The Next Big Thing

Big Star report from Brother DC in SF...

"me and cynthia saw big star at the fillmore last night. great show. mellow, good vibe crowd. same band as last time...alex and jody plus the posies on bass and guitar. stringfellow had one of those new black and white gretsch basses going thru big ampeg setup. the other guy had a gibson 335 type thing. chilton played a les paul junior that sounded fantastic but gave him tuning trouble. both he and the other guy had rented fender twin reverb amps which sounded killer. chilton also had a black strat with maple neck but only used it on one or 2 songs. he kept on tuning up the gibson which slowed things down but it was that kind of night anyway -- very relaxed. chilton wore white button down shirt, black suit jacket, khaki trousers, black walking shoes. at first he had glasses on and cyn said he looked like a college prof. he's very trim and still in good voice.
they opened with "in the street". and then it was one old fave after another...pow pow pow... punches of power pop in your face: "feel", "i am the cosmos", "el goodo", "when my baby's beside me", "thirteen", "september gurls", "way out west", "back of a car", "thank you friends" and in between there somewhere, the kinks' "til the end of the day". and also what seemed to be an impromptu jam on "girl from ipanema". 2nd half of the show wasn't nearly as powerful as the beginning. they should've saved some of those heavy hitters for the end. oh yeah, they did todd rundgren's "slut" which chilton wanted to say something about but smiled and said, "er...i'm not going to say anything about this song.".
first rate show. we were right up by the stage, right in front of chilton's amp which positively sparkled. pardon the cliche but i really felt the music just washing over me -- especially the songs from the first album."