. Martin Scorsese is a huge classic rock fan, ergo Mott's usage in the opening of "Alice Doesn't Live Here Any More" with "All The Way To Memphis" running under the title sequence. Hard to believe that the tepid 70s sitcom "Alice" was adapted from that film! I'd love to see Mott [I've never seen Hunter, either] but there's no way we can travel to any of those cities.



Former TP subscriber [81, 82, 83, 84]

[postpunkmonk.com]
For further rumination on the Fresh New Sound of Yesterday®

I'd love to see this, but it's coming nowhere near Texas.

Ian Hunter will be 80 YEARS OLD this year. I figured he was old, but that's really old to be touring and fronting a hard rock band!

I saw Gordon Lightfoot a few months back and he was about a month and a half shy of 80, which I'm pretty sure made him the oldest person I'd ever seen in concert, beating out Charlie Louvin, who I'd seen several years earlier, by about four months - Charlie had been six months short of 80 when I saw him.

Both those gentlemen showed their age. Gordon's voice would be giving out by the end of almost every song and he'd have to swig some concoction between songs that my friend assured me was some remedy for severe dry mouth. Poor guy was on fumes by the end of "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald."

Hopefully Ian is a bit more spry for his age. He looked pretty ancient when I saw him four or five years ago, but he was in good voice and pretty energetic at that point in time.

I saw 85-year-old Willie Nelson last year. He too needed breaks to recover his voice, which explained why he threw it out to the audience to finish verses and choruses so often. (One of his crew confirmed that's why he was doing it.)

Jazz saxophonist Charles Lloyd was 80 when I saw him last year. His playing sounded great, but he let his sidemen do most of the extended soloing. I met him after the show and he didn't seem like he was 80 at all - I would've guessed 60.

Lionel Hampton was 91 or 92 when I saw him almost 20 years ago. Blues pianist Pinetop Perkins was 95 when I saw him do an ACL taping. (In fact, all of these but Lloyd were ACL tapings.) He played about 15-20 minutes in a bright red suit. He pretty much mumbled his way through the vocals, but those nearly a century old fingers still tickled the ivories just fine.

In reference to Delvin's post, I've noticed that when Ian Hunter does solo tours they're usually a half-dozen performances or so. Maybe that's how he stays spry at his age - he doesn't push himself beyond what he's comfortable with.

I saw him once at SXSW as a guest of Alejandro Escovedo. I'd love to see him do his own set (or Mott, for that matter), but he doesn't come down here.

It's weird that they're starting on a Monday in Milwaukee, then going to Minneapolis Tuesday, then to Chicago on Wednesday. Milwaukee and Chicago are only 90 miles apart, so it makes no sense to drag a bunch of elderly gents hundreds of miles west on Tuesday, throw them up on a stage that night, then drag them hundreds of miles back east Wednesday to virtually exactly where they started from. Why not just start in Minneapolis?

And since Milwaukee and Chicago are so close together, why do both rate a show, when they're doing so few? From a purely selfish standpoint, as long as they're fine with hundreds of superfluous miles on their itinerary, dump Milwaukee and come to St. Louis instead - KSHE, the classic rock station here is actually big on Mott. There are at least five songs that might turn up at any time on that station - Dudes, Memphis, Honaloochie Boogie, Roll Away the Stone and Golden Age of Rock & Roll. St. Louis ain't Cleveland, but I'm betting it's in the upper ranks of Mott-supporting cities in the US, thanks to KSHE being a station with its own idiosyncratic playlist that has never dropped the old FM album rock philosophy from the hippie days.

While on the subject of KSHE, here's a list of their "KSHE Klassics," which form the backbone of their playlist - it's not everything they play, but they're going to be sprinkling a ton of them in on any given day. It's not heavy on TP favorites, but it's pretty damn weird and quirky compared to what you hear on most commercial classic rock stations. I hated KSHE in high school, but I admire the heck out of them now for keeping their own distinct personality in the age of Clear Channels and other corporate homogenizers, even after being bought out by the overlords. They somehow have managed to defy the trends.Not many US classic rock stations are going to have Flash and the Pan on their list of classics.

[www.kshe95.com]



Post Edited (01-23-19 09:42)

Shut my mouth! I said to my wife "guess who's touring America for the first time in 45 years," and the first thing out of her mouth was "Mott The Hoople?" She pointed out that with her parents wintering in Florida, we could drive to Akron and stay at their home [saving $$$] and hit the Cle show. So it's a plan! It makes our budget around $500 for the trip.

The venue looks nice - 2000 seater refurbed 20's hall. Hopefully buying tickets won't induce vomiting. We'll see. After that last Simple Minds experience I am SCARRED by the TicketMobster bots!

Yeah, I saw that James Mastro was in the lineup so I figured it was Ian's Rant Band + Mott guest stars. I'm more than fine with that. 60% pure MOTT '74 [as they're called] works for me. I'll report back on my findings, of course!



Former TP subscriber [81, 82, 83, 84]

[postpunkmonk.com]
For further rumination on the Fresh New Sound of Yesterday®

The Rant Band's a good one, so I'm sure they'll back up the Motts nicely.

Yes, a full report, please. They'll never come down here and I don't have a travel budget.

Ugh. A preliminary nose around TicketMobster looks VERY GRIM INDEED. $60 tickets that cost 5-6x face seem to be in the future. Homey don't play DAT! We will be happy to miss Mott The Hoople if we have to spend $200+ for 2x tickets! Live Nation desperately needs to be dismantled - with a legal chainsaw.



Former TP subscriber [81, 82, 83, 84]

[postpunkmonk.com]
For further rumination on the Fresh New Sound of Yesterday®

Criminy, six different presales for that Cleveland show????

Bryan Ferry at the Ryman in Nashville in August only had two presales, and they didn't seem to be very big. So there are still plenty of seats left for that, if I could just get a commitment one way or the other out of the dopes who have expressed interest in driving down for it, but are dragging their feet on yea or nay.

Think I'm going to go ahead and just pull the trigger and buy myself one and then if the idjuts decide they do want to go, they can sit at the back of the balcony. There are much better single seat tix left than multiple anyhow.

breno - I have seen Bryan Ferry in the Ryman in August. Dress for HEAT as there seems to be no air conditioning.



Former TP subscriber [81, 82, 83, 84]

[postpunkmonk.com]
For further rumination on the Fresh New Sound of Yesterday®

That's a pretty short tour itinerary. I'm accustomed to seeing British/European acts book American tours that last no more than a month, owing to work visa restrictions ... but this one is only ten days! Well, maybe they're just testing the waters, to see if there's even that much interest on this side of the Atlantic.

Looks like this is Hunter's solo band plus Fisher and Bender:

Details.

Mott, Escovedo, and Flash & the Pan. Those sound like a couple of great suggestions for this Friday's show. Thanks, gents!

breno - Thanx for mentioning the 6 presales. I looked and saw Live Nation presale so I opened a Live Nation account and searched for presale codes, which I saw on ... Ticket Mobster. Scant few tickets left for Cle - what a shock, but after picking two seats in Mezz F we were not allowed to leave a third seat open in the block! What the...?! I looked for a block of at least 4 seats [so TM is now your MOM?!] where I would be allowed to buy two. That led to Mezz C. Not bad. and I bought the 2x $59 tickets for about $160 when all was said and done. What I expected up front if I could avoid the hellscape of the last time I bought tix on TM [simple Minds] which was a nerve shredding, PTSD experience.



Former TP subscriber [81, 82, 83, 84]

[postpunkmonk.com]
For further rumination on the Fresh New Sound of Yesterday®

A second round of shows this fall!

21 Oct — Port Chester, NY @ Capitol Theatre
22 Oct — Washington DC @ Warner Theatre
24 Oct — Atlanta @ Coca Cola Roxy Theatre
26 Oct — Nashville @ War Memorial Auditorium
28 Oct — Dallas @ Majestic Theatre
29 Oct — Austin @ ACL Live at The Moody Theater
31 Oct — Scottsdale, AZ @ Talking Stick Resort Ballroom
01 Nov — Los Angeles @ Orpheum Theatre
03 Nov — Oakland @ Fox Theater
05 Nov — Portland @ Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall
06 Nov — Seattle @ Moore Theatre

Delvin: Astounding good news for modern man! Good to see that Mr. Toland gets a chance to see the show - they are playing ACL Live fergoshshakes! They do a great job. Review here:

[postpunkmonk.com]

Anyone with an passing fancy should make the effort. It's a warm, enjoyable show full of vitality. I swear Hunter sounded more vital live than he has on any album since "Rant" vocally where he had started experiencing elder voice changes similar to, but not as profound as Bryan Ferry [who was an inveterate smoker - dunno if Ian smokes].



Post Edited (08-01-19 08:40)

Former TP subscriber [81, 82, 83, 84]

[postpunkmonk.com]
For further rumination on the Fresh New Sound of Yesterday®

I've been a fan of Hunter's for decades, in and out of Mott, but have never seen him play. The last time he was in Austin, he played a free SXSW show as a guest of Alejandro Escovedo, but I missed it. That was nearly 15 years ago.

Anyway, tickets go on sale tomorrow - hopefully they won't be terribly expensive. I've no doubt it will sell out quickly. The Moody is usually a good place to see a show - even the highest seats have an intimate sightline, and as long as the act's soundperson bothers to learn their system, the sound is usually really good.

If the Spotify pre-sale still is going on, the code is YOUNGDUDES

I was eager to track down that code, in order to get decent seats at the Moore Theatre. Sound quality in that venue's balcony is miserable. My wife & I left the Simple Minds concert halfway through, because all we could hear was drums pounding through this muffled low-end roar. (On the other hand, Ghost sounded just about perfect from the balcony at the Moore, so I guess some sound engineers handle it better than others.)



Post Edited (08-01-19 10:19)