This was originally a fairly bitter Friday Five entitled “pet peeves” written for last Friday. I decided against that idea and so today we have my top 5 live Youtube performances. There really isn’t any consistence to these. Three of them are covers done in unique ways. One is from a musical I am now quite desperate to see. The other is from a band that is easily the best rock act of our generation.
#5 What I know about Tim Reynolds is this. He encouraged Dave Matthews to form a band and play. Occasionally he plays with Dave Matthews. He is a brilliant guitar player. Apart from that I don’t know much. I found this video while looking for Peter Gabriel performing “In Your Eyes.” It would be higher on this list but the video quality is kind of shoddy. The brilliance of the performance shines through though.
#4 I really enjoyed Wicked as a book. My sister and I were both keen to see the musical but missed it both times in Toronto and when in New York, apparently it is sold out 3 months in advance. This song features the best parts of the songs I’ve been listening to from the Soundtrack: Humor, killer melodies, amazing arrangement, and wonderful vocal harmonies. This is “What is this feeling?” From Wicked.
#3 This differs from the other covers in today’s 5 as I hadn’t heard the original before hearing this version. Andy McKee is another musician I know very little about. That being said he manages to get all the good parts of “Africa” by Toto onto one acoustic guitar, simultaeneously destroying all the terrible 80’s parts of the song.
#2 I had a moment a few weeks back where I started watching as many Blue Man Group songs as I could find. One such video was them doing a very cool version of “Baba O’Riley” by The Who.
#1 I had the privilege of seeing Muse perform in Toronto over the summer. These guys are especially brilliant. Not only is the singer an amazing singer, but he is also a genius guitar player and pianist. The rest of the band serves as catalysts to this as well as true talents in their own rights. This is them performing what is still my favorite song of their’s: “Hysteria”
Apparently WordPress only allows you to embed one video. Anyway, that concludes this weeks Friday Five, I hope you enjoyed at least one of these performances. I think “What is this feeling?” is probably the most irresistable of them.
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