In my previous life as a chronicler of shows, I wrote detailed concert recaps that were more play-by-play than exegesis. But the setlist and banter Friday night at Kult in Helsinki weren’t nearly as important as the immersive experience of…
I saw Bob Dylan in concert for only the second time on Thursday, October 16, 2025, in Helsinki, on show #1 (we were first, baby!) of the Fall 2025 Rough and Rowdy Ways tour.
It’s ironic that, despite having lived half my life in Minnesota, I never saw Dylan in the US. Both my Dylan concert experiences have been in Finland.
By way of a smooth transition, Dylan’s last performance before heading to Finland to start his European tour was a 23-minute, five-song set at Farm Aid in Minnesota on September 20th.
Regular readers of my Substack may have noticed I’ve stolen more lines from Nada Surf to illustrate ideas than lines from any other band in recent years, most recently, my essay called “All Flavors All the Time,” a line from “So Much…
Despite being a lifelong music geek, I wasn’t familiar with the Dutch band NITS until this past year. It’s not like the band has been hiding under a rock for the fifty years of their existence, and I’m not ignorant…
To do a dangerous thing with style Is what I call art. – Charles Bukowski When my concert companion asked what I thought about Rickie Lee Jones’s performance in Helsinki Wednesday night as we walked from the venue, it made…
During the encore of his 32-song, three-hour show in Helsinki Friday night, Bruce Springsteen asked the audience of 42 thousand, “Do you think you can outlast the E Street band?” I, for one, couldn’t, even if Springsteen is 74 and…
I vividly recall Nick Cave’s tour stop in Helsinki on the “Conversations with Nick Cave” tour in 2019. Not just because I was one of the lucky few selected to sit on stage with the performer during the first of his two-night…
10 years is a not such an insignificant chunk of time in the web world. Think of the web 10 years ago. No MySpace (founded 2003), no Facebook (founded 2004), no YouTube (founded 2005.) Imagine. But there was HowWasTheShow! HowWasTheShow’s…
Seeing Finland’s Arto Järvelä and Minnesota’s Kaivama perform together at The Cedar Cultural Center in Minneapolis Friday night made me feel downright happy. For a musical performance to be a success, happiness need not be either the intention or the…
