Live Exclusives: Outside Lands, Regeneration 2008

All the concert news ‘n' reviews that's fit to print.

By Blurt Staff

More concert coverage from your friendly neighborhood BLURT - this time, we've got the Outside Lands fest in San Francisco and the Regeneration Tour 2008 in Cincinnati.

• *BLURT Associate Editor Andy Tennille made the proverbial prodigal return to his old stomping grounds of San Francisco the weekend of August 22-24 to catch the Outside Lands Music & Arts Festival in Golden Gate Park featuring, among others, Radiohead, Tom Petty, Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings and Wilco rocking the assembled masses. The event was not without its problems, notes Tennille. "Due to the park's landscape, festival organizers were forced to work with its existing layout, resulting in several narrow bottlenecks that made travel between stages extremely difficult and crowd management next to impossible. Sound gremlins continually plagued the event [and the] topography and location of some stages - such as the Twin Peaks stage - presented aural snake pits for festival sound engineers trying to achieve pristine sound. All that said, the focus of the weekend was the music, and promoters - Another Planet Entertainment, Superfly Presents and Starr Hill Presents - did not skimp on the talent." Check out Tennille's exclusive photos from the event, incidentally.

• *The next evening Steven Rosen was getting his inner I Want My VH1 Classic groove on at the Regeneration Tour 2008 at Cincy's National City Pavilion. Featuring Human League and ABC plus Brenda Carlisle, A Flock Of Seagulls and Naked Eyes, the show was a mixed bag, writes Rosen. "Several of the acts - Naked Eyes and a ragged A Flock of Seagulls, whose synthesizer player/vocalist Mike Score no longer has that fantastic tidal wave of a haircut - are better remembered than actually heard these days [but] ABC and Human League made a compelling case for the quality of their music. Somewhere in between was Belinda Carlisle, whose stage presence was energetic and voice strong, but whose songs mostly are bland and uninteresting."

Check ‘em out at the provided links, or simply scroll down the BLURT front page to the reviews section. We've also got new book, DVD and CD reviews being added daily.

[Sharon Jones photo by Andy Tennille]