Trent has postponed tonight’s Nine Inch Nails show at the DCU Center in Woosta, citing illness. Maybe next time they roll around they can bring along A Place To Bury Strangers (headlining 9/16 at the Dise) or Does It Offend You Yeah? (playing 8/31 at Great Scott) as support, as they have in other cities for this latest tour.

The official word:

8.08.2008: Worcester show postponed
We regret to announce that due to illness, the Worcester show originally scheduled for Friday, August 8th at the DCU Center has been postponed. The band is sincerely sorry for the last minute announcement, but unfortunately Trent’s recurring throat ailment has left him unable to perform.

We are currently working to confirm a rescheduled date. Please hold on to your tickets, as they will be honored on the new date. Watch nin.com for updates, we will post information about the rescheduled date as soon as it is confirmed.

Note from Trent:

Hey everyone -
Just want to personally say how sorry I am to have to do this. I never take postponing a show lightly and if there were any possible way I could pull this off I would. This is a very frustrating and maddening situation for me and I appreciate your understanding. I’ll make it up to you.
Thanks
TR

If you’re a devoted follower of “Mythbusters” or spend your nights surfing around the triple-digit cable channels somewhere between the intersection of Discovery Channel and Bravo TV, then you’ve certainly head the True North Nut Snacks commercial that’s causing a minor online uproar.

And when we say uproar, we kind of mean one giant “LOL” from folks channeling their inner fourth grader.

Sure, the seemingly high-end peanut commercial says, at the very end, “one extraordinary nut snack.” But if you’re not specifically listening for that “n” in “snack,” you could be hearing something very different, and probably something Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire haven’t been able to boast since the early ‘90s.

An extraordinary nut snack, or something else that would make bleach-blondes in Van Nuys blush? You decide.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kch-4pgitXk

So maybe “snack” is fairly clear, but that’s not preventing chatter on Internet blogs and message boards. Just Google it for some great commentary.

But this begs the question: What are some recent commercials that made your head turn and ask “What did they just say?” Be sure to get your suggestions in before recess ends.  

The scuttlebutt at the Pearl Jam show was that the police were cracking down on parking lot beer drinking and filling dumpster after dumpster with confiscated bottles and cans. This seems like a policy change from last year (or even earlier this year). The parking lot scene at 2008 shows by R.E.M., Tom Petty and Iron Maiden seemed to operate on the don’t ask, don’t tell model where, as long as tailgaters remained mellow, the police peddled their bikes on by.

What’s been your experience at the newly named Comcast Center (formerly the Tweeter, formerly Great Woods, formerly just great woods) this summer? Did your PBR tall boys get yanked at Pearl Jam? Did the tailgating scene seem under control? And what’s up with the new “No Blanket” signs? Send us your thoughts.

When interviewers ask Joni Mitchell why she stopped performing live, she usually talks about frustration.

Mitchell complained about not being able to get anywhere close to the perfection she craved. She admitted that her goal in live performance was to get as near as possible to her best take in the studio - a tall order even today with all the latest digital doodads. Steely Dan cited similar reasons for retiring from the road for 20 years.

Mitchell eventually changed her tune when technology caught up in the 90’s, but her admittance is worthy of further consideration: why do we go to concerts? To witness an artist taking chances? To listen to them struggle (and usually fail) to mimic their artificially enhanced studio recordings? Both? There’s no one simple answer, but its good food for thought all the same.

If you’ve ever gone to a Rickie Lee Jones show than you probably already know: the sooner you lose your attachment to the studio performances, the happier you’ll be. Quite literally, she never does a song the same way twice. Folks coming for a tightly rehearsed, well-timed gig might want to consider Plan B. And yes, sometimes she fails miserably. But every now and again she hits a real stride and just nails it; anyone who caught her solo gig at Berklee in 1994 knows what that’s like. If you’re curious, the live set, “Naked Songs” was recorded in San Francisco during the same tour.

Usually, however, it’s uneven – she nails a few, misses some others. Thing is, we’ve come to expect perfection from musicians nowadays; we’re spoiled with hidden backing tracks, pitch control, lots of reverb and all sorts of digital signal processing. Take ‘er or leave ‘er, Jones doesn’t use any of these things. So, what her audiences are getting is raw, 100% pure and unadulterated, from her gut. For some it’s almost too intimate.

Something plainly obvious during her second of three Thursday residency shows at Johnny D’s last night was that she’s gotten a lot better at being uneven. Her instincts have improved, and she can sense when something’s headed south in enough time to manage a ‘good save.’ Much to her credit, it seems like she’s completely unafraid to fall flat on her face, and that very fearlessness is one of the things that helps prevent it from happening.

Last night’s opener, “Living It Up” was a perfect example. Tacking a quickened pop pace onto a melancholy old piano favorite could’ve easily spelled disaster. And Jones just narrowly pulled it off, largely thanks to violinist Petra Haden and bassist Joey Maramba’s harmony vocals. Then again, part of the pleasure in witnessing Jones at work is seeing how she takes everything right up to the edge, teeters there for a little too long and then, miraculously, lands on her feet…high-wire tension with a big payoff.

For “Coolsville” and “The Magazine,” a pair of dark alley tales that rank among her finest, she colored within the lines, rising from her bench to channel the characters in “Coolsville” as they beckoned eerily to one another in the night.

Standing to play guitar at center stage, she alternated with material from “The Evening of My Best Day,” celebrated for it’s accessibility, “Ghostyhead,” her misunderstood set of lo-fi hymns, and last year’s “Sermon on Exposition Boulevard,” which lands somewhere between the two. “A Sailor’s Song” achieved atmospheric heights: you could practically smell the tide and hear the boats creak in the harbor. “Cloud of Unknowing” rode along on a gritty groove established with bass and shakers while Jones got back in touch with her inner beat poet, and “Firewalker” brimmed with punky punch.

The rhythm section kept her in check for “Youngblood,” but “Weasel & the White Boys Cool” and “Satellites” exemplified how Jones can get lost inside her head while the band proceeds, often leaving her three steps behind them and struggling to catch up. Again, having Haden on hand to fill the space with her violin, counter-harmonies and sassily mouthed trumpet solos was a godsend; she might be the best thing that’s happened to Jones’ live sound in years. And despite her complaining about being drowned out by the piano in the house monitors (Jones does not wear the in-ear gear that most singers now rely on), a pair of Sinatra covers were delivered with the sort of torchy flair that made her mostly-standards set, “Pop Pop,” such a joy.

Closing with another hymn, “Vessel of Light,” landed her somewhere between a spiritual quest and a sonic heroin nod. As she swung fromwispy cry to big wail, the delicately strummed melody floated along with minimal structure; Jones nearly began speaking in tongues, eyes closed, off in space…

At 53, Rickie Lee Jones is weathered, though her voice remains as expressive as ever. Hard living, hard knocks…child rearing, a failed marriage, rigorous touring, getting bounced around the industry for refusing to conform…it all takes a toll. In part, it’s the contrast between that weariness and the childlike wonder coming through her singing voice that makes her such a compelling (and sometimes tragic) figure. After trying out the residency format earlier this year in California, Jones decided to bring her musical stream of consciousness east: the three Boston dates are running alongside a trio of shows in both New York and Philly. It’s a fantastic switch for her and solves numerous problems that her theater gigs have suffered from by removing the physical space between artist and audience. Standing that close to her, somehow she’s less easily misunderstood. Regardless, she remains a fascinating study - a befuddling and fiercely independent artist who refuses to let expectations dictate her next wobbly step.

I’m tired of being told what to do.

When I go to concerts I want to hear music…

Lately though, I get instructions.
To put my hands together.
To get up out of my seat.
To make some noise.
To sing the high or the low part of the harmony.
To come say ‘Hi’ at the merch booth.
To ‘give it up’ for the openers.
Even to make nice-nice with the folks sitting next to me (who are probably already making me mental by talking throughout the performance).

Whatever happened to naturally being moved by the music?

It seems like artists are willing to do just about anything to keep the attention of an audience; even Stevie Wonder stood on top of his piano bench the other night to sing “Do I Do,” then nearly injured his ankle on the way down – all in the name of making a spectacle.

Seeing Wonder and Steely Dan on back to back nights turned out to be more illuminating than I ever would have guessed. Last night at the Bank of America Pavilion, the Dan packed more genuinely gritty funk into it’s first three tunes than Stevie mustered Sunday in his entire two-and-a-half hours. How’d the aging New York cynics do it? Simple – they came on stage and gave the music all of their attention.

There were no speeches about how Barack Obama is going to unite the nation, no crowd pleasing comments about the Celtics, no dividing the left and right sides of the room to sing the chorus. Neither Donald Fagen nor Walter Becker attempted to instigate any dancing or clapping of any kind.

Instead, they let the music do the rousing for them. And even though Fagen’s voice is beginning to thin, people still got up on their feet when they felt the urge; they clapped along on upbeat faves like “Black Friday,” shouted out the choruses on “FM,” and “Josie” and boogied down to “Kid Charlemagne” – all delivered in the latter half of the set.

The earlier portion of the gig was spent coddling longtime fans with deep cut choices like the opener, “The Royal Scam,” “I Got the News,” “Everything You Did” and “Two Against Nature.” And while this likely tried the patience of hit seekers (who didn’t get relief until six tunes in with “Hey Nineteen”), it kept the band’s core audience satisfied while also allowing ample room for the dozen players to really stretch out – naturally. The 12-piece band’s soloing was purposeful and sounded relevant, not ornamental and…well, masturbatory.

In contrast, Wonder’s performance felt forced and the arrangements were overcrowded. It seems a shame that an artist with talent as astounding as Stevie Wonder’s should be compelled to muddy his music with an unnecessarily dense sound mix, cheap tricks like forcing the crowd to sing (at tender moments, too, like during “Knocks Me Off My Feet”) and by calling for bombastic guitar solos, one of which completely ruined an otherwise flawless version of “Visions.” And then he stood on the bench. And then the DJ Romeo from KISS 108 came out and made it all worse, leaving behind a contest winning gal that Wonder had to coach through “Superstition,” thus depriving the song (and us) of his own singing voice and, in the end, an encore due to time constraints.

Last night, Steely Dan reassured me that there are still artists out there that aren’t afraid to really improvise on stage, don’t care to play name games and aren’t hell bent on selling a political agenda. And yet they weren’t being standoffish or rude. It wasn’t meant as a personal affront that they weren’t interested in chatting and coaching: rather, they just came to play music.

Becker and Fagen are ace musician/songwriters that needn’t do more than write a song when they’ve got something to say…if it’s good enough, and chances are it is, the music will hold people’s attention. And move them.

That’s all there is to it.