metroactive.com | sanjose.com | metrosiliconvalley.com | MAY 17-23 2017
12 SUMMER GUIDE
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Back to Monterey MISTY MORNING Father John Misty will help infuse this year’s 50-year anniversary of the Monterey International Pop Festival with his sardonic brand of 21st century folk-rock.
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IFTY YEARS AGO this June, Jimi Hendrix made his major American debut at the Monterey International Pop Music Festival—catalyzing the counterculture with a positively electric performance. The then-23-year-old guitarist played with his teeth, coaxed torrents of terrific feedback from his amplifier and then set his Fender ablaze in one of the most iconic moments in rock & roll history.
It was the summer of 1967. The hippie movement was at its zenith and optimism was high that a new age was upon us—an era of world peace, LSD-enlightenment and machines of loving grace. Half a century on, it can feel like the world is burning hotter than Jimi’s infamous Stratocaster. Thankfully we’ve got Father John Misty. Fresh on the heels of his third, and most ambitious, full-length, Pure Comedy, Father John—a.k.a. Josh Tillman—joins Regina Spektor, Dr. Dog, Phil Lesh, Kurt Vile and many others at
the 50th anniversary celebration of the first Monterey Pop, June 16-18. Now, more than ever, we look to Tillman to help make sense of the senselessness. Posing as a cynic, this sardonic shaman is only a part-time pessimist. And while Pure Comedy seeks to skewer every partisan viewpoint, Tillman doesn’t shy away from taking a definitive stand. His is a 21st century update on “All You Need is Love”—The Beatles’ own Summer of Love pronouncement. We’re all “just random matter suspended in the dark,” Tillman
sings at the close of Pure Comedy’s title track. “I hate to say it, but each other’s all we got.” —Nick Veronin
Dead & Company Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View | Jun 3-4 It’s 2017, and we can pretty much all agree that the rules have gone out the window. A “boss” from a reality TV show is president, careers have been replaced by driving people around in their Nissan, and the Grateful Dead are back and playing with John Mayer. But unlike the 45th president and the gig economy, Dead & Co. has been consistently entertaining crowds and receiving unanimously positive reviews. For those on the Dead bus, this is a rare chance to see Bob Weir, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann jam like it’s 1967.
Roger Waters SAP Center, San Jose | Jun 7 How many thousands of bedrooms have been covered in images from Dark Side of the Moon, The Wall and Wish You Were Here? If Pink Floyd didn’t exist, neither would the American dorm room as we know it. This June, Floyd bassist/ and singer Roger Waters comes to the SAP center in support of Is This the Life We Really Want?, his first album in 25 years. The record has been described as an “unflinching commentary on the modern times,” which means the singer of The Wall will be addressing a president whose racist campaign revolved around building a new one. Get ready.
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