Back in the days of the WFW Podcast, I always had Nils Lofgren in the back of my mind as a potential guest. It was one of those things that made sense for a whole bunch of reasons. I just wanted to wait until the time was right before making the contact. But then the E Street Band went on tour in late 2007 and by the time they stopped, I stopped the podcast.
A few weeks ago, Matt generously sent me a copy of Cry Tough, Nils’ new DVD of concerts he filmed for “Rockpalast.” I was glad, but I didn’t think anything of it until last week, when he e-mailed me asking if I wanted to interview Nils for Popdose. He had an in through his day job in Cleveland radio. Naturally, I jumped at the chance. I even briefly thought about resurrecting the podcast after the piece ran. By the way, there’s a new Popdose Podcast – some outtakes from the first year of the show – up as of last week if you haven’t already seen it. But now I have to be nice to Matt for a while, which is tough given that I found out last night that he collects Toto bootlegs.
But I was able to get a good 30 minutes with Nils, who was as nice and as genuine as you would expect. But I knew that because he and I had met before. I used to run a record store in Gaithersburg, MD, near his old house, and he came in a few times while I was there. He remembered the store, which closed in late-1995, and he moved to Arizona shortly afterward. I didn’t put that in the piece, but you can read everything else we talked about over at Popdose.
Even though I’ve seen some incredible concerts in my lifetime, I’ve never been to one of those shows where something so amazing happens that it makes national news, that everybody in attendance knows that they saw something that will probably never be repeated again. Usually those come in the form of a “Hey, look who just stopped by, our good friend Mr.-Really-Famous-Rock-Star!” guest appearance. I came pretty close a week ago last Tuesday, when I was at Taste Of Chicago and Robert Plant joined Los Lobos – who, typically, kicked ass – for the encore, a cover of Roy Head’s Treat Her Right.
Granted, I’ve never been the biggest Robert Plant fan, but it was still completely unexpected and, apart from his need to throw a bit of D’yer Maker in there, pretty cool. But I can’t imagine anything that compared to what happened in New York three days ago. From Rolling Stone’s account of Ringo Starr’s 70th birthday concert:
For about 30 seconds it seemed like Ringo Starr’s 70th birthday concert at Radio City Music Hall earlier tonight was over. An incredible assemblage of rock stars including…had just left the stage following a massive singalong rendition of “With a Little Help From My Friends” that felt like the grand finale to an incredible night. Then, just as the house lights threatened to rise, a roadie brought out Paul McCartney’s signature Hofner bass and the sell-out crowd went into absolute hysterics. When McCartney himself ran onstage and burst into (of course) the White Album’s “Birthday,” the screams reached a decibel level rarely heard since the Beatles stopped touring nearly 45 years ago.
I love the way that was done – no announcement, just the roadie bringing out Paul’s bass, which needed no explanation.
In other news, I’m almost done blogging the World Cup at Popdose. After the completion of the tournament tomorrow, hopefully I’ll be back on a fairly regular schedule here. Thanks for your patience.
