Orel Family

Bruce! Electric! Renew our days as of old! Last night was the 7th annual John Henry's Friends Benefit at The Town Hall in New York, to benefit the Keswell School , where Steve Earle's autistic son John Henry attends. The show featured Steve Earle and the Dukes, Willie Nile, Matt Savage, The Mastersons, Roseanne Cash, and, of course, Bruce Springsteen. It's been more than 5 years since I -- or nearly anyone else in the audience -- saw Bruce play anything  electric. As Steve Earle noted early on, the bar for the benefit shows has been raised pretty high. The first hour of the show featured The Mastersons , who performed two songs off their "new" album (from March, 2020, when the world essentially stopped), pianist Matt Savage (who has autism), Willie Nile , and Roseanne Cash . Nile played a pair of COVID-19 inspired songs, including the brutal "Blood on Your Hands," which he had recorded as a duet with Earle. Cash, performing with her husband John Levent...

At the start of 1969, things were rapidly deteriorating for The Beatles: Their 1968 recording sessions for "The White Album" had turned so sour that recording engineer Geoff Emerick quit in July, followed by Ringo Starr in August. Their manager Brian Epstein had died in 1967 from an accidental overdose of sleeping pills. They'd given up touring in 1966 to protect their own safety and sanity.  It may seem shocking that the most famous quartet in the world chose, as their next project, to take empty time and space in Twyckenham Film Studios , this time without even producer George Martin , who didn't go.   This is where Peter Jackson's epic 8-hour film, currently available on Disney+ , comes in. For Beatlephiles like me, the film is both a huge blessing and a bit of a let down. More on the let down later. The original Michael Lindsay-Hogg movie "Let it Be" was never released on DVD, and has been out of official circulation in all formats since the ...

September, 1979. I'd just returned home from being in Israel for 6 weeks. Less than a week later, my grandmother suddenly died from a heart attack. Sometime in the immediate aftermath of the returning home to New Jersey from my grandparents' shiva house in Connecticut, the school year started, and I understood that Bruce Springsteen was going to be playing at two of the upcoming "Musicians for Safe Energy" No Nukes concerts at Madison Square Garden. On Rosh Ha-freaking Shannah. Tickets probably went on sale while I was out of the country, and I had no chance of getting any. There was a girl in my homeroom class, and she  had tickets. Or, at least, she was going. She wasn't even especially excited about it.  I was 17, a hardcore fan, and  shut out. The burn, no doubt distorted by selective recall, lingered for a long time. It would be nearly another 2 years before I'd get to see Springsteen live.  More than 42 years later, the concert film "The Legendary 1...

The most important thing to note about Bruce Springsteen's Opening Night in his return engagement of Springsteen on Broadway, is that there was an opening night of Springsteen on Broadway, of anything  on Broadway, of live music, of entertainment. As Bruce noted in his opening remarks, it was good to see people sitting next to each other, no masks, for his show. Over the past 15 months in the spiritual diaspora, it was easy to lapse in to a mode of thinking in which such an evening seemed too far away to grasp. The vestiges of the pandemic remain, though. Outside the theater, several dozen anti-vaccine activists protested the theater policy that only people vaccinated for COVID-19 would be allowed to enter (and yes, the theater did  check, so if you're thinking of going to this show, make sure you have your evidence). Inside the theater, people crowded the souvenir and $20 drink lines, as if to prove a point that they could. The St. James Theater was not sold out, and secondar...

March 14, 2020. On March 14th, 2020, I began posting COVID-19 updates to my facebook page, regarding the status of the COVID-19 pandemic. I have used data from worldometer as a primary source for daily and cumulative data, with frequent supplementation from various national and local sites. Notables this week: Cases outside the United States rose sharply Italy announced new lockdowns to begin March 15th Cases in the United States continued to fall Deaths in the United States fell by nearly 28% This blog post compiles the period of March 7th through March 14, 2021. see  https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/  for more March 7 | March 8 | March 9 | March 10 | March 11 | March 12 | March 13 | March 14 MARCH 7 Today's counts Location Total Cases Cases Today Total Deaths Deaths Today World 117.45 million 378,475 2.605 million 5,893 USA 29.70 million ...

On March 14th, 2020, I began posting COVID-19 updates to my facebook page, regarding the status of the COVID-19 pandemic. I have used data from worldometer as a primary source for daily and cumulative data, with frequent supplementation from various national and local sites.  Notables this week: the number of people in the United States receiving two vaccination doses now exceeds the number of reported COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic several states, starting with Texas and Mississippi, have announced easing or even elimination of COVID-19 restrictions Cases and Deaths in the United States fell significantly Cases worldwide were up slightly, including increases in 6 of the 10 countries with the most cases This blog post compiles the period of February 28th through March 6th, 2021. see  https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/  for more February 28 | March 1 | March 2 | March 3 | March 4 | March 5 | March 6 FEBRUARY 28 Today's counts ...

On March 14th, 2020, I began posting COVID-19 updates to my facebook page, regarding the status of the COVID-19 pandemic. I have used data from worldometer as a primary source for daily and cumulative data, with frequent supplementation from various national and local sites.  Notables this week: new cases went up worldwide and were flat in the USA the world death total from COVID-19 surpassed 2.5 million The Johnson and Johnson vaccine was approved for Emergency Use in the USA. This blog post compiles the period of February 21st through 27th, 2021. see  https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/  for more February 21 | February 22 | February 23 | February 24 | February 25 | February 26 | February 27 FEBRUARY 21 Today's counts Location Total Cases Cases Today Total Deaths Deaths Today World 111.97 million 319,960 2.478 million 6,510 USA 28.77 million ...