Hey Hey, My My

I can't wait for these pork bellies to dry.

One week down, one to go for these guys. 9 days in a pancetta cure, 2 weeks hanging and they'll be ready for fryin' and use in things like the Mrs' wonderful pasta sauces. Yeah, I didn't quite square of the lower one, so sue me. I wanted every bit of the porky wonderfulness.

What's up with the title of this post? Well, last night the Mrs., myself and my buddy CS had the pleasure of seeing Neil Young and Wilco at MSG. They weren't together; Wilco was the second support band and honestly I wished they had ditched the other opener and given Wilco a full 90 minutes or more instead of the 50 they got. No knock to the first band, I'm just greedy especially given what we paid for the tickets. Arena rock: not cheap in the 21st century, even in the days of the Great Global Collapse of the Oughties.

Wilco were excellent as always, they're the first opening band I've seen in quite some time to almost get an encore. The crowd was very appreciative of their set and didn't stop cheering until the roadies started breaking down the gear to make way for the old Canadian dude.

The old Canadian dude can still bring it.

It's a funny thing I've noticed among boomer rockers. I noticed it first in the Who after Entwistle died and I saw it again last night with Mr. Young. At ages on the far side of 60 they're playing with a higher level of skill and a ferocity I've never seen before, and I've been seeing these old farts for close to 20 years which makes me a middle-aged fart. Neil went 2 1/2 hours with only one short encore break and covered just about all of his most famous material and played two of my absolute favorites back to back ("Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere" and "Powderfinger" in case you care).

Speaking of having seen bands for a long time, I just caught a repeat of the Top Chef episode where they cook for the Foo Fighters. I first saw the Foo Fighters before the first record came out when the opened for Mike Watt in 1995 at the late, somewhat lamented Tramps on (I think) 21st street. The Foos were awesome that night, nobody had heard any of their stuff before and the place was nuts. It was, I think, Grohl's first time playing back in New York since Cobain's suicide so I was witness to a little bit of rock history. Come to think of it, that may have been the last time I saw an opener get calls for an encore. Watt was fantastic too with an all-star band of Eddie Vedder on guitar, Grohl on drums and Dave Pirner of Soul Asylum along with Evan Dando in the mix. All this at a club that held, oh, probably less than 500 people. A good night.

Anyway, I thought of that because on the Top Chef episode contestant Leah said the was "totally psyched" to see the Foos. Leah is 26, meaning she was 13 when I saw that gig. This is a fact that I screamed at the TV.

Then again, I'm sure there's some old folks who think maybe a 41 year old is a newbie at a Neil Young show. I think the difference is Neil still puts out some quality material and the Foos have been treading water for about five records now. Remember kids, rust never sleeps.