Two concerts, two nights, two reviews

What a weekend. Its sunday morning and I'm exhausted. Anyways, I went to the Justified/Stripped concert Friday (don't ask ) and the local Memphis Jams concert Saturday featuring Cowboy Mouth and Better than Ezra. Just a quick review:

The Black Eyed Peas opened friday for Justin and Christina, and they were great. Awesome, funky grooves, along with some good rhymes. They definately should have performed longer, but they had to make way for a painfully long Christina Aguilera concert. Ugh. I think she did one song I actually enjoyed, a latin-groove kinda thing with a bunch of tarentella dancers on stage. I won't even talk about her outfit... her crotch had landing lights. For real. Well, then it was Justin's turn. Ok, call me crazy, call me whatever, but I actually really enjoyed his performance. Some of his songs are really funky, and with a live band backing him up instead of just a tape there was some real energy to it. Justin did an extended beat box thing with his drummer and DJ that was very cool and quite impressive. Also, his bass player (who was playing a very nice Lakland 5) did a sweet slap solo when Justin was giving out props to his band. Not a bad show.

Saturday I saw Cowboy Mouth and Better than Ezra play at the local amphitheatre. Both bands put on a great show, but I really think Cowboy Mouth should have gone last intstead of Better than Ezra. Cowboy Mouth had the entire audience standing and screaming, the energy was incredible. These guys have a great stage presence, and BTE never matched it. Both bands were very tight together. Halfway through the Better than Ezra show, their lead singer called for a audience member to come play guitar. Sure enough, a 30-ish man came out and starting playing the song they were going to play. Their singer made a comment about being like Axel Rose, and the guitarist starting playing the guitar line to Sweet Child of Mine! The whole band joined in, and did Sweet Child of Mine in its entirety. The guitar player eventually climbed up on the drum riser and did a crazy solo with the entire audience chanting "Jeremy, Jeremy" (his name). Great concert moment, and it definately made the show memorable.